November 20, 2003

A Color-Blind Take on Community Woes

Leave a Comment / Community / Marc Ballon

Imagine an America where anti-Semitism has plummeted to new lows and Jews now scale the highest heights of success; where African Americans, once forced to sit on the back of the bus, today occupy a place at the head table of major corporations and the nation’s most prestigious universities; where gays can not only come out of the closet but can decorate it, be admired and even land a television show for their creativity.

David Lehrer and Joe Hicks believe we live in such a tolerant and compassionate place. The founders of Community Advocates Inc., a year-old human relations organization based in Los Angeles, think that the United States has made tremendous strides in overcoming past hatreds and divisions, although more remains to be done. In their view, acknowledging those positive changes would allow Americans to move beyond the outmoded fear mongering espoused by many civil rights’ groups. Instead of pointing fingers at one another, Americans could focus on addressing the health care crisis, the scourge of gangs, the yawing gap between the haves and have-nots and other important issues.

“There are cases of discrimination. There are cases of hate crimes,” said Lehrer, 55, president of Community Advocates and former regional director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). “But the fact remains it’s a vastly different world than it was 30 years ago, whether you’re talking about Jews, gays or blacks. We’re not talking about nirvana but we’ve come a long way.”

Not everyone shares that optimistic world view. Abraham Foxman, ADL national director and author of “Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism” (Harper San Francisco), said in a recent interview that worldwide anti-Semitism is higher than at any point since World War II. A recent poll revealed that nearly one in five Americans has anti-Semitic beliefs and one-third thinks Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the United States, he said.

Michael Hirschfeld, former executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Committee, said he had the highest regard for Lehrer and Hicks, the Community Advocates vice president who served as executive director of the Los Angeles City Human Rights Commission. He said the pair’s organization could become the voice of civic unity in a divided city. Still, Hirschfeld said Community Advocates might have less influence than other civil rights groups such as the NAACP or the ADL that represent clearly defined constituencies. Community Advocates “doesn’t have institutional weight,” he said.

That’s why Lehrer and Hicks are working so hard to get their message out, they said. The Jewish liberal Democrat and African American Republican have penned opinion pieces for the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News and other publications highlighting changing attitudes toward race, religion and ethnicity. They have appeared on KCET, KNBC’s “Sunday Show” and KTLA’s “Pacesetters.” The pair have also recruited a high-profile 16-member board to oversee Community Advocates, including Chair Richard Riordan, former Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Irene Hirano, executive director and president of the Japanese American National Museum.

“Joe Hicks and David Lehrer are my heroes. They represent the new color-blind solutions to society’s needs,” Riordan said in a release.

On Nov. 16, Community Advocates held a party to celebrate its first anniversary. An estimated 160 people drank white wine and munched smoked salmon. The outfit is more than just an organization that knows how to throw a good party once a year.

Community Advocates and the California Community Foundation co-sponsored a leadership training program for 45 young Southern Californians. During the 10 four-hour sessions, participants from diverse communities discussed a wide array of issues, ranging from the history of Los Angeles to demographic changes in the city. More important, they built bridges, Hicks said.

“Hopefully, in four to five years, you’ll have 200 young leaders who have contacts in the city across racial, religious and ethnic lines who can pick up the phone and talk to each other,” he said.

In this spirit of crossing boundaries, Community Advocates hopes soon to co-sponsor with the USC Annenberg School for Communication a media workshop for journalists. The goal: to acquaint reporters with a variety of new sources so they can pen richer and more nuanced stories about large swaths of the city that largely go ignored, Lehrer said. Reporters would also get a bus tour of the less-traveled parts of the Los Angeles to show that “you can go south of the Santa Monica Freeway and emerge in one piece. It’s important that people have some notion of what lies in parts of the city there not familiar with and that they share similar concerns,” Lehrer said.

Lehrer and Hicks founded Community Advocates in fall 2002 with $5,000 of their own money to rent an office and buy furniture. Although neither said he was eager to start a new organization, their frustration with groups focusing obsessively on racism, sexism and anti-Semitism to the exclusion of major social, economic and cultural issues led them to join forces.

For Hicks, creating Community Advocates represents the latest step of his personal odyssey from the radical left to the center. Growing up in Watts, he embraced the black nationalist movement of the 1960s and preached hatred toward whites. He later visited the former Soviet Union as a member of the American Communist Party in the 1970s, but grew disillusioned.

In the late 1980s, he landed a position as the communications director of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, before moving on to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. After the L.A. riots, he co-founded the Multicultural Collaborative, which brought together leaders of the city’s different ethnic and religious groups, a kind of precursor to Community Advocates. Today, Hicks is married to a Jewish woman with whom he has two children. He has three kids from a previous marriage.

Lehrer, a Phi Beta Kappa and law school graduate of UCLA, began working as the ADL’s regional chief counsel in 1975. Little more than a decade later, he assumed the top spot at the local office. However, his relationship with Foxman, the ADL national director, slowly deteriorated as Lehrer began arguing that anti-Semitism was on the wane, a position antithetical to his boss. After 27 years, Lehrer was fired by the ADL in December 2001, a move that stunned and angered the Jewish community.

