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Turkish chief rabbi dead at 84

According to local media, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called leaders of the Jewish community to convey his condolences.

By JNS

Turkish Chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva died on Tuesday at the age of 84 after serving for 23 years in the position, the country’s Chief Rabbinate said.

“We mourn the departure of our hakham bashi [chief rabbi], Ishak Haleva, who always believed in unity, peace, and love. He led our community with this belief for many years,” the body stated.

Haleva became the chief rabbi of the Muslim-majority nation in 2002, succeeding Chief Rabbi David Asseo.

During his tenure, Haleva also served on the Presidium Council of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States and taught Jewish history and Hebrew at Turkish universities.

The Istanbul-based Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States mourned Haleva as “our rabbi and teacher, member and president of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, the leader of Turkish Jewry, the chief rabbi.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the rabbi would be remembered as “a great leader and educator, a man who not only led the historic Jewish community in Turkey, but was a champion of dialogue and friendship between peoples of all faiths, especially between Jews and Muslims.”

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The legacy of Haleva, who was born in Istanbul in 1940 and received his education at Jerusalem’s Sephardic Porat Yosef Yeshivah, “will serve as a guiding light for many generations to come,” he added.

“I will never forget the moving moments of prayer we shared together with the community at the synagogue in Istanbul when they hosted me there a few years ago,” stated Herzog in a social media post.

According to local media, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called leaders of the Jewish community to convey his condolences.

Though the vast majority of Turkish Jews have immigrated to Israel in recent decades, the country still has a Jewish population estimated at 15,000 to 20,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Istanbul.

Non-Muslim citizens of Turkey, including Jews, suffer from institutional violations of their freedom of religion, according to a 2022 report.

Erdoğan has become more hostile toward Israel and closer to Hamas since the terrorist group’s assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

In May, the Turkish leader called Netanyahu a “vampire who feeds on blood,” and urged Muslims to fight the Jewish state. Two months later, Erdoğan told Newsweek that Palestinian terrorists from the Gaza Strip were “simply defending their homes, streets and homeland” on Oct. 7.