Jewish Heritage Religious Tour Turkey

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Jewish Heritage Religious Tour Turkey

General Information


About The Jews of Turkey
Type:
Historical
Price from:
1.359 EUR /person
Phone:
0090 252 316 2127
Fax:
0090 252 316 8931
Payment Types:
  • No Cash
  • No Credit Card
  • No Cheque
  • No Travellers cheque
  • No Paypal
  • No Wire Transfer
Duration:
13 days
Location Start:
Istanbul
Location Finish:
Istanbul
Start time:
09.30 am
End time:
05.30 pm
We Speak:
English
Toursrequestform

Last updated: 10/30/2007

(Istanbul - Cappadocia - Konya - Pamukkale - Ephesus - Izmir - Istanbul
Travel through turkey for 13 days výsýtýng and expeiencing jewish heritage as it once existed in Turkey.

Photos (click on a photo to view it)

About The Jews of Turkey About The Jews of Turkey About The Jews of Turkey About The Jews of Turkey About The Jews of Turkey About The Jews of Turkey

Itinerary

Day 1

ARRIVAL - ISTANBUL
Dinner Included
Arrival in Istanbul and transfer from airport to the hotel. Check in to the hotel. After a break, welcome cocktail with a briefing about Turkey. Overnight in Istanbul.

Day 2

ISTANBUL
Dinner Included
Morning visit to a Jewish neighborhood, Galata. You will see the Galata tower built by the Genoese in 1303. Visit the local synagogues, Neve Shalom and the Askenazy Synagogue. After lunch, visit the Hippodrome, a 3rd century site, where chariots raced during the Roman period. Visit the Blue Mosque, famous for its blue tiles and six minarets. Visit St. Sophia, a world heritage site built in the 6th century.

Day 3

ISTANBUL
Breakfast and Dinner Included
Visit the Topkapi Palace, its priceless collection of jewels, and the Grand Covered Bazaar.

Day 4

ISTANBUL
Breakfast and Dinner Included
Visit of the Balat neighborhood where you will see the star of David appearing on building facades. Visit the 15th Ahrida and the Yanbol synagogues. Visit the Jewish home for the elderly along the Golden Horn.

Day 5

ISTANBUL
Breakfast and Dinner Included
You may walk to the synagogue to attend morning Shabbat services. The day is at leisure.

Day 6

ISTANBUL : CAPPADOCIA
Breakfast and Dinner Included
Transfer from Hotel to Istanbul airport. Morning flight to Kayseri and drive to Cappadocia to see the rock-cut churches and monasteries. Drive also to Pasabag and Zelve where you will enjoy the most unusual types of "Fairy Chimneys'' and rock formations. After lunch visit the spectacular Cappadocian valleys and villages such as Uchisar, Goreme and Ortahisar. Overnight in Nevsehir.

Day 7

CAPPADOCIA
Breakfast and Dinner Included
Drive to the underground city of Kaymakli . Visit this amazing complex with its fascinating tunnels, dwellings and storage rooms. After Kaymakli, drive to old Sinassos (Mustafapasa) which is famous for its unrivaled houses with painted facades. After lunch at Sinassos, drive to Avanos to see the pottery makers.

Day 8

KONYA- PAMUKKALE
Breakfast and Dinner Included
Drive to Konya , ancient Seljuk capital, with its huge monastery complex and shrine of the mystic Mevlana, inspiration of the rite of whirling dervishes. After lunch, Drive to Pamukkale, with its strangely formed natural thermal baths and hot springs . Relax this afternoon in this "natural" spa.

Day 9

EPHESUS
Breakfast and Dinner Included
Spend a full day exploring the jewel of Turkey 's ancient past, the ruins of Ephesus . Archaeological excavations begun in 1869 have uncovered well-preserved main streets, squares, temples, theaters and houses. Visit the Great Amphitheater, and stroll down the Marble Way to the magnificent Library of Celcus. Drive to Izmir for overnight.

Day 10

IZMIR
Breakfast and Dinner Included
This morning visit the Senora Synagogue (if possible) and Havra Street in Izmir where Jewish immigrants settled in 1492. You'll continue on to Sardes, where you'll visit one of the important historical cities of western Anatolia , the capital of the Lydian State . Sardes has rich architectural works reflecting its magnificent past. You'll see the Temple of Artemis , the mint house where coins were made, the gold purifying center, shops, gymnasium and the synagogue which was once one of the largest in history, built first in the 4th century BC and rebuilt in the 3rd century AC to its present day size after being destroyed by an earthquake.

Day 11

ISTANBUL
Breakfast and Dinner Included
Flight to Istanbul . Arrival in Istanbul and transfer to the hotel and overnight.

Day 12

ISTANBUL
Breakfast and Dinner Included
Free day in Istanbul .

Day 13

HOME
Breakfast Included Transfer from hotel to Istanbul airport for homebound flight.