Looking ahead, Lehrer and Hicks hope that Community Advocates will be the crowning achievement of their careers. They concede, however, that much remains to be done.

“I think we’re having an impact, but two guys out there making noise isn’t a waterfall,” Hicks said. “Not yet.”

For more information, visit www.cai-la.org .

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Irv “Kup” Kupcinet

Leave a Comment / Obituaries, Old Stories / Jewish Journal

Irv Kupcinet, the legendary Chicago Sun-Times columnist for 60 years, died Monday, Nov. 10 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. With him were his son, Jerry Kupcinet, and grandchildren, Kari Kupcient Kriser and David Kupcinet. He was hospitalized Sunday after suffering from shortness of breath, and doctors later determined he had pneumonia. He was 91.

From Hollywood stars to sports legends, from U.S. presidents and heads of state, to the man and woman on the street, Kup talked to everyone.

His “Kup’s Column” was an institution at the Sun-Times since the day the newspaper began in 1948, and before then the column appeared in the Chicago Times, where Kup was hired as a sports writer in 1935. At one point it was syndicated to 100 newspapers. His last column appeared Nov. 6, 2003.

He was host on the pioneering, late-night Saturday television show “At Random,” and then later, “Kup’s Show,” devoted to the “lively art of conversation.”

Kup was a tireless worker for charities — including the Variety Club of Chicago and Little City; hosting the Irv Kupcinet Open Celebrity Golf Tournament and the old Harvest Moon Ball; conducting the annual Purple Heart Cruise outings for wounded veterans for 50 years after 1945; and as the original and perennial Chicago host of the annual Cerebral Palsy telethon.

He also raised huge sums for Israeli organizations, especially the Weizmann Institute of Science. He traveled to Israel (then Palestine) in 1947 to report on the plight of Jews trying to flee the aftermath of the Holocaust. In Israel’s Judean Mountains, the Irv Kupcinet Forest now grows on what was barren land before 1960.

This past May, broadcaster and journalist Larry King emceed a star-studded evening of live and video entertainment in Chicago honoring the 60th Anniversary of “Kup’s Column.” The evening was a benefit for one of Kup’s and his late wife, Essee’s, favorite charities, The Chicago Academy for the Arts.

Just two weeks ago, Kup agreed to become a Chicago co-chair of a January fundraising event in Los Angeles sponsored the American Committee for Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.

Kup was a loving father to son, Jerry (Sue) of Los Angeles, and daughter, the late Karyn “Cookie”; adoring grandfather of Kari (Brad) Kriser and David; great-grandfather of Sam and Amaya Kriser; and fond brother-in-law to Sofia (the late Leonard) Solomon.

Services were held Nov. 12, at Temple Sholom of Chicago. Interment was at Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie.

In lieu of flowers, memorials in his name may be made to The Chicago Academy For The Arts, 1010 W. Chicago Ave., Chicago, IL 60622 or to the Karyn Kupcinet School at The Weitzman Institute, 79 W. Monroe St., Suite 1111, Chicago, IL 60603. — Cheryl J. Lewin Assoc. Public Relations, Chicago

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Janet Polyak

Leave a Comment / Obituaries, Old Stories / Ilana Polyak

Janet Polyak was born in 1937 in Odessa, Ukraine. She came to the United States with her family in 1977 and first settled in Portland, Ore. From the start she was eager to adopt the language and customs of her new land. She learned English quickly and one of her proudest accomplishments was that she read complicated novels in English and could keep up with the English subtitles in foreign films. Janet was an avid traveler and she dragged her husband, Lazar, on yearly adventures to such places as Thailand, Spain and Morocco. Her home was filled with her finds from abroad.

When Janet was a high school student in Odessa, Jews had a very difficult time being accepted to university. Although she wanted to be a librarian or a teacher, she set her sights on something more practical and became a bookkeeper. Like everything she did, she approached this job with her full being. Her quick intellect served her well in this profession. When she came to the United States, she rejected using calculators because she found that they slowed her down. She would often tell her children and husband that she nagged them not because she didn’t trust them to get done what needed to, but because it was part of her. Bookkeepers checked and rechecked everything dozens of times, she said.

"You have no idea what satisfaction you get when a row of numbers line up the way they’re supposed to," she said.

She worked as bookkeeper for The Jewish Journal for 14 years. Although Janet was ill with breast cancer for the last three years, she continued working a few hours a week at home because she simply loved work.

While Janet could be brash in conversation because she talked fast and sometimes didn’t have time for conversational niceties, anyone who spent any time with her realized how caring and devoted she was to those around her. She was forever offering to read other immigrants’ resumes, translate job ads and prepare them for interviews. And if someone was too shy to ask for this help themselves, she went ahead and did it anyway.

Sadly, Janet spent the last few months of her life battling cancer. Yet even during this difficult time, she showed tremendous courage in how to cope with such difficulty.

She is survived by her husband, Lazar; son, Boris, and daughter, Ilana; and mother, Feiga Epshtein. She will be missed by her Jewish Journal family.

