History of the Jews in Turkey
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| est. 330,000 to 450,000 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Israel
|
280,000 |
 Turkey
|
17,400-18,000 |
 United States
|
16,000 |
 Canada
|
8,000 |
| Languages | |
| Hebrew (in Israel), Turkish, Ladino, English, French, Yevanic (extinct) | |
| Religion | |
| Judaism | |
The history of the Jews in Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Yahudileri, Turkish Jews; Hebrew: יהודים טורקים Yehudim Turkim, Ladino: Djudios Turkos) covers the 2,400 years that Jews have lived in what is now Turkey. There have been Jewish communities in Asia Minor since at least the 5th century BCE and many Spanish and Portuguese Jews expelled from Spain were welcomed into the Ottoman Empire (including regions part of modern Turkey) in the late 15th century, 20 centuries later, forming the bulk of the Ottoman Jews.
Today, the majority of Turkish Jews live in Israel, while modern-day Turkey continues to host a modest Jewish population.
The ancient Israelites were known to have imported honeybees from Anatolia, the Asian part of present-day Turkey. A team of Israeli archaeologists found some 30 intact hives made of straw and unbaked clay, and evidence that there had been over 100-200 more, on the site of the joint Israelite-Canaanite city of Tel Rehov. According to some evidence, the bees were probably imported from the region because they were easier to handle than the bees of the Israelites, which had proved to be extremely aggressive.
According to Jewish scripture, Noah's Ark landed on the top of Mount Ararat, a mountain in the Taurus range in Eastern Anatolia, near the present-day borders of Turkey, Armenia, and Iran.Flavius Josephus, Jewish historian of the first century, notes Jewish origins for many of the cities in Asia Minor, though much of his sourcing for these passages is traditional.New Testament mention of Jewish populations in Anatolia is widespread: Iconium (now: Konya) is said to have a synagogue in Acts 14:1, and Ephesus is mentioned as having a synagogue in Acts 19:1 and in Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. The Epistle to the Galatians is likewise directed at an area of Anatolia which once held an established Jewish population. Based on physical evidence, there has been a Jewish community in Asia Minor since the 4th century BCE, most notably in the city of Sardis. The subsequent Roman and Byzantine Empires included sizable Greek-speaking Jewish communities in their Anatolian domains which seem to have been relatively well-integrated and enjoyed certain legal immunities. The size of the Jewish community was not greatly affected by the attempts of some Byzantine emperors (most notably Justinian) to forcibly convert the Jews of Anatolia to Christianity, as these attempts met with very little success. The exact picture of the status of the Jews in Asia Minor under Byzantine rule is still being researched by historians. Although there is some evidence of occasional hostility by the Byzantine populations and authorities, no systematic persecution of the type endemic at that time in western Europe (pogroms, the stake, mass expulsions, etc.) is believed to have occurred in Byzantium.
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