Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, who chairs the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, described the fallout from the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria on February 6 as “total devastation” and that the city of Antakya’s 2,000-year-old Jewish community is “virtually gone.”
Speaking to the Journal via WhatsApp, Chitrik said that about half the buildings in Antakya, located in southern Turkey, have been decimated by the earthquake. “Lots of confusion, very quiet, many people buried under the rubble,” Chitrik said. “No happy endings.”
“Lots of confusion, very quiet, many people buried under the rubble,” Chitrik said. “No happy endings.”
Describing the city as being in “total shock,” Chitrik said he had never seen anything like this in Antakya before, and he hoped to “never see anything like that again.”
“It will take [a] long time for its recovery.”
Chitrik and the rest of the Jewish community were able to rescue two Torah scrolls from a local synagogue. “The synagogue was falling and had cracks through the roof and the walls, and figured we’d better take the 500, 600 year-old Torah scrolls to safety, so we moved them out of the city.” He added that it would “take time to refix and rebuild the synagogue.”
“As a city that has such a rich and long Jewish history, I’m not very sure how quick it will be for elderly Jews who lived here to return to that city,” Chitrik said. Chitrik had tweeted in 2021 that there were only 14 Jews left in the city, per The Jerusalem Post.
According to the Post, all of the Jews in the city had been accounted except for two, who have gone missing. “We have a team on the ground that is going through inch by inch centimeter by centimeter trying to recover either their remains or, if there be a miracle, having them alive, but as time goes by that hope is diminishing,” Chitrik said. The death toll has surpassed 20,000 thus far from the earthquake.
Antakya has received help from the Israelis and the Jewish community worldwide, as Chitrik said the Israelis sent groups of 450 volunteer doctors, nurses and search-and-rescue workers, which he described as “really, really wonderful.” He called the global Jewish community’s response “wonderful” as well. “There’s always a need for funds to rebuild, funds for search-and-rescue but also funds for helping out Jews and non-Jews who are here,” Chitrik said, “and I think the fact that Jews are able to extend their hands and open their hearts to a Muslim population that is poor and needy in this part of Turkey, it’s really a sign of tolerance, co-existence, and it’s planting seeds of [a] bright future for Jews and Muslims together.”
Antakya has received help from the Israelis and the Jewish community worldwide, as Chitrik said the Israelis sent groups of 450 volunteer doctors, nurses and search-and-rescue workers
Chitrik added that while the events of the earthquake are not in our hands, what is in our hands is being able to pray together, help each other and hope. But hope “depends on us making that hope into reality,” he said. “We have to help each other during times of crisis.”
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