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Your Letters

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor / Jewish Journal

I am sick and tired by all the excuses of community supporters, leaders and the media to excuse Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller’s behavior. I was at the event. He aggressively assaulted Rachel Neuwirth. And no amount of spin can erase this. I do not care how many names one is called — a rabbi does not physically attack a woman. Many students witnessed and stood in stunned speechlessness by his behavior. This is not something they will soon forget. For this reason alone, he needs to be removed from his position. He has tarnished his profession, lost his credibility and, in my eyes, his authority. In the real world, this is what happens when one speaks slanderously, let alone aggressively.

Hallie Lerman, Los Angeles

What unmitigated hubris of attorney Donald Etra to consider prosecuting Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller’s victim for hate speech because she called her attacker a “kapo.” Does he also believe a rapist should sue his victim for provoking him with a short skirt?

Leslie Fuhrer Friedman, Venice

The letters regarding the Seidler-Feller incident have focused on the question of whether he should be retained at UCLA or whether he should be dismissed. There is a more important issue raised by the incident — namely, the import of the alleged remark made by Rachel Neuwirth for relations between members of the Jewish community who hold different views regarding the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is no question regarding the impropriety of the “kick” that Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller allegedly made. It is also the case that the rabbi’s alleged resort to a form of physical violence was more immature than the verbal comment presumably made by Neuwirth. However, there is a considerable question as to whose behavior was more immoral.

As was noted in the editorial concerning this incident, inflammatory language can foster unacceptable, destructive behavior — e.g., the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. Such language diminishes, if not destroys, the possibility of constructive dialogue between American Jews with sharply different perspectives regarding the policies that Israel should pursue to assure its security and to foster peace. Such a dialogue, apart from reducing tensions within the American Jewish community, would also be useful to Israel.

Seymour Feshbach, Professor of Psychology UCLA

Full Disclosure

Happened to pick up a copy of The Jewish Journal at the local deli while having breakfast. Your article, “Full Disclosure” (Nov. 7) was a pleasure reading. It is rare being exposed to a writer that is honest, forthright and tells it like it is. It took courage and self-confidence for you to take the woman’s magazine challenge, which I deem as honest research. Having once belonged to Elysium (nudist colony in Topanga Canyon), I can remember bringing ladies up there for the first time and some felt a bit uncomfortable at first, but were nevertheless curious for the experience, but may have never ever mentioned it to anyone.

You are a real, honest and forthright woman. Stay the way you are — don’t change. If a man can’t handle it the way you are, it is his loss.

Gary M. Shechter, Woodland Hills

‘Passion’ Play

I suspect a sly subtle and calculated effort to manipulate the press and media by Mel Gibson to promote curiosity and increase controversy before release of his movie on his religion he is so passionate about (“‘Passion’ Play,” Nov. 14). I wonder how much of the advertising and marketing budget is devoted for that purpose. There are those who fervently yearn for the Vatican dogmas of the pre-Holocaust era and Gibson is free to put on the screen the genesis of his religion as taught to him by his parents and religious teachers because America strongly belies in the Hebrew Bible injunction: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land” (Leviticus, 25:10).

As for the plot of his movie — is it really any different from the plot of the very high- ranking officers and gentlemen of Catholic French army who framed Jewish Capt. Alfred Dreyfus? Let us be vigilant so Gibson’s creation will not resurrect the latter-day Father Mclaughlins, Henry Fords, Joseph Kennedys and the lesser-known and unknown cadre of Jew-blamers, haters and baiters and wishful exterminators. Let us continue the great American experiment of freedom of religion where a person can be a fine human being without the necessity of eating matzah as if it was flesh and drink wine as if it was blood.

Kenneth Z. Lautman, Los Angeles

It seems that the article, “How Jews, Christians See Gibson’s Film,” (Nov. 7) “The Passion of Christ,” is missing a significant appraisal, since the agony of Jesus is the dominant feature. The realization should be there that the cheapest commodity of the Roman Empire was humanity. A punishment of crucifixion was not unusual. The agony of Jesus was the same for masses of people through the history of Rome.

A couple examples are the 6,000 slaves who were tied to posts with their arms over head and the many thousands of Jews trying to escape hunger in the siege of Jerusalem who were caught for agonizing deaths on the stake. The Romans were very practical people and would not waste a second piece of wood when none would do the trick. According to Homer Smith in “Man and His Gods,” crucifixion with arms outstretched in art did not come into vogue until the seventh century.

Stan Goldman, Van Nuys

Giving Thanks

We wish to express our gratitude to the following people and organizations who contacted us to express concern and offer help during the recent Simi Valley fires: Carol Koransky of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles; Tanya Sorkin of The Jewish Federation/Valley Alliance; and Mt. Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuaries. Your willingness to help in our time of need shows how strongly we are all connected.

Carole Fineberg , President Congregation B’nai Emet

Nancy Beezy Micon, Board Chair The Jewish Life Center of Simi Valley

Jews and Violence

In your Nov. 7 issue, two pieces had a common theme (“A Tale of Two Cities” and “A Father’s Daughter”). Gaby Wenig asks if, now that a Jew was murdered by criminals in South Los Angeles, the Jewish community will do something about the ongoing slaughter committed by violent criminals in that part of town?

