Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T16:53:44.222Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Eternal Guests, Mimics, and Dönme: The Place of German and Turkish Jews in Modern Turkey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

Kader Konuk
Kader Konuk*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The place of Jews was highly ambiguous in the newly founded Turkish Republic: In 1928 an assimilationist campaign was launched against Turkish Jews, while only a few years later, in 1933, German scholars—many of them Jewish—were taken in so as to help Europeanize the nation. Turkish authorities regarded the emigrants as representatives of European civilization and appointed scholars like Erich Auerbach to prestigious academic positions that were vital for redefining the humanities in Turkey. This article explores the country's twofold assimilationist policies. On the one hand, Turkey required of its citizens—regardless of ethnic or religious origins—that they conform to a unified Turkish culture; on the other hand, an equally assimilationist modernization project was designed to achieve cultural recognition from the heart of Europe. By linking historical and contemporary discourses, this article shows how tropes of Jewishness have played—and continue to play—a critical role in the conception of Turkish nationhood. The status of Erich Auerbach, Chair of the Faculty for Western Languages and Literatures at İstanbul University from 1936 to 1947, is central to this investigation into the place of Turkish and German Jews in modern Turkey.

Keywords

Erich Auerbachintellectual emigrationGerman JewsTurkish Jewsmodernization
Type
Articles
Information
New Perspectives on Turkey , Volume 37 , Fall 2007 , pp. 5 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © New Perspectives on Turkey 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aslandaş, Alper Sedat, and Bıçakçı, Baskın. Popüler Siyasi Deyimler Sözlüğü, İstanbul: İletişim, 1995.Google Scholar
Ataç, Nurullah. Diyelim. İstanbul: Varlık Yayınları, 1954.Google Scholar
Auerbach, Erich. “Ein Exil-Brief Erich Auerbachs aus İstanbul an Freya Hobohm in Marburg—versehen mit einer Nachschrift von Marie Auerbach (1938).” Trajekte 9 (2004).Google Scholar
Auerbach, Erich, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Romanischen Philologie. Bern: Francke Verlag, 1967.Google Scholar
Auerbach, Erich, and Krauss, Werner. “Eine unveröffentlichte Korrespondenz.” Beiträge zur Romanischen Philologie 26, no. 2 (1987): 301–326.Google Scholar
Baer, Marc. “The Double Bind of Race and Religion: The Conversion of the Dönme to Turkish Secular Nationalism.” Comparative Study of History and Society 46, no. 4 (2004): 682–708.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bali, Rıfat N.Cumhuriyet Yıllarında Türkiye Yahudileri: Bir Türkleştirme Serüveni, İstanbul: İletişim, 1999.Google Scholar
Bali, Rıfat N., The “Varlık Vergisi” Affair: A Study of its Legacy—Selected Documents, İstanbul: The Isis Press, 2005.Google Scholar
“Başvekil Refik Saydam'ın Gazetecilerle Hasbıhali.” Vakit, 27 January 1939.Google Scholar
Behar, Isaak. Versprich mir, dass Du am Leben bleibst: Ein jüdisches Schicksal. Berlin: Ullstein, 2002.Google Scholar
Behmoaras, Liz. Bir Kimlik Arayışının Hikayesi. İstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 2005.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. “Traumatische Anfänge, Mythen und Experimente: Die multikulturelle Türkei im Übergang zur reifen Demokratie.” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 26 November 2005.Google Scholar
Bezirci, Asım. Nurullah Ataç: Yaşamı, Kişiliği, Eleştiri Anlayışı, Yazıları, İstanbul: Varlık Yayınları, 1983.Google Scholar
Bhabha, Homi K.The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar
Çınar, Alev. Modernity, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey: Bodies, Places, and Time. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Frantz, Douglas, and Coİlins, Catherine. Death on the Black Sea: The Untold Story of the Struma and World War II's Holocaust at Sea. New York: ecco, 2003.Google Scholar
Friling, Tuvia. Between Friendly and Hostile Neutrality: Turkey and the Jews during World War II. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Tel Aviv University, 2002.Google Scholar
Gövsa, İbrahim Alaettin. Sabatay Sevi: İzmirli Meşhur Sahte Mesih Hakkında Tarihî ve İçtimaî Tetkik Tecrübesi, İstanbul: Semih Lütfi Kitabevi, 1940.Google Scholar
Grosz, Elizabeth. “Judaism and Exile: The Ethics of Otherness.” In Space and Place: Theories of Identity and Location, edited by Carter, Erica, Donald, James and Squires, Judith, 57–72. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1993.Google Scholar
Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich. “‘Pathos of the Earthly Progress’: Erich Auerbach's Everydays.” In Literary History and the Challenge of Philology: The Legacy of Erich Auerbach, edited by Lerer, Seth, 13–35. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich, Vom Leben und Sterben der groben Romanisten: Carl Vossler, Ernst Robert Curtuis, Leo Spitzer, Erich Auerbach, Werner Krauss. Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 2002.Google Scholar
Günaltay, Şemseddin. “Açış Dersi: Türklerin Ana Yurdu ve Irki Mes'elesi.” In Üniversite Konferansları 1936–1937, I-XIV. İstanbul: Ülkü Basımevi, 1937.Google Scholar
