AN ISRAELI IN ISTANBUL

It’s been already a week or so that I am back in Israel after having visited Istanbul for 3 days and Ukraine for 1.5 weeks. With my fiancee Lena on my side we had quite an interesting time in those two countries I have never been to before. In the Ukrainian cities of Kiev and Kherson I have just been a regular tourist, you know, walking around the cities, visiting family and sites, shopping and taking pictures, enjoying my morning Rajenka-drink and so on, but during my time in Istanbul I felt like on some kind of a mission.

A few days before we left for Turkey I was sitting with an Israeli friend of mine who works in the field of ”international relations”. We spoke about Turkey and the Turkish people and he said that Turks hate Jews in general and us Israelis in particular “from the bottom of their hearts”. I replied that I got to know lots of Turks in Germany, some of them never said one wrong word against the Jews or Israel, in contrast, they used to curse the Arabs and not the Jews. Yes, some Turks, usually the ones who were raised with a strong Islamic education or the ones hanging out with Arabs got brainwashed and did show me their hatred towards Jews and Israel, but that was by far not every Turk and by far not “from the bottom of their hearts”. My friend nodded and said that he understands and knows that Turks living in Germany are not like the Turks living in Turkey, and suddenly I remembered one of my Turkish friends from Berlin who once told me exactly the same about the Turks in Turkey “they are backward people”, he used to say. My Israeli friend recommended that I better do not tell anybody in Istanbul that I am from Israel. He said: “if people ask you, tell them you are from Germany. Why taking risks?”.

I understood and thanked him for the advice but in the end did the opposite. I wanted to see reactions. I wanted to feel what the average Turk in Turkey says to an Israeli once he stands in front of him and proudly says that he is from Israel.

Day 1) Turkish Airlines took us savely to Istanbul. We knew that there was one metro we could take from the airport to the area of our hotel. On the way out of the airport we were surrounded by taxidrivers whose job is to talk “very very friendly” to visitors and offer their taxiservice to the hotel. “Very very friendly” I thanked them in broken Turkish and told them that we prefer to take the metro, not only because it is much cheaper but because we wanted to get a feeling of the Turkish people in the streets and in the metro right from the very start. Those taxidrivers were a fu..ing pain in the neck. They did not want to leave us. In the end they figured out that there is nothing to do and they left. Meanwhile I got the first headache, but nevermind I said to myself, everything’s gonna be alright. We had to take two metro-lines to get to our final destination: Eminonu. The metro was packed. I mean really packed. Unbelievable how many people were standing around us in one cabin, but I could not move one cm and there was no air to breathe. Puhh, at least we managed to catch a seat for Lena, so at least she was lucky not to stand in the middle of dozens of sweating men. My first impression was that 95% of the people in the metro were male passengers. Almost no female passengers were present. Kind of weird I thought.

In the end we got to the Eminonu-station, got of the metro and walked around asking people for our hotel, the Ottoman Legacy Hotel, where I have booked for two nights. No matter if I asked them in Turkish or English, people usually had a hard time answering, and if they answered they did not know anything. Very weird, too. In the end we found the hotel which was actually right around the corner from the metro-station and we entered a huge lobby, something similar to the King David lobby in Jerusalem, only cheaper. We had our room in the 5th floor and a bellboy insisted to help us with our bag. I tried to make him leave us and told him: “its ok, I don’t need your help. Look at me, I am still young and strong to carry my own bag a few more meters. Thank you.” But it didn’t help. He sticked to my ass and accompanied us all the way to our room. In the elevator he asked me where we are from and for the first time I could say Israel. He was not all too surprised and had a neutral reaction, and I asked myself, is anybody neutral concerning Israel? No. But he had a job to do and did not really want to have a conversation with me, that’s what I felt in this moment. Finally we arrived at room 513, the bellboy opened the door, put the bag in the room and stood there looking at me, not moving. I understood, he wanted tip, but I still had not have the time to change money, what was left was a few Turkish Lira, which remained from the metro ride. I pulled out 1 Lira, around 50 Cent, gave it to him and said: “Cok Tessekur Ederim” (thank you very much), even though he didn’t really do anything. He looked at the coin, looked at me, said thank you in English and gave me my 1 Lira back again while saying: “Later, when you check out”. He left the room and me and Lena looked at each other and couldn’t believe it. Did he really believe that we will give him more than that on the last day?? Puhhh, again, I was somehow shocked by the attitude of the guy but whatever, I was looking forward to have my first Doener Kebab. 

We changed some money and started to walk around the Old City of Istanbul, Laleli area, Eminonu, Old Bazaar. On our way we passed a few huge old mosques, like the Sultanahmet Mosque:          

Weather was beautiful, lots of tourists were around and we had a great time walking up and down Istanbul. And then I had my first Durum Doener. 7 Lira I paid and got it with a 0.5 Coke and I was sooooo dissapointed. I couldn’t believe it, even though friends of mine warned me and said that nowhere on earth Doener tastes like in Berlin, I was amazed how right they were. It was disgusting. Simply disgusting. Nevertheless I wanted to give Istanbul’s Doener Kebab  a chance and decided to have another one in  the evening. 