Murray Fromson bemoans the “eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth tactics of the present [Israeli] government” and wonders how long it will take “the hawks” in Israel and the United States “to wake up to the obvious.” The motif underlying both pieces seems to be that the Jews have miraculous powers — to end violent crime in Los Angeles, and, if only Israel’s government wasn’t so unreasonably stubborn/evil/aggressive, to make peace with the Arab enemies of Israel. Would that it were so.

Chaim Sisman, Los Angeles

Raphael Sonenshein

Raphael Sonenshein’s piece (“Democratic Races Poses Hard Choices,” Nov. 14) purports to be an objective piece of scholarly news analysis written by a professor of political science. Clearly, it is anything but that. Describing Bush as “swaggering” and implying that he is responsible for America being a “bully” is hardly the stuff of dispassionate analysis.

I am disappointed in The Journal for allowing itself to be used by Sonenshein. With all that has been said lately about liberal bias in the media, wouldn’t The Journal and its readers have been better served by properly identifying Sonenshein’s diatribe as an opinion column?

Rafael Guber, New York

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For the Kids

Leave a Comment / Kids & Teens / Abby Gilad

November Madness

In Old English, the month of November was called "blood month." It was a month of animal sacrifices that took place to prepare for the long winter. But what is the etymology of the word "November?"

Here’s a hint: The Roman calendar began in March (similar to the Jewish calendar, which begins in Nissan, around Passover). Send in the answer for a prize.

Autumn Arrives

Joshua Goldberg, 12, wrote this poem for his history class at A.J. Heschel Day School:

I peer out of my window to gaze at the autumn sky.

The wind whispers

through the trees.

A scent of roses fills my nose.

Leaves fall on to my windowsill — how I long to feel their smoothness.

It starts to drizzle and I can taste the little droplets on my tongue.

The feeling of autumn surrounds me, now it’s time to embrace it’s presence…

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The Circuit

U.S., Israel Seek to Help Qurei

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Leslie Susser

Sobered by what they see as past policy errors, Israeli, American and Palestinian leaders are determined to help the new Palestinian Authority prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, succeed where his predecessor failed.

Success would mean defusing the three-year-old Palestinian intifada and creating conditions for a new peace process based on the U.S.-sponsored "road map" plan.

Few of the main protagonists are overly optimistic about the outcome, but officials on all sides say they are determined to do better than they did during Mahmoud Abbas’ brief tenure as P.A. prime minister this summer.

Israel seems ready to make farther-reaching peace moves, the Americans are exerting more pressure on Israel and the Palestinians are looking to lay the basis for a more serious peace process.

Moreover, Israeli, American and Palestinian leaders all have their own reasons for wanting to make the process work this time.

In a series of meetings with their Palestinian counterparts, senior Israeli officials have intimated that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is prepared to offer Qurei more than he offered Abbas.

The Americans also believe they could have done more for Abbas, and they have been signaling to both sides that if Qurei takes steps against terror, they will lean on Israel to reciprocate.

"If there is any sign that Abu Ala is serious, we might try to make the Israelis do something to make it worth Abu Ala’s while," a senior American said, using Qurei’s nom de guerre.

For his part, Qurei knows that if he manages to keep a lid on terrorism, he’ll be rewarded. With Sharon signaling a more conciliatory policy and the Americans ready to pressure Israel, Qurei is trying to shape a cease-fire agreement that would stop all Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians — settlers and residents of Israel proper alike — and soldiers.

In return, Israel would sign on to the cease-fire and suspend all military activity against Palestinian terrorists, including targeted killings. Qurei believes that Abbas’ biggest mistake was to initiate a Palestinian cease-fire that did not commit Israel to stop its anti-terror moves.

Sharon has indicated that this time he is ready to accept a mutual cease-fire, even though terrorist organizations might exploit it to regroup. Sharon also is said to be considering offering a bold new peace proposal, including an idea for Palestinian independence beginning in the Gaza Strip, to be followed by the establishment of a Palestinian mini-state in Gaza and 50 percent of the West Bank sometime next year.

Sharon is expected to meet Qurei soon, with the focus on the cease-fire, release of Palestinian prisoners and easing of restrictions on Palestinian movement.

It’s not clear how many, if any, of his bolder ideas Sharon will put on the table in that first meeting.

Sharon has good reasons for wanting to take the process forward. For one, he finds himself under growing domestic pressure. The Likud Party’s relative failure in recent local elections suggests a degree of public disaffection with Sharon’s party. Analysts attribute much of this to the economic slump that many Israelis link to the ongoing violence and the government’s failure to come up with a strategy to stop it.

Moreover, Sharon’s lack of a long-term peace plan has been highlighted by two nongovernmental peace proposals making the rounds: the "Geneva accord," in which Israeli and Palestinian moderates propose a detailed model of a final agreement; and the "People’s Voice" principles framed by former Shin Bet security chief Ami Ayalon and Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh, which has been signed by about 100,000 Israelis and 60,000 Palestinians.

