British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

ISSN: 1353-0194 (Print) 1469-3542 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbjm20

Choosing second citizenship in troubled times: the

Jewish minority in Turkey

Gabriela Anouck Côrte-Real Pinto & Isabel David

To cite this article: Gabriela Anouck Côrte-Real Pinto & Isabel David (2019): Choosing second
citizenship in troubled times: the Jewish minority in Turkey, British Journal of Middle Eastern
Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13530194.2019.1634397

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2019.1634397

Published online: 07 Jul 2019.

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BRITISH JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES
https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2019.1634397

ARTICLE

Choosing second citizenship in troubled times: the Jewish

minority in Turkey
Gabriela Anouck Côrte-Real Pintoa and Isabel David b

a
Instituto de Ciencias Sociais (ICS), Universidade de Lisboa (University of Lisbon), Portugal; bOrient
Institute, Institute of Social and Political Sciences (ISCSP), Universidade de Lisboa (University of Lisbon),
Portugal

ABSTRACT
This article explores the motivations behind the applications for
Portuguese citizenship by Turkish Jews since 2015. Based on
a qualitative research, the findings highlight that obtaining a second
passport does not yet equate emigration. Rather, it constitutes an
insurance policy aimed at alleviating growing ontological insecurity,
stemming partly from their secular and westernized lifestyle and from
their Jewish identity, which are endangered by perceived de-
secularisation, growing anti-Semitism and authoritarian trends in
Turkey.

Introduction
In 2013, the Portuguese parliament passed an amendment to its law on nationality
granting descendants of Sephardic Jews fleeing expulsion and forced conversions to
Catholicism in 1496–1497 and the Inquisition (1536–1821) in Portugal the right to apply
for Portuguese citizenship (Law 43/2013). The amendment entered into force in 2015
(Decree-law 30-A/2015). According to the most recent official numbers released by the
Portuguese Ministry of Justice, until 31 January 2018 the majority of the requests
originate from Israel (3,430) and Turkey (3,245, circa 17 per cent of the Turkish Jewish
population, estimated at 18,500).1,2 By the end of 2017, 1,239 Turkish citizens had
obtained Portuguese citizenship.3
Acquiring dual citizenship became possible for Turkish citizens with the 1981 amend-
ment (Law no. 2383) to the 1964 Law on Nationality. The objective was to preserve the
ties between the state and large numbers of Turkish emigrants, particularly in Europe.
The new 2009 law (no. 5901) allows the right to multiple citizenship.4 The concession of
citizenship has become a market, particularly after the 2007–2008 financial crisis. Several

CONTACT Gabriela Anouck Côrte-Real Pinto cortecorto@yahoo.fr Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICS),
Universidade de Lisboa (University of Lisbon), Portugal
1
World Jewish Congress, ‘Turkey’, http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/TR.
2
Céu Neves, ‘Judeus sefarditas. Mais de seis mil israelitas e turcos querem BI português’, Diário de Notícias, 6 July 2018.
3
‘Mais de 2100 sefarditas adquiriram nacionalidade portuguesa desde 2016, Público, 27 February 2018.
4
See E. Fuat Keyman and Ahmet Içduygu, ‘Globalization, Migration and Citizenship: The Case of Turkey’, in Globalization:
Theory and Practice, ed. Eleonore Kofman and Gillian Youngs (London and New York: Continuum, 2003), 193–206;
Official Gazette, Turkish Citizenship Law, 29 May 2009, http://eudo-citizenship.eu/NationalDB/docs/TUR%20Turkish%
20citizenship%20law%202009%20(English).pdf.
© 2019 British Society for Middle Eastern Studies
2 G. ANOUCK RAYMOND CÔRTE-REAL PINTO AND I. DAVID

EU countries offer citizenship by investment (CBI) and residency by investment (RBI)

(Golden Visas) to affluent non-nationals to boost their economies.5 Wealthy Turks are
among the top three clients of these schemes in Greece (RBI), Portugal (RBI) and Malta
(CBI).6 Another practice among Turkish secular upper and middle classes is birth tourism:
giving birth in the US so that children receive US citizenship.7 Similarly, Turkish applica-
tions for Bulgarian and Romanian citizenship based on descent are booming.8
The Portuguese law on nationality offers citizenship to all applicants older than
18 years. Applicants must prove their Portuguese Sephardic origin based on family
names, family language (Ladino) and direct or collateral descendance (Article 24-A).
The law does not require that applicants practice Judaism nor identify as Jewish.
The number of applications for Portuguese citizenship by Turkish Jews contradicts
the official discourse promoted by the Turkish state and Jewish authorities and elites
(particularly after the end of the Cold War) which denies the existence of anti-Semitism
in past and present-day Turkey. This discourse ‘cosmetises history’9 by presenting Turkey
as a safe haven—contrasting with European countries—, thanks to its tradition of
hospitality and tolerance dating back to Ottoman times, particularly to Sultan Bayezid
II’s welcoming of Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution, continued with the Turkish
Republic’s acceptance of Jewish refugees from Nazism.10 This image of harmony is
matched by the absence of complaints by Turkish Jews—contrary to other ethno-
religious communities—against the Turkish state in the European Court of Human
Rights.
This contradiction provides the background for our research question: why are
Turkish Jews massively applying for a foreign citizenship? We hypothesise that obtaining
a second citizenship constitutes an insurance against growing ‘ontological insecurity’11
caused by perceived de-secularisation, authoritarianism and anti-Semitism under the
AKP (Justice and Development Party) government. Based on 30 interviews, the article

