The conduct of citizenship in the case of Turkey's Jewish minority: Legal status, identity, and civic virtue aspects

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East

Volumn 26, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 121-133

  Toktaş, Şule ^a  

^a ISIK UNIVERSITY   (Turkey)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CITIZENSHIP; CULTURAL IDENTITY; ETHNIC MINORITY;

EURASIA; TURKEY;

EID: 33745698562     PISSN: 1089201X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/1089201x-2005-014     Document Type: Article

References (35)

1. William Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992);
2. Gerard Delanty, "Models of Citizenship: Defining European Identity and Citizenship," Citizenship Studies 1 (1997): 285-304.
3. Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman, "Return of the Citizen: A Survey of Recent Work on Citizenship Theory," Ethics, no. 104 (1994):352-81;
4. Kymlicka and Norman, "Citizenship in Culturally Diverse Societies: Issues, Contexts, Concepts," in Citizenship in Diverse Societies, ed. Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1-41.
5. William Galston, Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues, and Duties in the Liberal State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
6. Kymlicka and Norman, "Citizenship in Culturally Diverse Societies."
7. Jeremy Waldron, "Cultural Identity and Civic Responsibility," in Kymlicka and Norman, Citizenship in Diverse Societies, 156.
8. Jean L. Cohen, "Changing Paradigms of Citizenship and the Exclusiveness of the Demos," International Sociology 14 (1999): 245-68.
9. Metin Heper, The State Tradition in Turkey (Walkington, UK: Eothen, 1985).
10. Henry J. Barkey, "The Struggles of a Strong State," Journal of international Affairs 54 (2000): 87-106.
11. Nuri Bilgin, "Cumhuriyet fikri ve yurttaş kimliǧi" ("The Republican Idea and Citizen Identity"), in 75 yιlda tebaa'dan yurttas'a doǧru (From Subject to Citizen in Seventy-Five Years), ed. Artun Ünsal (İstanbul: Türkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfι, iş Bankasι Yayιnlarι, 1998), 139-50.
12. Ali Kazancigil, "High Stateness in a Muslim Society: The Case of Turkey," in Comparing Nations: Concepts, Strategies, Substance, ed. Matter Dogan and Ali Kazancigil (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), 213-38.
13. Emin Fuat Keyman and Ahmet içduygu, "Türk modernleşmesi ve ulusal kimlik sorunu: Anayasal vatandaşlιk ve demokratik açιlιm olasιlιǧι" ("Turkish Modernization and the National Identity Question: Constitutional Citizenship and a New Democratic Approach"), in Ünsal, 75 yιlda tebaa'dan yurttaş'a doǧru, 169-80.
14. Şule Toktaş, "Türk vatandaşlιǧιnιn gayri-müslim yorumlarι: Vatandaşlιk kurgusu ve Türkiye'deki Yahudi azιnlιk" ("Non-Muslim Interpretations of Turkish Citizenship: Construction of Citizenship and Turkey's Jewish Minority"), in Türkiye kültüleri (Cultures in Turkey), ed. Gönül Pultar and Tahire Erman (Ankara: Tetragon iletişim Hizmetleri A. Ş., 2005), 125-43.
15. Taner Akçam, Türkiye'yiyeniden düşünmek (Rethinking Turkey) (İstanbul: Birikim Yayιnlarι, 1995).
16. Caǧlar Keyder, Türkiye'de deviet ve sιnιflar (State and Class in Turkey) (İstanbul: İletişim Yayιnlarι, 1989);
17. Keyder, "Whither the Project of Modernity? Turkey in the 1990s," in Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey, ed. Sibel Bozdoǧan and Raşit Kasaba (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), 37-51.
18. Ahmet Insel, "Devletçiliǧin anatomisi" ("The Anatomy of Etatism"), in Cumhuriyet dönemi Türkiye ansiklopedisi, cilt 2 (The Encyclopedia of Republican Period Turkey, Vol. 2), ed. Murat Belge (İstanbul: l̇etişim Yayιnlarι, 1983), 419-25.
19. Aydin Uǧur, "Batιda ve Türkiye'de sivil toplum: Kavram ve olgunun gelişim serüveni" ("Civil Society in the West and in Turkey: The Adventure of the Concept and the Phenomenon"), in Ünsal, 75 yιlda tebaa'dan yurttaş'a doǧru, 213-26.
