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Photo credit: REUTERS/UMIT BEKTAS/FILE PHOTO
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An organization of Jewish Turks says
commentators have used the coronavirus outbreak to promote antisemitic
conspiracy theories
As Turkey grappled with one of the biggest
coronavirus outbreaks in the world, a group of Jewish Turks was noticing
another outbreak in the country: one of antisemitism spreading through the
media.
Dani Albukrek, 21, a Jewish Turk living in
Istanbul, said Turkish social media users have been promoting conspiracy
theories against Jews and Israel, such as claiming they invented the novel
coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.
When Israel declared its first confirmed
COVID-19 infection, Twitter accounts in Turkish celebrated the announcement.
When the Turkish interior minister temporarily resigned over a botched
lockdown, Tweets accused Jews of being behind the scandal.
In another incident, a video posted online
showed the driver of a minibus speaking with passengers about Jews creating
viruses. Meanwhile, a prominent columnist has been writing conspiracy-filled
articles on the pandemic and a wealthy Jewish family.
“In Turkey, we can see constant
antisemitism in social media, on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram,” Albukrek
said.
He insisted that he and his family were
not living in fear but recognized there were safety concerns for the Jewish
community in Turkey, as evidenced by the tight security at synagogues, which
were closed due to the pandemic.
“Most of my friends, if they’re meeting
with someone that they don’t know in the street, they’re not explaining their
names with their Jewish identity, they’re just saying that we are from Spain
because we are Sephardic Jews,” Albukrek said.
Albukrek has been helping keep track of
hate speech as part of a group in Turkey called Avlaremoz, which writes about
antisemitism in the media.
Nesi Altaras, an editor with Avlaremoz,
said he has noticed an increase in conspiracy theories in the media targeting
Jews or Israel.
“I think it’s because there’s been a
general rise in production of conspiracy theories because of the pandemic and a
lot of those end up going to an antisemitic place,” Altaras said.
He said that an article on vaccine
development in Israel was followed by comments on social media that the country
would find a vaccine because it was the one that created the virus.
“The pandemic has just fueled the fire of
pre-existing Turkish antisemitism and conspiracy theories about Jews,” said
Altaras.
Berk Esen, an assistant professor of
international relations at Bilkent University in Ankara, said conspiracy
theories can be used to rationalize crises and instability that has marked
Turkish politics for the last two decades.
“These [events] are quite difficult to
digest, if you will, for ordinary citizens. … Many people go for these kinds of
quick, shortcut answers,” he said.
“It’s a much easier answer than to come up
with sophisticated political analysis.”
While conspiracy theories targeting Israel
appeared in the media during the pandemic, Esen argued that the majority of
Turkish society did not believe them because the pandemic’s impact on every
country made it difficult to blame one in particular.
“The mainstream media is no longer
mainstream and the sort of people who are invited to these kinds of programs …
they come from the fringes of society,” he said.
Jewish Turks are not the only minority
targeted.
A man reportedly told police that he tried
to set an Armenian Orthodox Church on fire in Istanbul because he believed they
started the pandemic.
Altaras feared a similar attack could
happen against a synagogue.
“The media and Twitter heightening of antisemitism
and conspiracy theories increases [the likelihood of] attacks materializing so
that’s, I would say, quite a major concern,” he said.
Altaras argued that when people in Turkey
want to present the country as tolerant, they promote the presence of the
Jewish community, estimated at 15,000 in the country. However, when there is a
crisis or people need a scapegoat, Altaras said, the Jewish community becomes a
target.
Altaras moved to Montreal, Canada last
August to study for his master’s degree and said antisemitism was one of the
reasons he decided to leave Turkey.
Albukrek was also doing his studies
abroad, in Jerusalem, but came back to his hometown of Istanbul in February.
He said Jews he knows hide their kippot
under baseball caps in Turkey, fearing to be identified as Jewish by strangers.
“They’re not wearing it without a cap; it
won’t be comfortable for them,” he said.
“You always need to be cautious when
meeting with someone or telling your identity to him or her.”
Source: themedialine