5
European Parliament, Citizenship by Investment (CBI) and Residency by Investment (RBI) Schemes in the EU (Brussels:
European Parliament, 2018), http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/627128/EPRS_STU(2018)
627,128_EN.pdf.
6
‘Turks in Top Three for Taking “Golden Visa” from Greece through property Acquisition’, Hurriyet Daily News,
5 October 2017, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turks-in-top-three-for-taking-golden-visa-from-greece-through-
property-acquisition-120397; ‘Country Earns €838 Million in Investment through “Golden Visas”’, The Portugal News
Online, 10 January 2019, http://www.theportugalnews.com/news/country-earns-838-million-in-investment-through-
golden-visas/48007; ‘Malta Received over 500 Golden Visa Applications’, Citizenship By Investment, 6 February 2018,
https://citizenshipbyinvestment.ch/index.php/2018/02/06/malta-received-over-500-golden-visa-applications/; Gul
Uret, ‘Seeking Mobility Through Immovable Property: “New Turkey” and the Emergence of a Turkish Diaspora in
Athens’ (paper presented at the Middle East Studies Association conference, San Antonio, USA, November 15–18,
2018).
7
Ozlem Altan-Olcay and Evren Balta, ‘Class and Passports: Transnational Strategies of Distinction in Turkey’, Sociology
50, no. 6 (2015): 1106–1122.
8
‘E Devlet soyagaci sorgulama hizmeti ufuk açti! Çifte vatandaslik için girisimler basladi’, Hurriyet, 19 February 2018,
http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/e-devlet-soyagaci-sorgulama-nasil-yapilir-cifte-vatandaslik-basvuru-firsati
-40746447; ‘Çifte vatandaslik nasil alinir?’, Aksam, 19 February 2018, https://www.aksam.com.tr/yasam/alt-ust-soy-
bilgisi-cifte-vatandaslik-sorgula-e-devlet-cifte-vatandaslik-nasil-alinir/haber-708995.
9
Laurent-Olivier Mallet, La Turquie, les Turcs et les Juifs. Histoire, Représentations, Discours et Stratégies (Isis: Istanbul,
2008).
10
See Naim Avigdor Guleryuz, The Turkish Jews: 700 Years of Togetherness (Istanbul: Gözlem, 2009); Stanford J. Shaw, The
Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic (New York: New York University Press, 1991); Stanford J. Shaw,
Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey’s Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933–1945
(New York: New York University Press, 1993).
11
Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity. Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991); Anthony
Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991).
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES 3

cannot aim at encompassing all motivations behind applications. Rather, this is an

exploratory article aimed at interpreting the results of our empirical materials.
This article contributes to scholarship in several ways. First, it contributes to Sephardic
and broader Jewish studies by exploring the understudied contemporary Turkish Jewish
community. Second, it overcomes instrumentalist hypotheses by linking path-
dependence (implicit in the concepts of Kayadez and habitus) and agency (the idea
behind ‘stigma management’). Third, it contends that authoritarianism generates onto-
logical insecurity for the citizens of a polity, framing the concept within political science.
Fourth, it contributes to the scarce literature on applications for a second citizenship by
Turkish citizens during AKP rule. Fifth, Irving Goffman’s concepts of ‘stigma’ and ‘stigma
management’ allow for the comparison of forms of discrimination beyond Jewish
studies and highlight everyday life mechanisms of self-protection and self-invention of
the stigmatised victims. Sixth, the concept of ‘stigma management’, by analysing an
array of multi-level protections (individual, family, community or state-based), allows us
to observe how these multiple layers and strategies of protection reproduce themselves,
compete, interact with and complete one another in order to alleviate ontological
insecurity.
The article proceeds as follows. First, we discuss the interrelationship between state
protection, ontological (in)security and stigma. Next, we provide an historical overview
of the relations between the Ottoman/Turkish state and the Turkish Jewish community.
The third section addresses the methodology. The fourth section displays the findings
from our fieldwork with Turkish Sephardic Jews. We conclude by drawing implications
from the findings and establish directions for further research.

State protection and ontological security: managing risk and stigma

While the concept of state protection seems clear, its practical usage is significantly
more ambiguous. As Charles Tilly argues, ‘[state protection] calls up images of the
shelter against danger provided by a powerful friend, a large insurance policy, or
a sturdy roof’ but also ‘the racket in which a local strong man forces merchants to pay
tribute in order to avoid damage—damage the strong man himself threatens to
deliver’.12 Since the state and its institutions define the conditions under which everyday
life and choices take place, defining the private and the public spheres,13 politics is the
arena where ‘notions of fate become transformed’ par excellence.14
While Giddens linked ontological insecurity to accelerated change generated by
modernity, we argue that (in)security also stems from citizen-state relations, particularly
in authoritarian polities. Giddens defines ontological security ‘as the confidence that
most human beings have in the continuity of their self-identity and in the constancy of
the surrounding social and material environments of action’.15 Identity is closely linked
to lifestyle, since lifestyle constitutes a set of routinised practices that ‘give material form
to a particular narrative of self-identity’, differentiating the self from others and
12
Tilly, ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime’, in Bringing the State Back In, eds. Peter B. Evans, Dietrich
Rueschemeyer & Theda Skocpol (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 181.
13
Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 111.
14
Ibid.
15
Giddens, Consequences of Modernity, 92.
4 G. ANOUCK RAYMOND CÔRTE-REAL PINTO AND I. DAVID

anchoring the self in a predictable environment.16 The reflexive construction of self-

identity depends equally on interpreting the past and anticipating the future17 being
thus anchored on risk assessment. While ‘risk conceptions retain distinctive political-
cultural features as their respective meanings are prefigured by path-dependent pasts’,18
risks are not only made of past consequences and damage, but are partly unreal. They
are mainly future-oriented, aimed at making predictions and are influenced by
a generalised mistrust.19 Consequently, risk assessment and insurance are fundamental
for managing the future, organising the social world20 and adopting a ‘calculative
attitude to the open possibilities of action, positive and negative’.21
Psychological mechanisms and feelings like trust, hope, courage, habit and routine
provide the basis for ontological security, carrying ‘the individual through transitions,
crises and risks’.22 These mechanisms operate on an emotional and a cognitive frame,
providing the resources for individual decisions and actions. Consequently, ‘reliability of
persons’ and reliability on one’s social environment—including state institutions, as we
argue here—are the foundations for the ‘coherence of everyday life’.23
Under authoritarian polities, the absence of civil and political freedoms, the arbitrari-
ness stemming from the absence of rule of law and human rights, and continued and
indiscriminate state violence (in multiple forms—physical, psychological, discursive)
against its own citizens promote unpredictability, fear and distrust in state institutions,
individuals, and in the social environment. Increased state power generates greater
encroachments on the private sphere—thus less freedom for the definition of self-
identity—and changes surrounding social and material environments of action, disrupt-
ing established routines. Authoritarianism thus destroys the sense of continuity on
which ontological security depends, generating uncertainty and increased risk.
Understanding the way how individuals respond to authoritarian politics is thus under-
standing how individuals manage ontological insecurity.
For minorities who are victims of stigma, ontological security is continuously chal-
lenged. Victims of stigma bear an undesired difference based on physical deformities,
individual character or ‘tribal stigma of race, nation and religion that can be transmitted
through lineage and equally contaminate all members of a family’.24 Nation-state build-
ing and state violence against ethno-religious minorities not considered integrable in
terms of ethnic or civic citizenship exemplify the differentiated and double-edged nature
of state protection. Victims of stigma feel insecure and they have to be continuously self-
conscious and calculating about the impression they make in front of non-stigmatised
people, in order to prevent danger. The state is thus crucial to either protect them or
worsen their insecurity.
The notion of stigma brings to the fore the concept of agency. Victims of stigma are
not necessarily passive actors waiting for state protection; they have a margin of