20. Hugh Poulton, "The Turkish State and Democracy," International Spectator 34 (1999): 47-61.
21. Nigar Karimova and Edward Deverell, "Minorities in Turkey," Occasional Paper no. 19 (Stockholm: Swedish Institute of International Affairs, 2001).
22. The Ottoman society was generally organized into ethnoreligious communities called millets. In the millet system, which formed the basis of the Ottoman administrative structure, individuals were not recognized, and subjects were defined according to their religions and only within the religious groups to which they belonged. It helped to preserve and emphasize the religious distinctions among the subjects, yet at the same time as an administrative tool it gave non-Muslims a certain level of cultural and religious autonomy and local self-rule. Millets had separate administrative rules for marriage, divorce, inheritance, and tax collection. The non-Muslim millets were allowed to administer their communal affairs under the authority of their own ecclesiastical leaders, who also represented the community in the Ottoman Palace and had important administrative, judicial, and financial responsibilities. This in a way bureaucratized religious structures within the Ottoman state and served to integrate ethnoreligious communities in the imperial structure. Kemal Karpat, "The Ethnicity Problem in a Multi-Ethnic National Islamic State: Continuity and Recasting of Ethnic Identity in the Ottoman State," in Ethnic Groups and the State, ed. Paul Brass (Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1985), 95-114.
23. Artun Ünsal, "Yurttaşlιk zor zanaat" ("It Is Hard to Be a Citizen"), in Ünsal, 75 yιlda tebaa'dan yurttaş'a doǧru, 1-36.
24. Keyman and Içduygu, "Türk modernleşmesi ve ulusal kimlik sorunu," 176.
25. Ayşe Kadioǧlu, "Milletini arayan devlet: Türk milliyetçiliǧinin açmazlarι" ("State Seeking Its Nation: The Dilemmas of Turkish Nationalism"), in Ünsal, 75 yιlda tebaa'dan yurttaç'a doǧru, 201-13.
26. Hakan Yavuz, "Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere," Journal of International Affairs 54 (2000): 21-43.
27. Arus Yumul, "Evrenselcilik ve yerelcilik arasιnda irkçιlιǧιn dili" ("The Language of Racism in between Universalism and Localism"), Foreign Policy 1 (1998): 140-54.
28. Keyman and Içduygu, "Türk modernleşmesi ve ulusal kimlik sorunu," 177.
29. Ahmet Içduygu, Yilmaz Çolak, and Nalan Soyarιk, "What Is the Matter with Citizenship? A Turkish Debate," Middle Eastern Studies 35 (1999): 197.
30. Ünsal, "Yurttaşlιk zor zanaat," 15.
31. Rifat Bali, Cumhuriyet yιllarιnda Türkiye Yahudileri: Bir Türkleştirme serüveni (Jews in the Republican Era: A Story of Turkification) (İstanbul: İletişim Yayιnlarι, 2000), 53.
32. Avner Levi, Türkiye Cumhuriyet'inde Yahudiler: Hukuki ve siyasi durumlarι (Jews in the Turkish Republic: Legal and Political Conditions) (İstanbul: İletişim Yayιnlarι, 1998).
33. It should be noted that loyalty served as one of the major mediums of minority-state relations. This principle covered all the non-Muslim groups as well as the sociologically recognized minorities in Turkey. Regarding the relations of the Jewish minority and the Turkish state, loyalty continued to outlay the standard and the scope of the relations. This is why, from time to time, the Jews who were known as loyal to the state were put on equal footing with the other minority groups and were included in the same rhetoric as "alien elements of the society." For a brief discussion of these testing arenas of loyalty in the case of Turkey's Jewish minority, see Levi, Türkiye Cumhuriyet'inde Yahudiler.
34. Karimova and Deverell, "Minorities in Turkey."
35. In Turkey's legal system, there are no specific laws that bar Jews from taking positions in state offices.