Stephen M. Flatow, the father of Alisa Flatow, H’yd, who was murdered in a terror attack in Israel in 1995, wrote an article describing disturbing details about the threatening atmosphere for Turkish Jews in President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey.

The article, published in Arutz Sheva, comes after a group of Jews who were on their way to the Neve Shalom shul in Istanbul on the last night of Chanukah came under attack by a pro-Palestinian mob who screamed chants of “We don’t want Zionists in this country.”

Flatow wrote, “Turkey is no longer merely hostile to Israel. Under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it has embraced a campaign of incitement that is destabilizing the Middle East—and placing Turkey’s own Jewish citizens in growing danger.

For years, Ankara tried to posture as a regional power that could attack Israel rhetorically while preserving internal order. That illusion collapsed in 2025, as anti-Israel obsession hardened into street violence, legal persecution, and official policies that deliberately blur—and often erase—the distinction between Zionists, Israelis, and Jews.

The most disturbing proof came on December 21, when Jewish worshippers in Istanbul were attacked while walking to light Hanukkah candles at the Neve Shalom Synagogue. A hostile mob shouted, “we don’t want Zionists,” and demanded they leave the country. The incident reportedly followed online calls to protest the event because it was organized by a “pro-IDF” Jewish guide. In today’s Turkey, that label alone is enough to place Jews in physical danger.

This was not an isolated incident. Throughout 2025, mass anti-Israel demonstrations swept Turkey’s major cities, many marked by openly threatening rhetoric. Protests targeted Israeli-linked defense contractors and demanded harsher government action against the Jewish state. The U.S. Embassy in Ankara issued repeated security warnings – a remarkable step for a NATO ally and an unmistakable sign that the atmosphere Erdoğan has fostered is spinning beyond control.

Rather than tamping down the flames, the Turkish government has actively stoked them. Istanbul prosecutors issued symbolic arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and senior officials on genocide charges – legally meaningless but politically poisonous. Islamist parties allied with Erdoğan have proposed stripping Turkish citizenship from dual nationals who served in the Israel Defense Forces and confiscating their assets. The message to Turkey’s Jews could not be clearer: connection to Israel will cost you your rights.

The incitement flows directly from the top. Erdoğan has repeatedly accused Israel of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes from the world’s most prominent stages, including the United Nations. This is not diplomacy; it is ideological warfare. When a head of state brands the Jewish state as criminal and illegitimate, Jews within his own borders inevitably become targets.

Turkey has now severed diplomatic and trade ties with Israel, closed its airspace to Israeli planes, and openly aligned itself with Islamist actors hostile to the Jewish state. Its regional behavior—from Gaza to Syria—reflects not strategic restraint, but ideological zeal. The result has been increased instability and emboldened extremists.

Human rights monitors have documented what Turkey’s Jews already feel daily: discrimination against religious minorities is no longer episodic but systemic. Reports of “Jews Not Allowed” signs, taxi drivers refusing Israeli passengers, and the normalization of Nazi imagery online are no longer fringe phenomena. They are symptoms of a society where antisemitism is increasingly tolerated—and sometimes encouraged.

History is unforgiving on this point. When governments incite against Israel, Jews at home pay the price. Turkey’s Jewish community—ancient, loyal, and shrinking—now lives under a regime that treats Zionism as treason and Jewish identity as suspect.

Turkey’s Jews are learning the oldest lesson of exile: when a regime wages war on the Jewish state, Jews at home become the enemy. Erdoğan may target Israel, but it is Turkish Jews who are paying the price.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)