16
Elke Krahmann, ‘The Market for Ontological Security’, European Security 27, no. 3 (2018): 361.
17
Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 85.
18
Ulrich Beck and Daniel Levy, ‘Cosmopolitanized Nations: Re-imagining Collectivity in World Risk Society', Theory,
Culture & Society 30, no. 2 (2013): 3.
19
Ulrich Beck, Risk Society. Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage Publications, 1992).
20
Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 3.
21
Ibid., 28.
22
Ibid., 38.
23
Ibid.
24
Erving Goffman, Stigma. Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1963), 4.
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES 5

manoeuvre (socio-historically limited), especially when the stigma is invisible,25 to con-

sciously or unconsciously adapt, develop habitus and manage information about their
identity by concealing, assimilating, developing a protecting circle,26 in order to ensure
self-protection and cope with hostile environments.
In this article, we argue that acquiring Portuguese citizenship constitutes one such
opportunity to cope with a highly stigmatised identity and manage ontological insecur-
ity, demonstrating the agency of Turkish Jews.

The Jewish community and the Turkish state: submission vs. protection
The ambivalence of Turkish state protection of the Jewish community, everyday life
discriminations and past collective traumas, along with a habitus of discretion and the
Jewish allegiance to the state, are key to understanding the socio-historical fabric of
ontological insecurity felt by Turkish Jews and its specificity compared to the Muslim
majority.
Until the Tanzimat reforms, during the Ottoman Empire Jews were dhimmis—‘pro-
tected’ subjects according to the Quran. As ‘pariah people’27 lacking local allies or
foreign state protection, they were not considered as being harmful, benefitting from
state trust.28 Reciprocally, the Jewish community considered the state its ultimate
protector against violence and resentment from society (e.g. persecution due to blood
libels). In exchange for submission, special taxes, and provision of services to sultans (e.g.
know-how, financing, intermediaries with foreign countries) they enjoyed the right to
administer themselves according to their legal practices, although their legal status was
inferior to that of Muslims.29 This ‘royal alliance’ ensured safety, but more dependence
on discretionary state power. Jews were often considered by the Ottoman state as the
‘loyal millet’ compared to Armenians and Greeks, for not having nurtured separatist
ideas or allied with foreign enemies, for having fought for the Ottoman army in World
War I, and because of their relatively weak demographic numbers.30 Ambivalent state
protection is evidenced by violent events: state attempts to repopulate conquered
territories through forced relocation of Jewish subjects, Bayezid II’s campaigns against
new synagogues and pressures to convert Jews to Islam, the massacre of leading Jewish
businessmen in the 1820s.31
Partly driven by a will to protect Ottoman Jews against blood libels and violence, the
Alliance Israélite Universelle, a Paris-based international Jewish organisation founded in
1860, promoted, until the early years of the Turkish Republic, the modernisation and
cultural and social integration of the Jewish community, providing secular education
(including to girls) in French and promoting Western values. Paradoxically, the
25
Ibid.
26
Ibid, 95.
27
Max Weber, Economy and society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978),
493.
28
Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), 102.
29
Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigue, Histoire des Juifs Sépharades. De Tolède à Salonique (Seuil: Paris, 2002), 76.
30
Soner Cagaptay, Islam, Secularism, and Nationalism in Modern Turkey. Who is a Turk? (London and New York:
Routledge, 2006), 24; Marcy Brink-Danan, Jewish Life in 21st Century Turkey. The Other Side of Tolerance
(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2012); Julia Phillips-Cohen, Becoming Ottomans. Sephardi
Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
31
See Phillips-Cohen, Becoming Ottomans.
6 G. ANOUCK RAYMOND CÔRTE-REAL PINTO AND I. DAVID

organisation helped perpetuate ‘Jewish particularism’ by Westernising Jews and making

them Francophone.32
With the creation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the state has officially considered
them a ‘model community’ for their a-political stance and continuous cooperation with
the state, including their adhesion to the Independence War and to Turkification
policies.33 ‘Minorities were accepted as real "Turks" provided they embrace Turkish
language and culture’34—which Turkish Jews did, being the first minority to partially
opt out from the Lausanne Treaty rights35—, but ‘[state officials] interpreted the legisla-
tion and the concept of non-Muslim in a manner that made it very clear that they
considered Turkey as a predominantly Muslim country in which non-Muslim citizens did
not have full rights’.36
The state campaign ‘Vatandas, Türkçe Konus!’ (‘Citizen, speak Turkish!’) promoted
linguistic assimilation, targeting ethno-religious minorities by fuelling animosity towards
citizens who did not speak Turkish, like Jews, who spoke mostly Ladino (Judeo-Spanish)
or French.37 The campaign fuelled anti-Semitic publications in the early 1930s, followed
by the Thrace pogroms in 1934 (encouraged by the state for Turkification and military
purposes), which led to massive exodus of local Jews to Istanbul.38
Forced Turkification of the economy through state discrimination, expropriation of
ethno-religious minorities and the creation of a Muslim bourgeoisie through transfer of
property is illustrated by the 1942 Capital tax. The members of minorities unable to pay
the tax were forced to sell their properties to Muslims at extremely low prices in order to
obtain the necessary money. Those who had no such possibility were sent to labour
camps.39
The multiparty period, inaugurated in 1946, maintained ambivalent state protection.
The Jewish community was affected by the 6–7 September 1955 pogroms, which mainly
targeted the Greek minority.40 Anti-Semitism obtained institutional expression from
1969 with the emergence of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party and with the
first Islamist party in parliament, the National Salvation Party (closed following the 1980
coup and succeeded by the Welfare Party).
In this context of ambiguous state protection, the loyalty of the Jewish community,
particularly of its leadership, to the Turkish state becomes more comprehensible as
a strategy of ontological security. Turkification was not a sufficient condition to demon-
strate allegiance. Reproducing Ottoman ‘Court Jews’, from the 1970s, Turkish Jewish

