Jewish Culture Day in Turkey

The European Day of Jewish Culture took place Sept. 7, and reports are coming in about how events were celebrated around the continent. Turnout appears to have been high in many places.

The Turkish Daily News reports from Istanbul:

Tünel's music store-lined streets are rarely quiet. But walking through the area Sunday, one could hear some very unfamiliar sounds, from a klezmer, to a maftirim choir, to Hebrew love poetry for the land of Israel.This was less an invasion than a return. For this year's European Day of Jewish Culture, a celebration of Jewish traditions held in cities across Europe, became for Istanbul's Jews a re-creation of a time when they were a vital, even dominant, part of the area, and when it would not have been unusual in the Galata area to be guided from synagogue to synagogue by Hebrew chants.

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