Both initiatives were well-received in Washington, with Secretary of State Colin Powell and Deputy Defense Minister Paul Wolfowitz going out of their way to praise them — and, by implication, implying that Sharon could do more.

Then, late last week, four former heads of the Shin Bet, including Ayalon, berated the government for not doing enough to reach a peace deal, which they said was dragging Israel toward catastrophe.

To silence his critics, Sharon is said be a preparing a major policy statement to follow the one he delivered in Herzliya before elections last January. Already dubbed "Herzliya 2," the statement will give a better idea of just how far Sharon is prepared to go in peacemaking.

In the meantime, the Foreign Ministry is working on ideas to ease tensions through Israeli-Palestinian cooperation. Proposals could include expanding the Israeli-Palestinian industrial area near the Erez checkpoint between Israel and the Gaza Strip, providing medical aid to Palestinian hospitals and launching joint projects for Christmas tourism in Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

Most of all, though, Sharon seems to have been influenced by behind-the-scenes U.S. pressure. For weeks now, the Americans have been pressing Israel to lift closures of Palestinian areas, transfer Palestinian tax funds and dismantle unauthorized West Bank settlement outposts. Israeli officials believe the strong American messages were prompted partly by the U.S. imbroglio in Iraq. The subtext was that Israel’s tough anti-terror measures don’t help America’s already complicated position in the Arab world.

Conversely, the officials said, the Americans believe progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track could help them in the Arab world, as the United States could claim credit for delivering Israeli concessions.

For their part, American officials are skeptical about Sharon’s intentions. There was a palpable shift in attitudes toward Sharon after Abbas’ fall in September.

For months, the word in Washington has been that while Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat was the prime culprit in Abbas’ demise, he was not solely to blame. Sharon could have done far more to help the struggling P.A. prime minister establish his leadership.

Qurei, who is considered a more accomplished political operator than Abbas, is trying to build the popular support for his peace moves that Abbas lacked.

He argues that what is hurting the Palestinian people most is the "chaos" caused by intifada violence and retaliation. A cease-fire would enable Qurei’s government to transform the quality of everyday Palestinian life.

More than that, Qurei has embraced the Geneva accord as a model for a final peace deal. The Palestinians always have been reluctant to enter into peace talks with Israel without knowing what a final peace deal would look like. Now Qurei can point to Geneva, or something very close to it, as the goal.

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Turkish Jews: We’ll Carry On

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Yigal Schleifer

The recent bombings of two Istanbul synagogues won’t end the tradition of openness in Turkey’s Jewish community — and it could even make the community more cohesive, leaders say.

At the same time, the attacks are unlikely to force Turkey to retreat from its alliances with Israel and the United States, according to analysts. It could even push the secular state away from the Muslim world and further toward the West.

Standing Sunday near the entrance to the rubble-strewn street that leads to Istanbul’s bombed Neve Shalom synagogue, a leader of Turkey’s Jewish community looked out on the scene of destruction illuminated by the glow of police investigators’ emergency lights and television spotlights.

Only a few months before, the community had opened synagogue doors in Istanbul’s Galata district as part of an annual Europe-wide day celebrating Jewish culture. There were musical performances in Ladino and photo exhibits inside the different synagogues. Overflow crowds — mostly non-Jews — turned out for the events.

Despite the security concerns brought on by Saturday’s nearly simultaneous bombings of Neve Shalom and of the Beit Israel synagogue, located several miles away, the community will put on the same program next year, the leader said.

“We patch our wounds and go on,” said Lina Filiba, the community’s executive vice president. “We want life to continue like before. The synagogues have to stay open. Life has to go on.”

A group linked to Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attacks. Given the sophistication of the bombings, Turkish and Israeli officials are inclined to believe the claim.

The bombings killed 24 and injured more than 300 people. At least six Jews were killed and some 60 Jews injured.

If Al Qaeda indeed is involved, it may be difficult for the Jewish community — and Turkey itself — to return to life as it was before.

“The big question mark is, who did it and who were their local collaborators?” said Rifat Bali, a Jewish historian who has written extensively about Turkeys’ Jews. “For sure there were local collaborators, and that makes it much worse. That means you have a nucleus of local terrorists who are targeting you and who are here permanently.”

In recent years, the normally insular community has started reaching out to the general public and making itself more accessible. The process began with the mostly Sephardi community’s gala celebrations in 1992 to mark the Jews’ arrival in Turkey from Spain 500 years before.

For many community leaders, the standing-room-only crowds at the recent Jewish cultural events were another sign that the new policy was having a positive impact on Jewish life in Turkey.

But the synagogue bombings may put a halt to the Jewish community’s openness, Bali said.

“Now the community’s worst fears have been realized, so there may be people who will ask why the community is opening up,” he said. “This will mean that on a community and individual level, people will close upon themselves.”

Some members also fear that the attacks will force the community to temporarily curtail its own internal activities. For example, some parents of students at Istanbul’s Jewish high school already have expressed fears about sending their children to the school, which is visibly Jewish.

