Some 80 years ago, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Henry Morgenthau sent a cable from Istanbul to Jacob Schiff, a Jewish philanthropist in New York, asking for $50,000 to aid Jews in distress in Palestine.
Schiff raised the money, and shortly thereafter the JDC was founded to aid needy Jews in Europe and Palestine.
This week, American, Israeli and Turkish officials gathered here to mark the 80th anniversary of that historic cable and the founding of the JDC.
The organization now functions in 58 countries and has an annual budget of $65 million.
A delegation of about 18 members of the JDC board from the United States celebrated anniversary Tuesday at the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, from which Morgenthau sent the cable on Aug. 14,1914.
They held a brief ceremony marking the event and hosted a reception for U.S. Consul General Mark Dion, Israel Consul General Yair Ben-Shalom, Turkish Chief Rabbi David Asseo and other leaders of Istanbul’s Jewish community.
Norman Tilles, chairman of the board’s Africa-Asia Committee and leader of the mission to Turkey, recounted the JDC’s early history in formal remarks.
He recalled that the organization was founded to respond to emergencies and had fully “expected to go out of business.
“Unfortunately history has not been so kind, and JDC assistance has extended to over 70 countries during the past 80 years, bringing rescues, relief and reconstruction programs to Jewish communities in need around the world,” he said.
The JDC “epitomizes Jewish values” and therefore does not restrict its aid only to Jews, Tilles said.
“In Judaism’s humanitarian tradition, JDC has provided assistance to Somali refugees in Kenya and to victims of the war in Sarajevo,” he said, by way of example.
Tilles noted that the JDC has made 11 evacuations from war-torn Sarajevo and has gotten 2,200 people out. Half of them, he said, were Muslims and Christians.
Tilles presented a plaque of thanks to Dion, who lauded the “humanitarian proposal” of Morgenthau and the work of the JDC “in partnership with local Jewish communities” to “respond to emergencies and provide immediate assistance to Jews living in distress.”
Nancy Levinson, a member of the Memphis Jewish Federation, said she was particularly moved by the anniversary.
She came to Istanbul with her husband, Michael, a JDC board member, only days after she returned from Poland, where she participated in the March for the Living, a Holocaust remembrance ceremony, as part of a UJA National Women’s mission.
“In Poland, the Joint did such an incredible job helping sustain whatever Jewish life was left after the Holocaust, and now, with the fall of Communism, it’s helping to identify Jews and develop programs to support them,” she said.
“To go from there, where they’re so dependent on the Joint, and come to Turkey, where the whole thing started, and see that the community is self-sufficient but can rely on the Joint should it need to, is to come full circle,” she said.
A similar sentiment was expressed by Linda Levi, the JDC’s director of programming, planning and budget in New York.
“To be where the seeds of the organization originated (makes it) a very poignant celebration,” she said.
“The very act of brotherhood of one Jew reaching out to another Jew on behalf of the others, is what the Jewish people is all about,” said Levi, referring to Morgenthau’s cable.
Member of the JDC’s mission visited synagogues, the rabbinate, old-age homes, the hospital and other Jewish institutions of Istanbul, where an estimated 22,000 of the country’s 25,000 Jews live.
Turkey’s Jewish community is today considered self-sufficient and gets only technical assistance from the JDC.
But two years ago, Tilles pointed out, the JDC donated a mobile field hospital to the Red Crescent in Ankara, which served people in Erzincan after the recent earthquake there.
The majority of the Jewish population in Turkey dates back 500 years, when the Jews were expelled from Spain and the Ottoman Turks opened their gates to Jewish refugees.
In 1927, there were 81,454 Jews in Turkey, but nearly 40,000 made aliyah after Israel was established, followed by a series of emigration waves since.
In spite of the dwindling numbers, the Jews here display astounding communal strength.
They are fervently committed to maintaining their institutions, aided by a stalwart stable of community volunteers. Like their North American counterparts, they are concerned with countering assimilation and preserving their religious continuity.
While they admit to a 10 to 15 percent rate of intermarriage, some sources estimate it could be double that.
In a country that is 99 percent Muslim, the Jews have learned to accommodate by not making waves and keeping as low a profile as possible.
They steer clear of political life and even political discourse, emphasizing that they have enjoyed an atmosphere of liberty, governmental support and tolerance for 500 years.
Only off the record will some concede that they are worried by the municipal elections last month, which saw the Muslim fundamentalists double their strength, from 10 percent to about 20 percent.
In those elections, fundamentalist candidates were elected mayors of Istanbul and Ankara.
“I never believed that the fundamentalist party would ever win the municipal election in the two big cities,” said one Jewish woman active in the Jewish community. “But there is a (strong tradition) of democracy and secularism and I have confidence in the government.
“We must be aware of the danger and of the worst that can happen, but live day- to-day without fear,” she said.
Some of the Jewish community’s vulnerability is visible in the heavy and evidently costly security it employs at virtually all its institutions.
In 1986, 22 people were killed while at prayer in the Neve Shalom synagogue here in an attack launched by the Palestine Liberation Organization.
A more recent grenade attack on the synagogue by the Islamic fundamentalist Hezbollah movement was foiled by security and no one was injured.
The JDC ceased most of its direct involvement in Turkey in the 1920s, in part because the Jewish community in Turkey became self-sufficient and in part because Turkish law barred Turkish citizens from having contact with foreign organizations.
In 1992, however, the government’s restrictions were unofficially relaxed with the establishment of the Quincentennial Foundation of Istanbul, which sought to promote international tourism and celebrate Turkey’s open-door policy to Jews 500 years ago, when they were expelled from Spain.
The JDC used the opportunity to re-establish contact with the community, said Levi, the JDC programming director. But the contact is still unofficial, JDC professionals stressed, adding that they have no office in Turkey.
“The community is very alive, very vibrant and supporting itself,” said Tilles. “We only have to give technical assistance to help it do even a better job.”
The JDC has been active in Turkey for a few years, agreed Elio Behmuaras, president of the community’s executive council. But “they know we’re wealthy and we don’t need them. I hope we never need them, but if we do, we know they will be there.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
