JERUSALEM (JTA) — Yad Vashem is partnering with UNESCO’s Aladdin Project to hold a Holocaust education seminar in Turkey.
Some 20 academics who teach in private and public universities in Turkey will participate in the program organized by the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem in cooperation with the Aladdin Project and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance at Galatasaray University in Istanbul.
The Aladdin Project to promote intercultural relations between Muslims and Jews was launched by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in March 2009, and has since been supported by more than 1,000 intellectuals, academics and public figures from over 50 countries in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America.
Thursday’s seminar is the first of a five-part educational initiative for Turkish academics on Holocaust education and anti-Semitism.
In June, the group will visit Jerusalem for a weeklong seminar at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies.
The seminar comes the same week that the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported that anti-Semitism triggered by the deteriorating relationship between Turkey and Israel is spurring young Turkish Jews to leave the country.
Hundreds of young Turkish Jews have immigrated to the United States or Europe in recent years, Nesim Guvenis, deputy chairman the Association of Turkish Jews in Israel, told the Hurriyet Daily News.
Guvenis told Hurriyet that the unease of Jews in Turkey became exacerbated after the Mavi Marmara incident in May 2010, when Israeli commandos killed nine Turkish citizens while intercepting the ship attempting to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza.
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