Guttstadt, Corinna Görgü. “Depriving Non-Muslims of Citizenship as Part of the Turkification Policy in the Early Years of the Republic: The Case of Turkish Jews and its Consequences during the Holocaust.” In Turkey Beyond Nationalism: Towards Post-Nationalist Identities, edited by Kieser, Hans-Lukas, 43–49. London: I. B. Tauris, 2006.Google Scholar
Güvenç, Duygu. “Turkey Battles Genocide Claims in Hollywood.” Turkish Daily News, 13 February 2007.Google Scholar
Hasan-Rokem, Galit, and Dundes, Alan. The Wandering Jew: Essays in the Interpretation of a Christian Legend. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Hatiboğlu, Tahir. Türkiye Üniversite Tarihi. Ankara: Selvi Yayınevi, 1998.Google Scholar
Hiçyılmaz, Ergun, and Altındal, Meral. Büyük Sığınak: Türk Yahudilerinin 500 Yıllık Serüveninden Sayfalar. İstanbul: Belgesel, 1992.Google Scholar
Hutton, Christopher M.Linguistics and the Third Reich: Mother-Tongue Fascism, Race and the Science of Language. London: Routledge, 1999.Google Scholar
Kastoryano, Riva. “From Millet to Community: The Jews of İstanbul.” In Ottoman and Turkish Jewry: Community and Leadership, edited by Rodrigue, Aron, 253–277. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Kıvırcık, Emir. Büyükelçi, İstanbul: Goa, 2007.Google Scholar
Konuk, Kader. “Antagonistische Weltanschauungen in der türkischen Moderne: Die Beteiligung von Emigranten und Nationalsozialisten an der Grundlegung der Nationalphilologien in İstanbul.” In İstanbul: Geistige Wanderungen aus der Welt in Scherben?, edited by Birtek, Faruk and Stauth, Georg, 191–216. Bielefeld: transcript, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Konuk, Kader, “Erich Auerbach and the Humanist Reform to the Turkish Education System.” Comparative Literature Studies (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Konuk, Kader, “Ethnomasquerade in Ottoman-European Encounters: Re-enacting Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.” Criticism 46, no. 3 (2004): 393–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Konuk, Kader, “IStanbuler Germanistik: Grundlegung durch Emigranten und Nationalsozialisten.” Geschichte der Germanistik: Mitteilungen 27-28 (2005): 30–37.Google Scholar
Küçük, Abdurrahman. Dönmeler (Sabatayistler) Tarihi. Ankara: Alperen Yayınları, 2001.Google Scholar
Küçük, Yalçın, İsimlerin İbranileştirilmesi: Türk Yahudi İsimleri Sözlüğü, Tekelistan. İstanbul: Salyangoz Yayınları, 2006.Google Scholar
Kulin, Ayşe. Nefes Nefese, İstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 2007.Google Scholar
Levi, Avner. Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'nde Yahudiler, İstanbul: İletişim, 1992.Google Scholar
Levy, Avigdor. The Jews of the Ottoman Empire. Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Levy, Avigdor, The Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire. Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Lier, Thomas. “Hellmut Ritter und die Zweigstelle der DMG in Istanbul 1928–1949.” In Hellmut Ritterund die DMG in İstanbul, edited by Neuwirth, Angelika and Bassarak, Armin, 17–49. İstanbul: Orient Institut der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 1997.Google Scholar
Pamuk, Orhan. “The Two Souls of Turkey.” New Perspectives Quarterly 24, no. 3 (2007): 10–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts. “Akten des Generalkonsulats Istanbul, # 3989, Paket 28, Akte 1 Istanbul Emigranten.”Google Scholar
Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, “Akten des Generalkonsulats Istanbul, GK Istanbul 166, Band V November 1937-Mai 1939.”Google Scholar
Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, “Akten des Generalkonsulats Istanbul, GK İstanbul 167, Universität Istanbul Band VI.”Google Scholar
Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, “Auswärtiges Amt Abteilung III, Akte Deutsche [Experten?] in der Türkei 1924–1936, R 78630.”Google Scholar
Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, “Die Juden in der Türkei R 14141, Bd. 17-21, 1917–1918.”Google Scholar
Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, “Judenfrage in der Türkei R 99446 1938–1943, Inland II A/B.”Google Scholar
Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, “R 100889 Akte Judenfrage in der Türkei 1942–1944, Inland II g 207.”Google Scholar
Rubinstein, Shimon. Personal Tragedies as a Refection to a Great Tragedy Called Struma. Jerusalem, 2003.Google Scholar
Scholem, Gershom. Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626–1676. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Philipp. Notgemeinschaf: Zur Emigration deutscher Wissenschaftler nach 1933 in die Türkei. Marburg: Metropolis, 1995.Google Scholar
“Şehrimizdeki Alman Musevileri Almanlıktan Çıkardılar.” Yeni Sabah, 12 August 1939.Google Scholar
Shaw, Stanford J.Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey's Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933–1945. Hampshire: Macmillan, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timms, Edward. The Wandering Jew: A Leitmotif in German Literature and Politics. Brighton: University of Sussex, 1994.Google Scholar
Toktaş, Şule. “Citizenship and Minorities: A Historical Overview of Turkey's Jewish Minority.” Journal of Historical Sociology 18, no. 4 (2005): 394–429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tunaya, Tank Z.Türkiyenin Siyasi Hayatında Batılılaşma Hareketleri, İstanbul: Yedigün Matbaası, 1960.Google Scholar
Vialon, Martin. “Kommentar.” Trajekte 9 (2004): 13–16.Google Scholar
Yelda, , İstanbul'da, Diyarbakır'da Azalırken, İstanbul: Belge, 1996.Google Scholar
Zorlu, İlgaz. Evet, Ben Selanikliyim: Türkiye Sabetaycılığı. İstanbul: Belge Yayınları, 1998.Google Scholar