Now “we will always worry about getting together, about having meetings, and community life will be much harder,” said Viktor Kuzu, 25, who works in an advertising agency and volunteers as an editor at Salom, the Turkish Jewish newspaper.

“We were expecting something like this, we just didn’t know when it would happen,” he said. “Now it happened, and we’re wondering what will happen next.”

While people are afraid, Kuzu said he doesn’t feel the attacks will cause Jews to pull away from the community.

“Maybe there’s an opposite effect,” he said. “Maybe it will make people understand what it is to be Jewish; they will understand what it is to be a community. I can tell you that this event will bring the Jewish youth much closer together.”

In the aftermath of the bombings, Turkey’s Jews are facing immediate questions about rehabilitating the injured and rebuilding the damaged synagogues.

Community psychologists are visiting hospitals and the homes of those who lost relatives in the attack.

“It’s a community and it’s our duty to help our people — not only our people, but anybody who was wounded,” Filiba said.

A team also is conducting surveys of the two attacked synagogues to assess the damage. According to a community official, Neve Shalom, Istanbul’s central synagogue, escaped major structural damage but will need to rebuild its eviscerated entrance.

The Beit Israel synagogue in the Sisli neighborhood was damaged more seriously and will require extensive rebuilding, the official said.

Meanwhile, Jewish groups from elsewhere around the globe have come to Turkey to help. A team from the Jewish Agency for Israel came with psychologists, and the American Joint Jewish Distribution Committee (JDC), which has set up a fund to help rebuild the damaged synagogues, is meeting with community leaders to assess the needs.

“In my opinion, the community has the ability to get over this. They have a strong leadership,” said Amir Bergman, the JDC official responsible for Turkey. “I’m sure this community is strong and is standing up nicely to this crisis, and will mange to organize during this tough time.”

“At this point we need to sit with the community and find out what they need and then come to their help, not to pile up on them with help they don’t need,” he added.

As the community contemplates the road ahead, the government is confronting what could be a stark new reality for Turkey.

Sami Kohen, a political analyst and veteran columnist with the Turkish daily Milliyet, said the attacks could push Turkey toward closer cooperation with the United States and Israel in the fight against terrorism.

“Turkey is now included in the war-on-terror front,” Kohen said. If the bombers wanted “to force Turkey to change course, to take a cooler attitude toward Israel or the West, that’s not going to happen.”

Israeli intelligence and explosives experts joined Turkish officials Sunday in investigating the bombings. Also on Sunday, Israel’s foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, paid a visit to the two devastated synagogues, laying wreathes of chrysanthemums in the rubble.

Shalom later met with his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul.

The attacks show that “terror is at work everywhere, and not necessarily in one specific country or another,” Shalom said. “I think that the operation here shows both Turkey and other countries in the world that no place is immune to terrorism.”

While the probe continues, Turkish officials have begun to release more details about the attacks. Turkey’s interior minister, Abdulkadir Aksu told The Associated Press that he is “more than 95 percent” sure that the attacks were the work of suicide bombers.

According to Turkish police officials, the attacks were carried out by an identical pair of Isuzu delivery trucks, each packed with some 880 pounds of explosives, a mix of ammonium sulfate, nitrate and compressed fuel. The explosives had been put into containers wrapped in sacks and hidden among containers of detergent. Though directed at the synagogues, the attacks killed and injured mostly Muslims who were working near the buildings or passing by. Funerals were held Sunday for many of the Muslims killed.

The Jewish community will hold funerals for its members on Tuesday.

As investigators continue to sift through the rubble, Turkish analysts said the two bombings could have significant domestic implications for Turkey.

Turkey is ruled by the Justice and Development Party, known as AKP, a new political party that traces its roots to Turkey’s political Islamic movement. Party leaders have distanced themselves from their Islamist past, but the country’s entrenched secular establishment has remained suspicious of them.

If Turkish Islamist groups are found to have participated in the attacks, it could heat up the simmering conflict between the AKP government and the secularists, political scientist Ali Carkoglu said.

“If the secularists can show that there has been a linkage with a domestic pro-Islamist group that hasn’t been properly followed or acted against, then the domestic implications could be very severe,” he said. “I have no expectations that [the AKP government] will try to protect these groups; that would be foolish, and I don’t think they have sympathy for them. But the way this country works, people will ask inflammatory questions and that will cause headaches.”

Milliyet’s Kohen said that if Turkey finds out that foreign terrorist groups had made inroads in the country and found local recruits, the reaction would be swift.

“The Turks are quite determined on one thing, and that is the fight against terrorism,” Kohen said. “The Turkish government, any Turkish government, is not going to yield to pressure when it comes to terrorism. If anything, it would strengthen its resolve.”

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Jews’ Long History in Turkey

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Yigal Schleifer

The Jewish presence in Turkey usually is dated to 1492, when the Ottoman emperor Beyazit II welcomed Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition to his territory.

In fact, though, Jewish life in the area has been traced back to at least the fourth century B.C.E. During the Byzantine period, a community of Greek-speaking Jews lived in Istanbul, then called Constantinople.

But the Jewish community in what is now Turkey started truly to develop only after the arrival of the Spanish Jews in 1492, who created important centers of Jewish life in Istanbul, Izmir and Salonika, which is now part of Greece.