Istanbul is a wonderfull city, full of people, too many people. Too many people who can’t just let you pass without annoying you, you the tourist. I had my second headache since every few seconds some other guy came up to us trying to sell something. And quite a few times they asked me where we are from. I always said Israel and most of the times there was no real reaction. Only a suspicious glance. I tried to understand why they did not react and only gave me a gentle “aha, Israel!” Probably they did not feel very positive towards Israel, since I interpret ”no reaction” as a “bad reaction” and no warm words really helped me start a conversation in order to bolster the friendship between Turkey and Israel, between the Turkish- and the Jewish nation.

We were very much exhausted from too many “no, thank you, we don’t want to buy shoes/T-shirts/belts/bags////// Day 1 was over. Thank God.

Day 2) After enjoying one of the best breakfasts ever in our perfectly located hotel right in front of the Golden Horn, we went on a voyage by ship from Istanbul-Eminonu in the direction of the Black Sea. With us on the ship were lots of English-Spanish- Dutch- and Japanese-speakers. A few Turks, most probably not from Istanbul, were on the ship as well. After two hours we left the ship and climbed up a mountain on whose top the remains of an ancient fortress were told us to be. The ancient fortress was almost not visible, only a few stones were left over, but the view from the top of the mountain was one of the best views I have personally ever had in my life. All around us water and mountains. To the left the last shadows of the Turkish metropolis, to the right the beginnings of the Black Sea. This view was almost as fascinating as the view from the Corcovado and the Pan de Azucar in Rio de Janeiro, which rocked me 4 yours ago, when I visited Brazil.     

In the evening we decided to leave the Old City areas of Istanbul and visit the modern city. Istanbul’s European part, which is divided by the Golden Horn, has its traditional and ancient region to the south of the bridges which connect the European parts, and the modern areas to the north of it. Taksim was said to be the modern city center of Istanbul, so we were very curious to meet modern Istanbul. From our hotel we passed over the bridge and walked about half an hour and reached Taksim. I have never seen so crowded streets before. So many young people, dressed like in western Europe. Not one woman far and wide who wore a headscarf. Not one. Contrary to the Old City area where we saw lots of traditional women in Taksim people looked like youngsters in Tel Aviv, Paris or Berlin. We had some very tasty Iskender Doener and went shopping for the rest of the evening. Each of the young shopowners asked me where we are from and finally I had some real reactions, once they knew that we were from Israel. Now, almost every young men who spoke to me showed me a relatively positive reaction and 9 in 10 right away said: “You know Revivo and Balili?” I smiled and was very happy that they liked the Israeli soccer players, one of them playing in Turkey till this day. What a difference I noticed between Taksim and the Old City region. As if these two parts had nothing in common, absolutely nothing.

Day 3) Last but not least Lena and I decided to visit some Jewish site. The only one marked on our books and maps was the ancient Synagogue in the European Balat area of Istanbul. From our hotel we walked one hour west on the shores of the Golden Horn and reached the Balat area, which was some kind of ghetto. Houses were rarely populated, lots of houses had neither roof nor windows; people looked really poor and the closer we came to the Synagogue, the more women with headscarfs and men with long beards were seeable. Almost there we asked a young men my age if he could help us find the ancient Synagogue, he said yes and told us to follow him. While we were walking I asked  him what he thinks about Israel and he replied: ” You know, this is a very traditional area. Very traditional.” We spoke in English. After maybe 200 meters he showed us a red house in the end of the street and said: “there is your Synagogue. It doesn’t work any more”. Very politely I said: “thank you very much”, shook his hand and wanted to go. Then he asked me to clean my shoes (he was carrying some shoe-cleaning material in his hands). I refused but he didn’t accept. Lena became very nervous since suddenly lots of bearded men looked out of the windows around us and said: “money, money!” Our new shoeshine boy-friend told us about his kids who are ill and in the hospital and that he needs money to pay their surgeries. I gave him a 20 Lira bill (around 10 Euro) and told him to take 5 Lira for his 10 second work. He looked at me angrily and said: “what, 5 Lira? Each shoe costs 35 Lira! Together 70 Lira, i.e. 35 Euro (for 10 seconds cleaning my shoes!!!) I told you, my kids are ill!”. I couldn’t believe it. This was really not the most comfortable situation ( third headache on third day). We were in some kind of ghetto and had no idea how many men would jump out the houses around us if I would knock him down and he would call for their help. I preferred to avoid confrontation and decided to speak to him in Turkish in order to calm the situation. In Turkish I told him: “I have lots of Turkish friends and what you do is not right.” Apparently he was shocked, looked at me for a second, shook my hands and left. At least we got the picture in front of the ancient Synagogue.. .      

Well, Istanbul would have been much more fun without the many Turks annoying tourists everywhere you walk (except in Taksim) and unfortunately one of our last experiences was very negative (shoeshine man in Balat). But Istanbul is beautiful and we both do not regret one second of our visit. Ok, maybe we would not visit Balat a second time. 

Shalom & Gorusurus Istanbul.