32
Benbassa and Rodrigue, Histoire des Juifs, 208–264.
33
Sule Toktas, ‘Citizenship and Minorities: A Historical Overview of Turkey’s Jewish Minority’, Journal of Historical
Sociology 18, no. 4 (2005): 396. Rifat N. Bali, Model Citizens of the State. The Jews of Turkey during the Multi-Party
Period (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2012).
34
Rifat N. Bali, The Silent Minority in Turkey: Turkish Jews (Istanbul: Libra Kitap, 2013), 104.
35
Bali, Model Citizens.
36
Bali, The Silent Minority.
37
Cagaptay, Islam, Secularism, 26–27.
38
Ibid, 145–148. See Bali, Model Citizens, 9–10.
39
See Ayhan Aktar, ‘“Tax me to the end of my life”: Anatomy of an Anti-minority Tax Legislation (1942–3)’, in State
Nationalisms in the Ottoman Empire, Greece and Turkey. Orthodox and Muslims, 1830–1945, ed. Benjamin C. Fortna,
Stefanos Katsikas, Dimitris Kamouzis and Paraskevas Konortas (London: Routledge, 2013), 188–220; Ozgur Kaymak,
Istanbul’da Az(inlik) Olmak: Gundelik Hayatta Rumlar, Yahudiler, Ermeniler (Istanbul: Libra Kitap, 2017); Corry Guttstadt,
Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Bali, Model Citizens, 12–13.
40
See Dilek Guven, Cumhuriyet donemi azinlik politikalari ve stratejileri baglaminda, 6–7 Eylul olaylari (Istanbul: Iletisim,
2006); Speros Vryonis, The Mechanisms of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6–7, 1955, and the Destruction
of the Greek Community of Istanbul (New York: Greekworks.com, 2005).
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES 7

elites became international lobbyists and public relations, defending the image of the
Turkish state in the West in order to counter Greek and Armenian lobbies.41 Their role
became more crucial following the end of the Cold War given Western countries’
growing concerns regarding human rights violations in Turkey. Pro-state activities
were made public and institutionalised, as illustrated by the Quincentennial
Foundation,42 created by Turkish ambassadors and the Turkish Jewish elite in 1989 to
mark the 500th anniversary of Sultan Bayezid II’s welcoming of Sephardic Jews escaping
persecution. The foundation promotes abroad, especially in the US, the ‘cosmetised’
discourse of 500 years of peaceful togetherness.43 The Jewish elites have also lobbied for
Turkey’s EU accession for decades.44
Ontological insecurity was magnified by three terrorist attacks on Istanbul synago-
gues in the next decades. In the first, in 1986, attributed to Abu Nidal, two foreigners
targeted Neve Shalom synagogue, killing 22 people.45 In 1992, the same synagogue was
bombed, with no casualties. In 2003, bombings claimed by a Turkish Islamic group on
Neve Shalom and Beth Israel synagogues killed 23 people.46
Distrust in state institutions and elites generated by past events, acceleration of
the EU accession process (partly generated by promises and democratisation reforms
by AKP after its election in 2002), and reassuring discourses of then Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan against anti-Semitism explain initial support of the Jewish
community for the party.47 However, reduced prospects for EU membership,
Islamization policies and Turkey’s ‘exit from democracy’48 after the June 2015 legis-
lative elections renovated ontological insecurity, with the end of the peace process
with the Kurds and particularly with the arbitrary legal measures taken under the
state of emergency following the July 2016 attempted coup. These include detention
of over 150,000 people, arrests of 78,000 people and dismissal of over 110,000 civil
servants.49 The measures target the Gülen movement (accused of authorship of the
coup by AKP) but also those who are critical of the AKP,50 fuelling generalised fear
and lack of future prospects.
The ontological insecurity of the Jewish community is augmented by regular
public outbursts of anti-Semitism and Jewish conspiracies from state officials, includ-
ing President Erdogan, often related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and diplomatic
crises with Israel, especially since the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident,51 which conflate

41
Bali, The Silent Minority, 169–181; Riva Castoriano, ‘L’intégration politique par l’extérieur. La communauté juive de
Turquie’, Revue Française de Science Politique 42, no. 5 (1992): 786–801.
42
http://www.muze500.com/index.php?lang=en.
43
Bali, The Silent Minority, 174–181.
44
Brink-Danan, Jewish Life, ix.
45
Judith Miller, ‘The Istanbul Synagogue Massacre’, The New York Times, 4 January 1987, https://www.nytimes.com/
1987/01/04/magazine/the-istanbul-synagogue-massacre.html.
46
‘Bombings at Istanbul Synagogues Kill 23', Fox News, 16 November 2003, https://www.foxnews.com/story/bombings-
at-istanbul-synagogues-kill-23.
47
Efrat Aviv, Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism in Turkey. From Ottoman Rule to AKP (London and New York: Routledge,
2017), 70.
48
Kerem Oktem and Karabekkir Akkoyunlu, ‘Exit from democracy: illiberal governance in Turkey and beyond’, Southeast
European and Black Sea Studies 16, no. 4 (2016): 469–480.
49
European Commission, Turkey 2018 Report (Brussels: European Commission, 2018), https://ec.europa.eu/neighbour
hood-enlargement/sites/near/files/20180417-turkey-report.pdf.
50
Ibid.
51
See Shira Efron, The Future of Israeli-Turkish Relations (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2018),
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR2400/RR2445/RAND_RR2445.pdf.
8 G. ANOUCK RAYMOND CÔRTE-REAL PINTO AND I. DAVID

anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.52 Criticising Israel and Zionism has become a key
element under AKP, as the defence of Palestine provides a rare consensus among
Islamists, nationalists, leftists and Republican laic groups. Consequently, while reports
of societal prejudice in the 1990s and 2000s attest to prior anti-Semitism in Turkey,53
the latest annual report on hate speech in the Turkish media disclosed Jews as main
victims.54 They are considered enemies, identified with Israel, presented as a threat
against Turkey and framed within a conspiracy mindset.55 Their perception of inse-
curity is reinforced by three other aspects. First, the inefficiency of the justice system
in defending minorities from hate speech, particularly since the loss of prospects for
EU accession. Second, the legal void affecting non-Muslim foundations: since 2013,
religious communities need authorisation from the Istanbul governor to hold elec-
tions until a new regulation is passed,56 making them more dependent on discre-
tionary state power. Third, the perceived disappearance of the Jewish community.
Due to this history, to emigration to Israel after 1948, to political instability, to
a fertility decline and growing assimilation through mixed marriages, the numbers of
Turkish Jews decreased from 81,872, in 1927, to circa 18,500 in 2018.

