Language:
English
Year of publication:
2013
Titel der Quelle:
Jewish Quarterly Review
Angaben zur Quelle:
103,4 (2013) 523-555
Keywords:
Dönmeh
;
Islam Relations
;
Judaism
;
Antisemitism History 1500-
;
Antisemitism
Abstract:
While in the past antisemitic conspiracy theories in Turkey were the monopoly of Islamists and extreme rightists, since 2002, the year of a decisive Islamist victory in the national elections, they have been picked up by Turkish secularists and have become part of conventional wisdom. Anti-Islamist authors (e.g. Ergün Poyraz, Soner Yalçin, and Yalçin Küçük) allege, for example, that Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan is a stooge of world Jewry and himself a hidden Jew, that Jews stand behind the ongoing Islamization of Turkish political life, and that since the Ottoman period all of Turkey's political elites have had a Jewish background. Contends that although Turkish antisemitism from the late Ottoman period on was exposed to some foreign influences like racism in the early 20th century and anti-Zionism later, its roots are essentially indigenous. A focal point in Turkish antisemitism are the Dönmes, descendants of Jewish Sabbateans, who converted to Islam; in accordance with racial thinking, they are declared identical with Jews. Argues that the secularists have adopted their theories on the Dönmes as secret servants of world Jewry from their opponents, like the conservator Derviş Vahdeti or the right-wing nationalists Atilhan and Kısakürek. Secularists, being out of political power, accuse those in power of being Dönmes, so conspiracy theories have become an antidote to powerlessness for them.
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