The Ottomans provided a sort of limited autonomy to the religious communities under their rule, which allowed Jewish life in the empire to flourish. For example, many of the Ottoman court physicians were Jewish.

At the beginning of the 20th century, just before the dissolution of the empire, the Jewish population in the area that is now Turkey numbered more than 100,000, mostly Sephardim, with sizable Jewish communities ranging from the country’s Anatolian heartland to its Aegean coast and its border with Syria.

Turkey’s Jewish population today is estimated at 25,000. Driven away by political and economic turbulence and lured by the possibility of living in nearby Israel, Turkish Jews left the country in great waves starting in the late 1940s. They left behind Jewish communities that — with the exception of Istanbul, and to a lesser extent Izmir, which has a Jewish population of around 2,000 — are either struggling to survive or have ceased to exist.

In Istanbul, the community maintains several institutions, including synagogues, a high school, old age homes and a hospital. As in Ottoman times, the community is headed by a chief rabbi known as the haham bashi.

Jews and Muslims traditionally have gotten along well in Turkey, which is officially secular and which — as a non-Arab country — has pursued policies starkly different from its Arab neighbors.

Military and economic ties with Israel are strong, and despite having earned Turkey harsh criticism in the Arab world, those ties have persevered under governments of varying ideologies.

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Turkish Jews Dig Out After Bombs

Leave a Comment / Israel / Yigal Schleifer

Yoel Ulcer was so set on helping Istanbul’s Jewish community that he could hardly wait to turn 18, when he could join the corps of volunteer guards that stands outside synagogues and Jewish institutions in Turkey’s commercial capital.

His devotion cost Ulcer his life: He was one of 25 people, including six Jews, killed in twin suicide bombings at the Neve Shalom and Beit Israel synagogues during Sabbath services Saturday morning.

“The reason that he joined is because he wanted to help us,” said Berk Termin, a friend of Ulcer’s who also is part of the volunteer security group, which is made up of university-aged Jews from the Istanbul community.

“He was waiting for this, because he couldn’t join before turning 18. It’s something he wanted to do for years.”

As an intermittent autumn drizzle turned into a steady downpour on Tuesday, some 3,000 mourners gathered at Istanbul’s largest Jewish cemetery, in the same plaza holding the graves of the 22 Jews killed in the 1986 terrorist attack on Neve Shalom, Istanbul’s central synagogue which means “Oasis of Peace.”

The six Jewish victims were identified as Anna Rubinstein, 85, and her granddaughter, Anita Rubinstein, 8; Avraham Idinvarul, 40; Berta Usdawan, 34; Yona Romano, 50, who died of a heart attack as a result of the bombing; and Ulcer.

Among the crowd were survivors of Saturday’s attacks, some of them still in bandages, their faces covered with lacerations.

Over a public address system, the voice of a cantor carried the mournful intonation of a traditional prayer for the dead.

“Throughout time, Jews have been victims of violence and massacres only because they are Jewish,” Turkey’s chief rabbi, Isak Haleva, told the crowd. “I ask God to come and hold our hands and help us all love each other and help us see human life as something holy.”

Speaking before the chief rabbi, Izak Ibrahim Zade, one of the community’s leaders, told mourners that life must go on despite the community’s tragedy.

“We invite everyone to take on the responsibility to build a better world and a better future for your children,” Zade said. “Please, everyone, think about what we can learn from this, and let us all work together to make this a better world.”

Turkish Jewish leaders are shocked by the force and sophistication of the bombings of the two synagogues — but not surprised that the Jewish community was targeted.

“This was bound to happen,” said Lina Filiba, executive vice president of the Turkish Jewish community. “Something here is changing. The peaceful life here is different now.”

The first truck bomb explosion occurred at 9:30 a.m. near the main entrance of the city’s central synagogue, Neve Shalom. The second took place a few minutes later at the back side of the Beit Israel synagogue, in Istanbul’s Sisli neighborhood, about three miles away.

The blasts were heard from miles away and left the streets surrounding the synagogues littered with shards of broken glass.

On Wednesday, Turkish officials said DNA tests identified the two Turks who perpetrated the bombings. Mesut Cabuk, 29, and Gokhan Elaltuntas, 22, carried out the attacks. A radical Turkish group claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Turkish officials said the bombings were too sophisticated to have been carried out solely by a homegrown group.

Condemnations poured in from around the world, including from such unlikely sources as Iran and Malaysia, both Muslim nations.

Israel’s foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, flew to Turkey on Sunday to visit the bombing sites and meet with his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also toured the site Sunday afternoon, accompanied by Gul.

Turkish police arrested three people in connection with the bombings, but they already had been released a day later, according to news reports.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon opened the weekly Cabinet meeting with a statement of condolences for the victims.

“We saw yesterday yet again that terrorism knows no bounds,” Sharon said. “Terrorism doesn’t discriminate by religion or blood. The aim of terrorism is one, to sow fear and terror through the slaying of innocent people.”

International Jewish organizations also mobilized. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) is raising funds to help Turkey’s Jewish and general community after Saturday’s attacks.