Methodology
Exhaustive data on Portuguese-Turkish dual citizenship are not publicly available. On
one hand, according to Turkish Civil law, there is no obligation to declare a
citizen’s second citizenship. On the other, the Portuguese Ministry of Justice has full
discretion in sharing or not those data. Accordingly, we opted for a qualitative metho-
dology drawing from 30 semi-structured, in-depth interviews in Turkish, French, English
or Portuguese language between October 2017 and January 2019. 18 were conducted in
Istanbul, four in Portugal (in Lisbon and Oporto), and eight via Skype (one interviewee
was in France, two in Israel, three in Istanbul and two in the US). We interviewed 25
Turkish Jews (13 women, 12 men) aged 19–73. 23 applied for Portuguese citizenship and
two applied for Spanish and Italian citizenship. Eleven received Portuguese citizenship
before our interview. Reasons for not applying, mainly among older people, were also
indirectly studied through interviews with their applicant relatives.
We interviewed two officials of the Portuguese Jewish community of Lisbon and one
official of the Portuguese Jewish Community of Oporto, two Turkish lawyers, one Israeli
lawyer and one Portuguese journalist who wrote an article on the applications in the
Portuguese newspaper Público. Except two interviewees (from Antakya and Adana), all
originate from Istanbul or Izmir.
Initially, we had great difficulties in obtaining interviews, particularly among Jewish
elites and officials, because of a securitarian mindset. Despite one of us being Jewish (a
52
Hrant Dink Foundation, Media Watch on Hate Speech Report May-August 2017 (Istanbul: Hrant Dink Foundation, 2017),
7, https://hrantdink.org/attachments/article/1090/Media-Watch-on-Hate-Speech-Report-May-August-2017.pdf; Aviv,
Anti-Semitism, 141–166, 178.
53
Bali, Model Citizens, 440–442; Aviv, Anti-Semitism, 141–166, 178.
54
Hrant Dink Foundation, Medyada Nefret Soylemi ve Ayrimci Soylem. 2017 Raporu (Istanbul: Hrant Dink Foundation,
2018),
https://hrantdink.org/attachments/article/1265/Nefret_Soylemi_rapor_kapakl%C4%B1_web_2.pdf.
55
Ibid, 17.
56
See Anna Maria Beylunioglu Atli, ‘Freedom of Religion in Turkey between Secular and Islamic Values. The Situation of
Christians’ (PhD diss., European University Institute, 2017).
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES 9

non-practicing Ashkenaz) and living in Turkey for several years, we were considered
double outsiders (neither Turkish nor Sephardic). Some interviewees thought we were
working in disguise for the Portuguese authorities, we were journalists, or spies of the
Turkish state because we speak Turkish. Consequently, we were very cautious with
‘indirect expression’ (non-discursive and unintentional form of communication).57
To overcome lack of trust, we disclosed personal information and used snowball
sampling. Except for two Turkish Sephardic interviewees, all were met through acquain-
tances or recommended by other interviewees. In order to limit the side effects of
snowball samplings, we diversified sources of information by activating professional
and personal relations, strong and ‘weak social ties’,58 and social media. As a result, we
interviewed a high representative of the Turkish Jewish newspaper Shalom (organically
linked to the Turkish Chief Rabbinate59), two representatives of media platform
Avlaremoz, two members of the Advisors Council of the Turkish Chief Rabbinate, one
founding member of the Quincentennial Foundation and one member of the World
Jewish Congress.
Most interviewees required anonymity, fearing media distortion, public retaliation,
anti-Semitism or risking their civil servant position. Accordingly, we only disclose the
initial of their surname, the age and the gender.

Findings: dual citizenship as a new strategy aimed at managing

(ontological) insecurity
Successful Turkification of the remaining Jewish minority? Secularised and
westernised Turkish Jews
All interviewees, except one, had a university degree and liberal and intellectual profes-
sions or were businessmen. They were from middle and upper classes, living in the most
Westernised and secular districts of Istanbul (Besiktas, Levent, Kadikoy). Far from the
image promoted by the 'Vatandas, Turkçe Konus!’ campaign portraying Jews as isolated,
foreign, ignorant of Turkish language and culture and failing to integrate civic nation-
alism, interviewees, particularly the younger generation born after the 1970s, seem to
have been culturally and, to some extent, ‘structurally’ assimilated.60 While criticizing the
one-party period, a majority identify as Ataturkçu—supporters of Ataturk’s reforms that
modernised and Turkified the country. All speak Turkish, considering it their mother
tongue: ‘not because I have to, but because I want to speak Turkish’ (A, 42, M). Some
interviewees regretted that Jewish prayers are in Hebrew instead of Turkish, which
would ensure better comprehension of sacred texts. Ladino is no longer spoken
among the young. All interviewees except one speak at least one European language.
Only two went to Jewish schools before university. The others were educated in private
(non-Jewish) schools, where they socialised with other ethno-religious minorities and
secular Muslim children, but ‘never with conservative Muslims’ (S, 38, M; D, 34, F; M, 40,
F). During childhood and teenage years, most were members of Jewish friendship and
57
Goffman, Stigma, 14.
58
Mark S. Granovetter, ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’, American Journal of Sociology 78, no. 6 (1973): 1360–1380.
59
http://www.salom.com.tr.
60
Structural assimilation means ‘large scale entrance into cliques, clubs and institutions on primary group level’. Milton
Gordon, Human Nature, Class and Ethnicity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 169.
10 G. ANOUCK RAYMOND CÔRTE-REAL PINTO AND I. DAVID

brotherhood organisations (Yildirim, Aleph, Goztepe Kultur Dernegi, etc.) or volunteered.

However, very few among the young generation maintained regular contact with Jewish
public and private institutions after graduating from university.
Interviews also illustrate an accelerated secularisation. Contrary to the older genera-
tion, among the young mixed marriages and love relationships have become the norm,
often despite initial parental disapproval on the Jewish side. Except for one interviewee,
none define themselves as religious, while claiming attachment to Jewish traditions.
Attendance of the synagogue among these interviewees is very low. As one claimed, the
‘heart of Judaism in Turkey is not the synagogue but the house; Jewish traditions pass
through the family’ (J, 38, M).
Consequently, interviewees can be considered ‘an urban cultural elite, initially pro-
moted by the Alliance Israélite Universelle and afterwards by Republican reforms, who
embrace secular, Republican and Western values. This Turkification symbolises alle-
giance to the Turkish state and can be considered a mechanism of ensuring ontological
security. However, assimilation has not prevented them from applying for a second
citizenship.

