TURKEY

The 2nd Israeli and Jewish Studies Conference held in Bandirma

The 2nd Israeli and Jewish Studies Conference held in Bandirma

The second International Israeli and Jewish Studies Conference was held on October 27-28, 2018, at Bandirma Onyedi Eylul University Campus. The first conference was held in Konya, last year. Silvyo Ovadya and Metin Delevi, both representing Turkish Jewish Community, delivered speeches during the conference.

This year’s conference was chaired by Muhammet Mustafa Kulu and his co-chair Ceyhun Cicekci.

There were 70 participants coming from Azerbaijan France, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Germany. The speeches at the conference, which were mainly delivered in Turkish, were about Israeli and Jewish studies, politics, religion, economy and sociology.

Metin Delevi, in his speech ‘The Wars in Ottoman Empire’s Final Period and Ottoman Jews’ talked about Jewish soldiers who actively battled in wars during Ottoman Empire’s final period and the Turkish War of Independence.  In his speech ‘A Language that Continues to Survive for 526 years in the Ottoman and Turkish Lands: Judeo Espanyol’, Silvyo Ovadya talked about the basic linguistic features of Judeo Espanyol and how according to some arguments it is different from Ladino. He mentioned how the language started to fade after the fall of Ottoman Empire and also gave a few examples to demonstrate the efforts made in the last 50 years to keep Judeo Espanyol alive.

Both Ovadya and Delevi also chaired two sessions.

80 scientists/researchers have sent their papers to the conference. 60 of those papers that belonged to the ones who were present at the conference were read aloud. All the papers and presentations that were delivered in the conference will be posted online in the coming days.

The participants of the event also had the opportunity to visit ‘Tekfur Farm’ which was founded by ‘Jewish Colonization Association’ and run by Russian Jewish immigrants. The farm was functional many years ago in Bandirma. Today, the farm is run by T.R. Ministry of Agriculture under the name ‘Merinos Sheep Breeding Research Institute’. 

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