“This was an attack on Turkish society,” in which Jews have lived since the Spanish Inquisition, said Steven Schwager, executive vice president of the JDC. Schwager said the group hopes to raise a few million to rebuild the synaogues destroyed in the attack and restore local shops.

For its part, the Jewish Agency for Israel dispatched a mission of high-level staff to the region Saturday evening. The group included two psychologists who are terror specialists and two youth leaders who are familiar with the Istanbul Jewish community. In addition, the Jewish Agency held an emergency conference call Saturday evening with members of world Jewish communities, including France, England, South America and the United States, to determine ways to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. The group plans to meet again soon to address threats to Jews worldwide.

Overnight, religious Israeli forensic volunteers, still in their Sabbath clothes, donned fluorescent vests and scoured the bomb sites for body parts.

“We are, unfortunately, used to terror in Israel and feel we can help here, in accordance with Jewish law,” their spokesman told curious local journalists.

An Israeli diplomat noted that Turkey was ripe for violence by Islamic terrorists.

“As the world’s only Muslim democracy, with ties to Israel, Turkey is doubly likely to be hit by Islamist terrorism. That puts Turkish Jews all the more at risk,” the diplomat said, according to Reuters.

Such concerns were nothing new for Nessli Varol, a 23-year-old daughter of Turkish emigres who flew in from Israel for the funeral of an uncle killed in the Beit Israel attack.

“The Jews here have a prosperous life, but there is also fear. They stick together and avoid too much exposure,” she told Reuters. “When I used to visit my grandmother as a child, she would tell her Muslim friends I was from France, rather than Israel.”

Jewish community officials said they have been on high alert for the last three months regarding possible attacks and had notified the police about their concerns. Security at Istanbul’s synagogues had been increased in response, officials said.

“If we didn’t have security as good as it is, the tragedy could have been a lot worse. We wouldn’t have been as lucky,” community leader Filiba said.

In front of the Neve Shalom Synagogue, a deep crater marked the spot where Turkish officials said the small, explosives-packed truck blew up. A blackened axle was all that remained of the vehicle.

The stone and wrought-iron facade of the synagogue was completely destroyed, the synagogue’s foyer filled with a tangle of twisted metal and shattered glass.

The synagogue is located on a narrow street in one of Istanbul’s most historic districts, an area filled with small shops selling lamps and chandeliers. The explosion devastated the entire length of the street, shattering store windows and leaving some balconies on the verge of collapse.

“I heard the explosion. I thought it was an earthquake. From my front terrace I saw people coming out of the synagogue, some of them covered in blood,” said Gulen Guler, who lives in a building a few doors down from Neve Shalom. “We could see bodies lying in the street and windows smashed everywhere.”

Neve Shalom’s sanctuary is set off from the street, so the number of injured was relatively low and the damage was limited to the entrance.

Most of the day’s injured came from the Beit Israel synagogue, which was filled with an estimated 300 people, many of them there to celebrate the recent renovation of a smaller sanctuary in the back of the synagogue, close to where the car bomb exploded.

After the bombing, that sanctuary was littered with dust and shattered glass, prayer books and blood-stained prayer shawls covering the ground and the rows of wooden chairs.

The force of the explosion carried through the synagogue, completely blowing out a large window in the building’s front, leaving a large empty circle where a stained glass Star of David used to be.

An outlawed Turkish radical group called the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders Front claimed responsibility for the attacks. Turkish officials dismissed the claim, however, saying the group did not have the resources to mount this kind of coordinated attack.

In a news conference, Turkey’s interior minister, Abdulkadir Aksu, said similar trucks were used in the two attack and that they contained similar explosives, according to initial police analysis.

“It is obvious that this terrorist attack has some international connections,” Gul, the foreign minister, said.

Gul’s claim was echoed by local Israeli diplomats, who compared the attack to an April 2002 Al-Qaida car bombing of a historic synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba. That attack killed 21 people, mostly foreign tourists.

Several other high-profile attacks on Jewish targets have been carried out in the past year. Last November, an Israeli-owned hotel was bombed in Kenya, and missiles fired at an Israeli passenger plane leaving a nearby airport narrowly missed. Then, in May, Jewish institutions were targeted in a series of terrorist bombings in Casablanca, Morocco.

Israel had warned Turkey several times of the possibility of an attack on the country’s Jewish community, the Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported.

“I’m sure the Turkish government has done everything possible to prevent an attack like this,” said Pinchas Avivi, Israel’s new ambassador to Turkey. “To my great sorrow, the organization and sophistication of this attack indicate that it wasn’t a local organization.”

“Unfortunately, we are seeing this kind of attack again,” said Moris Levi, a member of the Jewish community’s advisory board.

“After the Neve Shalom attack in 1986, our community was very united,” Levi said. “Today, our synagogues will be open in the afternoon and I’m sure many people will go. All we can do is help the families who lost people.”

Funds for the JDC’s relief effort in Turkey can be sent to “JDC-Turkey Assistance,” at Box 372, 8472-A Second Ave., New York, New York, 10017.

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