By Adar
Standing at the top of Galata Tower in the middle of Istanbul, you think you should see everything, though of course, you really only see a fraction of the city. But at sunset you can hear the calls to prayer, loud and overlapping, over a hundred voices chorusing out into the city from the mosques that dot it chanting in different variations from imams. It’s incredible, and such a perfect moment. The gold tops of minarets glisten in the waning sun and for several minutes it looks as if the whole city is made of gold. Turkey was the first Muslim country I’ve spent time in, and the first mosque I’d gone into was the day before, the Suleymane mosque, which was incredible. Unlike churches or synagogues, mosques do not have pews or seats. There is no physical separation between people, they can just stand in the next available space close to the altar. The floors are carpeted and the chandeliers are low, creating a warm light that reflects off of the domes. We went into the mosque in the mid-morning, and sat down on our feet, listening. After just a few minutes, the call to prayer started outside, and over the next fifteen minutes the mosque filled up with men who scrambled to come in, take their shoes off, and find a space behind those already there. Arabic is a beautiful language, and I very much enjoyed watching the mid-day prayer, where everyone knew when to stand up and sit down, when to bow and when to turn.
The next day, we started off at the Aya Sofia, a powerful building originally built by Justinian as a church and ceremonial hall during the Byzantine Empire. It was built in a remarkably short amount of time, but I guess there’s a lot you can do if you have an empire at your disposal. It was converted into a mosque during the Ottoman rule, and is now a museum. The Aya Sofia shows the architectural quality of the late byzantine age, and is basically one giant room with a balcony ringing around the top. Though it had been converted into a mosque, it still had some of the important paintings of Jesus and his crew. Personally, the Aya Sofia wasn’t my favorite. It was cold and dark, had scaffolding and too many tourists. I know, I added to the problem.
Later that afternoon, after lunch of grilled meat in clay pots with apple tea on the side and hot donuts with honey and pistachios, we walked through the spice market and across the bridge to the Jewish Museum, a museum which is not actually in any regular guidebook and which does not have a sign on the front. We found out about it online, and read that they closed at 5. We arrived at a quarter of four and recognized it because it’s in the biggest synagogue in Istanbul, a discreet yellow building with a bronze gate inlaid with a row of Stars of David. A guard came up to us and asked what we were doing there. He said it was closed, and we could come back the next day between 1pm and 3pm. We had plans for the next day, so we hung around for a few moments, looking at the building and taking pictures next to it. The guard returned, asking this time if we were Jewish. When he heard that we were, he took us around the corner, down an alley several meters away, and up through an unmarked door on the side. This was an entrance to the synagogue, and we went through higher security than an airport. We had to leave our passports with him, go through metal detectors, and I’m pretty sure we were watched on CCTV the entire time. But once we were in, we walked through a hall lined with old old Ctubot, or marriage certificates, some of them even in Arabic. We saw pictures of people in the hallway with names captioned that were a Turkish first name and a Jewish last name. The sanctuary was beautiful, with high ceilings and arches, and window mosaics. And at the altar there was a young boy practicing for his Bar Mitzvah later that week.
We walked around and came across a large memorial sign. In 1986, a militant gunman came in during services and shot 22 people. And in 2003, a bomb hit this synagogue, Neve Shalom, and another one in Istanbul, killing 27 people and injuring 300. Under every single seat in the synagogue was a helmet, in case of attack. And as we experienced, security had to increase to the point of ridiculousness. We asked a few questions about Turkish Jews and the synagogue in particular, and found that they no longer had a Rabbi, or Friday evening services. Their congregation is shrinking fairly rapidly, though I don’t think the number of Jews in Istanbul is actually decreasing.
After we left the synagogue, picking up our passports on the way out, we went up Galata tower nearby and looked out at as much of Istanbul as we could see. It was such a stark contrast having come from Neve Shalom, basically hidden and under watchful eyes, to seeing the hundreds of beautiful mosques with giant minarets across the city. Turkey is a wonderful place to be Muslim, especially secular. The culture and roots are celebrated openly and beautifully. The Turkish flag has an Islamic symbol on it. Young women can go around expressing themselves with their hijabs that match their shoes, instead of getting awful looks and the discrimination any woman in the US faces who covers her head. Young Turks can go to Friday afternoon services at a mosque and go out partying with their friends in the evening. Istanbul is modern and developed, and really a great place to be if you’re part of the majority. And obviously us visiting as Jews from Israel was no problem, but I do think that it would have been much harder if we lived there.
During my recent travels, I’ve also gotten the chance to see how different Muslim countries function, on a superficial level at least, by visiting Jordan, which is significantly more religious than Istanbul. Every woman is covered. On Fridays, everything stops at the call to prayer and people will stop their cars in the middle of the street to pray. And without fail, at a quarter to five in the morning, the call to prayer is so loud that it will wake you up. I was in Amman by myself for a day on my way back to Israel, and I got on a bus from the airport to the downtown area. I walked onto the bus and realized it was almost completely filled with men. There was one woman, luckily with an open seat next to her, because men would not be allowed to sit next to me, and either they would have to stand or I would. There’s much more to Jordan than its outward religiousness, but it’s so noticeable that if you’re living there and not religious, I definitely think you’d have issues with the locals.
And of course there’s Bulgaria, which I visited during my trip to Turkey. It’s an incredible place, with nice people, clean streets, tons of stuff to do, and lots of churches. I believe our tour guide said about 95% of Bulgarians are Orthodox Christians, either Russian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox. We visited several cathedrals, both stunningly built and even more stunningly painted on the inside with frescoes top to bottom. As I walked into the Aleksander Cathedral in Sofia, there happened to be a ceremony going on with one of the most beautiful church choirs I’ve ever heard singing. Even with such a large majority being one religion in Bulgaria, there was still a beautiful mosque and synagogue in the middle of the square across from the cathedrals. People didn’t seem particularly religious, but they again seemed a very homogeneous group, and I think it wouldn’t be hard to feel like an outsider if you were one.
Which brings me back to Israel.
I feel very comfortable here, being a non-religious Jew. I’m proud to see Israeli flags around, and totally fine passing people in kippas. I’ve started baking challah bread every couple of weeks with my friends (and certainly bringing that personal tradition back to my dorm at GW). I fit in well in Haifa, and many other places around the country. But even I, who considers myself Jewish and holds Israeli citizenship, don’t fit in in certain areas. Like in older Jerusalem and some of its suburbs, for example, where people are far more religious and zealous than I can handle. I think one of Israel’s biggest problems is its exclusivity. People here are extremely friendly and welcoming, genuine and caring – for others like them. But it’s clearly a very difficult place to be if you don’t find the city or community that you fit into. One thing that I think the US definitely does better than this country is plurality and diversity. Still, Israeli society has a long ways to go before it is totally accepting of people from all over the place, but even so it does have plenty of churches, mosques, new immigrant centers, bilingual schools, and other civil societal resources that are lacking in so much of the world. It is not a homogeneous place. Its population comes from all over the world, and that’s definitely felt very much in the language, the people, and what’s around.