Incomplete Turkish citizenship: Jewish Turks as eternal guests

‘Receptional assimilation’61—absence of prejudice and discrimination from society and
state—and structural assimilation remain problematic. While all respondents recognised
that anti-Semitism has always existed in Turkey, almost none said they have personally
experienced it, except anti-Semitism originating from taxi drivers. Some explained this
paradox by their pre-selected, ‘privileged’, ‘liberal’, ‘enlightened’ environment: ‘it might
be because I unconsciously select friends and a safe environment. I have always avoided
conflicts’ (S, 37, M); ‘My (non-Jewish) Turkish friends are “enlightened”—liberal and
secular’ (M, 38, F). This ‘protective circle’ allows ‘the stigmatized individual to think he
is more fully accepted as a normal person that in fact is the case’,62 helping him/her
increase ontological security. Within this protective circle, which varies individually,
interviewees mentioned family, the Jewish community, friends from other ethno-
religious minorities and secular Muslim friends, lovers and spouses. ‘Religious people’
and ‘conservative Turkish Muslims’ were explicitly excluded by several interviewees.
Most interviewees consider past and present anti-Semitism in Europe (illustrated by
the Holocaust) worse than Turkish anti-Semitism, qualified as mostly ‘discursive’ and
‘rhetorical’ but magnified by Turkish media and social media (E, 42, F). ‘As long as Turkish
anti-Semitism does not transform into acts, it is ok for Jewish Turks’, explained
a businessman, founding member of the Quincentennial Foundation (A, 73, M).
However, a large majority of interviewees felt being treated differently, never having
been fully recognised as equals by non-Jewish Turks: ‘I have never felt anti-Semitism but
I have never felt a real Turk either’ (M, 37, F). The reactions of Turkish strangers and
authorities to their non-Turkified Sephardic names is almost systematically mentioned as
the everyday life moment when their individuality is dissolved within their communitar-
ian links, when they are reminded of their difference, of their Jewish identity, of their

61
Gordon, Human Nature, 169.
62
Goffman, Stigma, 65.
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES 11

otherness, of their status of ‘local foreigners’63: ‘If I say that I come from Adana, they will
insist and ask where I really come from. Then sometimes I would return the question: we
(Sephardic Jews) have been there for over 500 years, what about your family?’ (J, 38, M).
To minimise those interactions and forced public disclosure of their Jewish identity,
interviewees developed different strategies, e.g. adopting Turkish aliases in public or at
work, or showing official documents to avoid public questions. Only those whose
parents or great parents Turkified family names, as proof of assimilation and to prevent
discrimination (before military service, after traumatic events, etc.), did not feel that
everyday life differentness.
Almost all interviewees recognised the lack of real equal civil and political rights in
Turkey compared to Jewish EU nationals and Turkish Muslims. According to them, if all
Turkish citizens can vote and benefit in theory of equal rights, in practice Turkish Jews
cannot access the public sphere or criticise the state. They cannot become high public
servants either, particularly in the most prestigious state institutions, like the military and
diplomacy. They must remain silent and invisible:

In Turkey, Jews are perceived as monolithic, with a single position, they cannot say how
they see things, they cannot be individuals and emancipate themselves from the commu-
nity. It is easier in Europe to be a leftist Jew or a pro-Israeli Jew. In Turkey, a Jew cannot
access the public sphere. He cannot express different opinions. In France, the Jewish
community expresses a wide range of political opinions. This silence of Turkish Jews is
also due to the Jewish community; they want to be on good terms with the establishment.
It is a strategy of security. (A, 42, M).

Even anti-Semitic discourses and actions, which are supposedly the ‘red line’ for Jewish
officials, are not criticised publicly, especially if those discourses are backed by state
officials. This limitation of Turkish Jews’ citizenship results both from external social
pressure and from the Jewish community’s discretion and self-censorship: ‘Even when
there is hate speech or acts against us, we do not file a complaint for fear this may
worsen our situation’ (I, 65, M). Similarly, the community newspaper Shalom regularly
self-censures articles and anonymises interviewees. Concealing their stigmatised Jewish
identity and silencing collective and family traumas in public are among the many
strategies of identity and protection used by Turkish Jews known in Ladino as
Kayadez. Kayadez is promoted and taught since Ottoman times within different Jewish
institutions: family, synagogues, chief Rabbinate, Jewish friendship and youth organisa-
tions, Shalom and the Quincentennial Foundation.64 As a 50-year-old woman explained,
‘we have been raised since childhood to not attract too much attention, to not talk
loudly or use some words in public (. . .). It was very strange for me when I first went to
Los Angeles during Hanukkah where Jews were so visible, too visible for me’ (C, 50, F).
Contrary to other ethno-religious minorities, even within the ‘protective circle’, Jewish
great parents of interviewees who lived traumatic events, e.g. the 1955 Istanbul
pogroms or the 1942 Capital Tax, do not share them with their children, partly to
facilitate the assimilation of the younger generation.65

63
Kaymak, Istanbul’da Az(inlik); Rita Ender, Ismiyle Yasamak (Istanbul: Iletisim, 2016); Norbert Elias, La Société des
Individus (Paris: Pocket, 1998), 241.
64
See Aviv, Anti-Semitism, 276–281; Bali, The Silent Minority; Kaymak, Istanbul’da Az(inlik); Brink-Danan, Jewish Life.
65
Kaymak, Istanbul’da Az(inlik).
12 G. ANOUCK RAYMOND CÔRTE-REAL PINTO AND I. DAVID

However, those techniques of stigma and risk management have side-effects, namely
the self-limitation of their citizenship and the banalisation of anti-Semitic discourses in
Turkish media. Paradoxically, continuous public gratitude towards Ottoman hospitality
expressed by the Jewish officials promotes the idea of continuous foreignness, erasing
the existence of Romaniot Jews in the Ottoman Empire prior to the arrival of Sephardic
Jews.66 This guest status is so interiorized that when asked why Jews are much less
politically active than the Armenian minority, one Sephardic interviewee said ‘it was
because they (Armenians) have been living here for a longer time than us’, i.e. deserving
more rights than Jews (A, 42, M). The interviews reveal a refusal to remark the disso-
nance between the official narrative of inexistence of anti-Semitism in Turkey and the
experience of discrimination in everyday life. During interviews, some respondents
lowered their voices when mentioning Jew or Israel and continuously checked their
surroundings while claiming there is absolutely no anti-Semitism in Turkey. These facts
can be interpreted as a way of creating a protective cocoon which helps maintain
ontological security and/or as an indicator that interviewees did not fully trust us.
However, among the younger generation there is growing dissatisfaction with the
apolitical (if not pro-state) stance and (self)-censorship of the Jewish community leaders:
‘[they] prefer to complain in private to the government, they are reluctant to explicitly
criticise the state because they fear synagogues will no longer be protected’, explained
an advisor to the Jewish Community. During the Gezi protests,67 several Jewish young
people were arrested. No Jewish officials protected them by saying he is one of them.
Instead, they would say they are fools or even terrorists’ (P, 26, F).
The creation, in 2016, of the independent social media platform Avlaremoz,68 (‘Let’s
talk’, in Ladino) by young Jews and non-Jews, expresses this double challenge to the
Kayadez habitus and to the power of the leaders of the Jewish community. By emanci-
pating themselves from the Rabbinate and Jewish officials, Avlaremoz has opened public
debate on anti-Semitism, ended public silence of the Jewish community on several
political issues (e.g. recognition of the Armenian genocide, the Kurdish issue) and
contributed to a pluralisation of voices, including public criticism of the support of
Jewish community leaders to international Turkish state propaganda.
If keeping a low profile in the public sphere and systematically cooperating with the
state has long been considered a strategy of protection, it is now also seen as a source of
growing ontological insecurity.

