Friday, February 20, 2009

Profile: Mustafa Kemal Ataturk


http://www.jewornotjew.com/profile.jsp?ID=478

Reader Sam from Israel suggested this one. And since we're talking about Turkey today, I just want to add that I love, love, LOVE Iskender Kebap.


What, it's not Kosher?... Oops.

2 comments:

  1. Sorry public and Turkish society. By a loose definition Attaturk is Jewish. I have his family tree on his Deunme side in Ottoman-Turkish dating back to the false messiah Shabetai Zvi. The question is if his ancestors were forced to convert and if on his Deunme side, he is a descendent of a mamzer (a married woman impregnated by another male), and if he is Jewish all the way on his matriarchical side. If family forced to convert, if he is not a mamzer, and if he goes back to Shabetai zvi via the women in his family, he would be 100% Jewish. I haven't yet studied and researched this. Otherwise he's Jewish by association. He and modern Turkey always wanted to downplay his controversial ethnicity (since he's the national hero who established a secular Turkish republic) of having a Jewish and a Deunme connection. He is portrayed as a mainstream Turkish Muslim who establihed a secular Turkey in order to avoid
    ethnic and religious fighting and establish national stability.
    Shalom,
    Yitzchak Kerem
    Historian of Sephardi Jewry, Ottoman history, and modern Greek history.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for this information!

    ReplyDelete