https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13370/anti-semitism-turkey
“King Mohammed VI of Morocco made a breakthrough in the Muslim world and told the world press that ‘education has the power to fight ugly phenomena such as discrimination, racism and anti-Semitism.'” — Mois Gabay, Şalom.
“What about the fact that… an awakening about Israel and Jews is on the rise in many other majority-Muslim countries.” — Mois Gabay, Şalom.
“The government should immediately recognize anti-Semitism as a hate crime and impose penal sanctions on the perpetrators.” — Işıl Demirel, an anthropologist from Turkey; Avlaremoz.
Demirel’s suggestion would make perfect sense in a free and genuinely democratic society. But in a country where the president, his advisers and MPs regularly and proudly spit out hatred not only against Jews, but also against other minorities, how is anti-Semitism to be dealt with when demonizing Jews or Israel seems to serve as a fast track to a career in government?
As the Islamist government of Turkey grows increasingly authoritarian, religious minorities in the country seem to be the most targeted and affected group.
The concerns of Turkey’s Jewish community were addressed recently by Mois Gabay, a columnist for the country’s Jewish weekly, Şalom, in an article entitled, “What Kind of Turkey Are We Living In?”
In it, Gabay discussed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s establishing nine councils, the members of which he appointed, and who are responsible for “offering policy proposals, ideas and strategies to the president” on the economy, foreign policy, education and law.
Among those appointed to official positions within these councils, Gabay wrote, are well-known public figures who have made blatant anti-Semitic statements.
In an interview with the Turkish journal Yörünge in August, for instance, author Alev Alatlı, now a member of Erdogan’s culture and art council, said that the “anti-Erdogan forces of the world” are led by Jews and motivated by millennia-long Jewish teachings. “The real project [of the Jews] is to cleanse the universe of goyim,” she said, referring to “goyim” as those “for whom there is no place in the world unless they serve the Jews.”