End of state protection? Growing safety concerns

Security concerns pre-date AKP rule. Following terrorist attacks against Istanbul synago-
gues (1986, 1992, 2003), public and private security measures increased drastically,
contributing to the ‘fortification’ of Jewish institutions and lower synagogue attendance:
‘synagogues are always heavily guarded, like a castle or an embassy. In 1986 they put
a wall in Neve Shalom. It mitigates risks, but has side effects. How can you feel safe in
a synagogue?’ (S, 38, M)’. We also noticed similar security measures during our visit, in
66
Siren Bora, Anadolu yahudileri: Ege’de Yahudi izleri (Istanbul: Gözlem, 2017).
67
The Gezi protests were the most significant grassroots mobilisations against AKP rule and were brutally repressed on
government orders.
68
http://www.avlaremoz.com.
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES 13

October 2017, to newspaper Shalom: no exterior signs of the newspaper, security guard
with bulletproof vest, ID control, reinforced doors.
While some initially hoped that AKP would end authoritarianism and reconcile Turkish
society, a large majority of interviewees said this momentum has disappeared, partly
due to the loss of EU accession perspectives. For all interviewees, the 15 July 2016
attempted military coup and subsequent massive purges and cancellation of passports
are considered a point of no return (‘kilometre tasi’, ‘kirilma noktasi’). It increased, if not
caused, their interest in dual citizenship, as confirmed by the peak in applications
observed by the three interviewed lawyers. For a minority of Turkish Jews, those events
triggered emigration to Israel, reproducing past aliyahs following the military coups of
1960, 1971 and 1980.69
This fear of an ‘exit from democracy’, shared by most non-AKP supporters, is
increased by their Jewish identity. Recent events challenged the hegemonic discourse
of a tamed Turkish anti-Semitism due to a confusion between anti-Semitism and anti-
Zionism, a Jew and an Israeli, partly promoted by AKP officials. If a large majority of
interviewees acknowledge that anti-Semitism pre-existed AKP, most mentioned that the
mediatisation and instrumentalisation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the party,
nationally and internationally, has negatively impacted the daily life of Jews:

I cannot imagine how a Jewish kid will be treated if a second Mavi Marmara happens or in
case of another conflict between Israel and Palestine, because it will happen for sure. (A,
42, M).

While one interviewee mentioned pressures from the government on rich Jews to sell
their companies, others highlighted the contradictions and double discourses of AKP
towards the Jewish community:

I do not buy the official discourse of cooperation between the AKP and the Rabbinate. It is
hypocrisy. While they (AKP) open a synagogue in Edirne as a proof of goodwill, they let the
synagogue Neve Shalom be attacked, stoned in one of the most guarded places in Turkey
(. . .). Prosecutors did not even sue them (S, 38, M).

This failure to ensure the minimum physical protection of the Jewish community, the
failure of the justice system (translated in the absence of legal procedures) and the lack
of official condemnation from AKP of the July 20 2017 violent protests by Turkish far-
right Islamist groups targeting Neve Shalom synagogue as a retaliation against the
Israeli policy against Palestinians were mentioned by various interviewees as
a worrying sign (I, 58, M; S, 38, M).70 This stands in stark contrast to the 1986, 1992
and 2003 attacks on synagogues, which had not created such a level of anxiety and fear
in the Jewish community, despite costing the lives of 45 people. This is explained by the
fact that these attacks were caused by foreign terrorism and that they were strongly
condemned by the Turkish state.71
Consequently, in sharp contrast with their protective circle, most interviewees
expressed fear of ‘the street guys and mobs’, of those ‘who do not share the same
69
See Sule Toktas, ‘Turkey’s Jews and their Immigration to Israel’, Middle Eastern Studies 42, no. 3 (2006): 505–519.
70
‘Turkish Islamists hold anti-Israel rally at Istanbul synagogue, kick doors’, Times of Israel, 21 July 2017, https://www.
timesofisrael.com/turkish-islamists-hold-anti-israel-rally-outside-istanbul-synagogue/.
71
Kaymak, Istanbul’da Az(inlik).
14 G. ANOUCK RAYMOND CÔRTE-REAL PINTO AND I. DAVID

secular lifestyle and might never have seen a miniskirt in their lives’, ‘the ignorant ones
who cannot see the difference between Israel and Jews, who ‘obey leaders without
thinking’ and ‘can easily lynch you’. Women interviewees mentioned the decrease of
women’s rights and conservative pressure on the female body from Islamists and the
Jewish Lubavitch movement as a major push factor and source of concern impinging on
their identity. If some interviewees acknowledge that anti-Semitism is not the monopoly
of ignorance and is, to some extent, the ‘lowest common denominator between Turkish
leftists, secularists and Islamists’ (A, 42, M), the risks are not considered equal because
‘with educated persons (i.e. leftists and Republicans) you can at least talk. They can hurt
you but not physically. They do not communicate with violence, contrary to ignorant
people’ (S, 38, M). In other words, this securitarian mindset against crowds and an
emerging mass society goes beyond simple fear, reflecting a history of violence against
Ottoman and Turkish Jews and other minorities as well as major sociological changes in
Istanbul, which triggered class and culture conflicts. As an interviewee claimed, ‘we
(ethno-religious minorities) lived there for many generations. We are the real Istanbulu’
(D, 33, F). In light of growing distrust of state protection and fear of lynching (echoing
past suppressed traumatic events and challenging the alliance between Jewish officials
and the state), dual citizenship reflects a strategy of protection against ontological
insecurity for stigmatised people.