Extra Information

Inclusions -
Tour Includes 12 nights 4 star Hotel Accommodations including breakfast and dinner, All transportation in Turkey by private a/c tour coach, All meals as stated in itinerary, Welcome cocktail, All entrance fees to the sites and to the museums mentioned on the above program, Comprehensive sight-seeing as itinerary, Special pre-departure information pack, English speaking professional guide throughout, Tips to the hotels and restaurants, All Portage,
Extras -
About The Jews of Turkey

Jews have lived in the geographic area of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) for more than 2,400 years. In the later Middle Ages, Ashkenazi Jews migrating to the Byzantine Empire and Ottoman Empire supplemented the original Jewish population of Asia Minor. At the end of the 15th century, a large number of Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution in Spain and Portugal settled in Asia Minor on the invitation of the Ottoman Empire. Despite emigration during the 20th century, modern day Turkey continues to have a small Jewish population.



The history of the Jews in Anatolia started many centuries before the migration of Sephardic Jews. Remnants of Jewish settlement from the 4th century B.C.E. have been uncovered in the Aegean region, where Jews lived and traded in the ancient cities of Ephesus, Sardis, Pergamon, and Smyrna (renamed Izmir by the Turks). The historian Josephus Flavius relates that Aristotle "met Jewish people with whom he had an exchange of views during his trip across Asia Minor."


Second and third century Greek inscriptions tell of a flourishing Jewish community in Smyrna. Ancient synagogue ruins have also been found in Sardis, near Izmir, dating from 220 B.C.E. and traces of other Jewish settlements have been discovered near Bursa, in the southeast and along the Aegean, Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts. A bronze column found in Ankara confirms the rights the Emperor Augustus accorded the Jews of Asia Minor.


Jewish communities in Anatolia flourished and continued to prosper through the Turkish conquest. When the Ottomans captured Bursa in 1324 and made it their capital, they found a Jewish community oppressed under Byzantine rule. The Jews welcomed the Ottomans as saviours. Sultan Orhan gave them permission to build the Etz ha-Hayyim (Tree of Life) synagogue which remained in service until 50 years ago.


Early in the 14th century, when the Ottomans had established their capital at Edirne, Jews from Europe, including Karaites, migrated there.1 Similarly, Jews expelled from Hungary in 1376, from France by Charles VI in September 1394, and from Sicily early in the 15th century found refuge in the Ottoman Empire. In the 1420s, Jews from Salonika then under Venetian control fled to Edirne.2


Ottoman rule was much kinder than Byzantine rule had been. In fact, from the early 15th century on, the Ottomans actively encouraged Jewish immigration. Western European Jews received three invitations to settle in the Ottoman Empire. Two were from Muslim sultans, Muhammad (Mehmet) II in the middle of the 15th century and Bayazid II in 1492. The third came in a letter sent by Rabbi Yitzhak Sarfati (from Edirne) in 1454 to Jewish communities in Europe in the first part of the century that "invited his coreligionists to leave the torments they were enduring in Christiandom and to seek safety and prosperity in Turkey."3 Rabbi Sarfati wrote that 'here every man dwells at peace under his own vine and fig tree.'3


When Mehmet II "the Conqueror" took Constantinople in 1453, he encountered an oppressed Romaniot (Byzantine) Jewish community which welcomed him with enthusiasm. Sultan Mehmet II issued a proclamation to all Jews "... to ascend the site of the Imperial Throne, to dwell in the best of the land, each beneath his Dine and his fig tree, with silver and with gold, with wealth and with cattle...".4




There has been a Jewish community in Turkey (Asia Minor) since the 4th century B.C. such as in Sardis. According to the Old Testament, the prophet Abraham was born in Ur in Chaldea. Near the Euphrates (Firat) river, there is a historic and ancient city called Sanliurfa whose initial name was Ur. Jewish communities in Asia Minor continued to prosper throughout the Turkish conquest under Seljuks and Ottomans.


In modern times after the Republic, in the late 1930's and early 1940's, Turkey again opened its homes and universities to Jews who had fled from Nazi oppression and persecution. In 1933 Ataturk invited to Turkey many university professors of Jewish origin who were threatened by Nazi cruelty. In the beginning of the 19th Century Turkey was home to more than 100,000 Jews.


Today Turkey's total Jewish population is around 26,000 (the second largest Jewish community in a Muslim country, being the first is Iran), with a great majority living in Istanbul. In 1992 the community celebrated the 500th anniversary of its existence in Turkey since the spring of 1492, when they came to Istanbul and accepted by the sultan Beyazit II shortly after the Moors were driven out of Granada, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain expelled all the Jews from their lands and ended the largest Jewish settlement in Europe. The community is 96% Sephardi, the rest is Ashkenazis. There are also about 100 Karaites live in Turkey, but usually they don't consider themselves a part of the Jewish community and don't take any part in its activities.


The Jewish people in Turkey contributed immensely to the economic, cultural and political life during the times of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic after the War of Liberation led by Ataturk.
The Jewish community of Turkey is recognized by the State through its Chief Rabbinate, and Chief Rabbi is called "Haham Basi" in Turkish.


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