Deciding on applying for Portuguese citizenship

Before the Portuguese law, Turkish Jews had two options based on their ancestry: the
Israeli (since 1950) and the Spanish (since 1924, for Sephardic Jews) citizenships. The
Israeli option is the most restrictive in terms of duties, requiring residence and military
service. For several interviewees, Israel is no longer considered a safe haven due to
ongoing violence (S, 38, M; A, 42, M). As explained one self-claimed Zionist, ‘Israel
remains a Middle Eastern country: unstable and unsafe’ (A, 42, M). Spanish citizenship
became popular with the Jewish community for the past ten years, but was very
uncertain and expensive, between 10,000 and 20,000 euros depending on the lawyer:
‘only very wealthy families could risk this investment or bet on it if you prefer’ (D, 33, F).
The new 2015 Spanish law made procedures much more affordable, but language and
culture tests render it difficult to obtain.72
Conversely, the Portuguese law is considered the most accessible, flexible and fastest,
lacking the requirements of the other two. The Portuguese law became known in late
2015, following a meeting at an Istanbul Jewish school, where lawyers and a prominent
Jewish family explained the requirements and promoted Portuguese citizenship. The
role of middlemen, as illustrated by this family, is, as we realized from our fieldwork, of
paramount importance. For a fee, they guide and connect many interviewees and other
applicants with Portuguese lawyers (who handle the paperwork) and with the
Portuguese Jewish communities, whose tasks are to attest the veracity of applicants’
Sephardic origins. On the other hand, solidarity—free exchange of information and
experiences among friends and members of the Jewish community—has also been

72
See Official Bulletin, no. 7045, pp. 52,557–52,564, 25 June 2015: http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2015/06/25/pdfs/BOE-
A-2015-7045.pdf. 2,693 Turkish Jews (circa 14,5% of the community) have so far obtained the Spanish citizenship:
https://elpais.com/politica/2018/11/17/actualidad/1542476664_339040.html.
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES 15

crucial to promote this option, understand the procedures and compensate for the
limited capacity of the Portuguese consular services in Turkey.
The attractiveness of the Portuguese citizenship varies. For the older, unemployed,
religious and Zionists, Israeli citizenship remains the best, if not the only, option,
illustrated by past emigration waves. Except for the more affluent and mobile (most of
whom already had Spanish citizenship before the 2015 law), interest in Portuguese
citizenship decreases for those older than 50 years, as confirmed by the fact that most
of the parents and grandparents of interviewees have not applied because of their lack
of will and difficulties to change their social environment: ‘My father is too attached to
Turkey. He wants to die here’ (E, 37, F). Similarly, a Turkish Sephardic couple in their 80s
stated that the reason for not applying for Portuguese citizenship was that they were
‘too old to change country’.73

Escaping Turkey? A last resort option

Obtaining a second citizenship does not (yet) equate emigration, as only four intervie-
wees plan to leave. Their cultural, structural (including good professional integration),
marital and ‘identificational assimilation’74 explains this: ‘I will be the last Mohican’, ‘I will
be the last one to leave. I love Istanbul so much’, ‘I did not apply in order to escape (. . .)
because everything attaches me to Turkey: language, land, music, literature’ (A, 44, F).
A second citizenship is considered an insurance for their children’s future, a last resort,
a contingency plan in case of growing violence, an ‘emergency call to save one’s life’ (C,
50, F), ‘a backup plan, since history has shown they (Turkish Muslims) do not like us’ (D,
33, F). While not disclosing what particular event could trigger their departure from
Turkey, interviewees mentioned differing destinations in case of leaving, depending on
age, gender, class and education. Except for two, none consider moving to Portugal
because of language barriers, little knowledge of the country, lack of relatives there, or
the small size of the Portuguese Jewish community.
As a result, Portuguese citizenship is perceived as a flexible citizenship, disconnected
from national obligations and attachment. Its main attractiveness stems from its ability
to increase one’s mobility potential and protection. Obtaining Portuguese citizenship
has thus contributed to improving applicants’ ontological security by ensuring
a potential exit from an increasingly volatile environment and paradoxically prevented
their emigration so far.

Conclusions
This exploratory study has endeavoured to interpret the rationalities behind the applica-
tions for Portuguese citizenship by Turkish Jews based on an exploratory qualitative
approach. Our findings confirmed the interpretive hypothesis: obtaining a second citi-
zenship constitutes, for interviewees, a ‘private’ insurance policy against ontological

73
‘500 anos depois, os Habib andam à procura de casa em Portugal’, Público, 29 January 2017, https://www.publico.pt/
2017/01/29/sociedade/reportagem/500-anos-depois-os-habib-andam-a-procura-de-casa-em-portugal-1758624.
74
‘Development of sense of peoplehood based exclusively on host society’. Gordon, Human Nature, 169.
16 G. ANOUCK RAYMOND CÔRTE-REAL PINTO AND I. DAVID

insecurity stemming from authoritarianism, perceived de-secularisation, and growing

anti-Semitism.
Under AKP governments, applicants feel they are doubly discriminated for their
secular and westernized lifestyle and for their Jewish identity. While obtaining a US or
EU citizenship is a growing practice among secular and westernized Turks, the motiva-
tions of Jewish applicants for Portuguese citizenship we interviewed are partly specific
to their Jewish identity. Contrary to secular Muslims, their perception of risk and
expectations are also determined by their past collective traumas and their dependence
on the state, considered as their sole protector against grassroots anti-Semitism and
violence.
The banalisation of anti-Semitic discourses tolerated, if not promoted, by AKP in the
context of Israel-Turkey diplomatic crises, together with the failure of the Turkish state to
protect the Jewish minority and its institutions, have reawakened the memory of past
violence, challenged state legitimacy and the traditional alliance between Jewish com-
munity and the state. This worsened their ontological insecurity, revealing a dissonance
with the hegemonic discourse of 500 years of peaceful togetherness. The reliability of
the surrounding social and material environments of action has been disrupted. The
perceived inefficiency and ambivalence of their Turkification and of the habitus of
discretion and invisibility in the public sphere, Kayadez, has additionally disrupted
a routine that had until now reduced their ontological insecurity.
As a complement and (potential) substitute of perceived declining Turkish state
protection, interviewees opted for a new strategy in order to reduce growing ontologi-
cal insecurity: applying for a second citizenship from an EU country. However, obtaining
Portuguese citizenship does not (yet) equate emigration from Turkey. It is rather per-
ceived as a flexible and a-national citizenship, devoid of any obligations but ensuring
free movement. Thus, it represents and offers a potential escape and protection from
a volatile environment.
As a non-confrontational, apolitical and discrete mechanism of seeking protection
against a stigmatised identity, this strategy is ambivalent: while it seems to challenge
path dependence, it is determined by a habitus of public invisibility that is socio-
historically determined. As such, it reveals a feeling of ‘powerlessness’75 to change the
current social and material environments of action in Turkey.
Further research on this subject could address the extent to which obtaining an EU
passport has also pushed Muslim Turks to claim their Sephardic origins, contributing, to
some extent, to a reversal of the Jewish stigma, now associated with a privileged status.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID
Isabel David http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1734-6457

75
Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 191.