https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9288-5840
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ABSTRACT
Turkish Jewish culture is largely unknown within Turkey due to various reasons, including demographic and historical factors. Negative stereotypes about Jews in Turkish film and television have further contributed to this lack of understanding. The ground-breaking television series, The Club, produced for Netflix, showcases Turkish Jews as its main characters and highlights their Sephardic heritage. We believe that media plays an important role in educating the public and shaping perceptions. To explore this, we conducted thirty in-depth, semi-structured interviews using the snowball method to investigate the impact of the series on the audience’s knowledge of Turkish Jews. Our findings suggest that The Club has helped raise awareness about Turkish Jews, Sephardic culture, and Judaism among the research sample, as it presents a non-stereotypical portrayal of its Jewish characters.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the editors and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments to improve this article. We also thank Josey Ozdil for his insightful comments on the Turkish Jewish community and Odin Ozdil for providing thoughful feedback on the latest version of the article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Brink-Dannan, ‘Names That Show,’ and Toktaş, ‘Citizenship and Minorities.’
2 Baer, Sultanic Saviors, 14, and Yosmaoğlu and Öktem, ‘Turkish Jews,’ 11–31.
3 Yosmaoğlu and Öktem, ‘Turkish Jews,’ and Baer, Sultanic Saviors, 80–88.
4 Aktar, Varlık Vergisi, 64.
5 Zürcher, The Young Turk Legacy, 280.
6 Bali, Antisemitism, 113, and Valansi, The Crescent Moon, 68–86.
7 Aktar, Varlık Vergisi; Aviv, Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism, 35–38; and Toktaş and Kılınç, ‘Jewish Immigration'.
8 See Bali, Antisemitism, and Aktar, Varlık Vergisi.
9 Brink-Dannan, ‘Names that show time,’ 385.
10 McQuail, McQuail’s Reader, 110.
11 Bayles, Through A Screen, 28–46.
12 Gerbner and Gross, ‘Living with television.’
13 Ibid.
14 Gerbner, et. al., ‘The mainstreaming.’
15 İbid.
16 Ibid.
17 Scharrer, ‘Television and gender roles.’
18 DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach, Theories of Mass Communication. 258–264.
19 Gerbner and Gross, ‘Living with television.’
20 Hall, ‘The Work.’
21 Mastro and Behm-Morawitz, ‘Latino Representation’;. Signorelli, ‘Minorities Representation’; and Mastro and Greenberg, ‘The Portrayal.’
22 Tukachinsky, Mastro and Yarchi, ‘Documenting Portrayals.’
23 Akser,‘Turkey and the West.’
24 Balci Gülpınar, ‘Agop, Salomon.’
25 Munavar and Khan, ‘Cultivation.’
26 Fields, ‘Where My Dreidel,’ and Stein, ‘Representation of Jews,’ 5–11.
27 Ildır and Çelik Rappas, ‘Netflix in Turkey,’ 259, and Yanardağoğlu and Turhallı, ‘From TRT to Netflix.’
28 Akser, ‘Turkish Online Film,’ 119.
29 Ildır and Çelik Rappas, ‘Netflix in Turkey,’ 257.
30 Cankara, ‘May A Wasp.’
31 Çoban, ‘Various Representations’, 1.
32 Balcı, Yeşilçam Sinemasında Gayrimüslim, 144.
33 Çoban, ‘Various Representations,’ 1.
34 See Balcı, Yeşilçam’da Öteki Olmak.
35 Balcı, Yeşilçam Sinemasında Gayrimüslim, 108.
36 Balcı, Yeşilçam Sinemasında Gayrimüslim, 162-179; Lüleci and Nas, ‘Türk sinemasında aınlıklar’; Yılmazok, ‘Persistent Othering’; and Cankara, ‘May A Wasp.’
37 Çoban, ‘Various Representations,’ 6; Lüleci and Nas, 'Türk sinemasında aınlıklar,’ 13; and Aviv, Antisemitism and Antizionism, 19.
38 Baer, ‘An Enemy,’; Bali, Antisemitism and Conspiracy Theories and Devlet’in Yahudileri; and Lamprou, ‘The Journal İnkılap.’
39 Çoban, ‘Various Representations,’ 8.
40 Balcı, Yeşilçam Sinemasında Gayrimüslim, 177.
41 Lüleci and Nas, ‘Türk sinemasında aınlıklar.’
42 Balcı, Yeşilçam Sinemasında Gayrimüslim, 177.
43 Balcı Gülpınar, ‘Agop, Salomon,’ 11, and Çoban, ‘Various Representations,’ 6–8.
44 Çoban, ‘Various Representations,’ 14.
45 Karanfil, ‘Becoming Undone,’ 61–75.
46 Çoban, ‘Various Representations,’ 15.
47 Dönme are a closed Turkish community made up of ex-Jews who converted to Islam during the Ottoman period.
48 Çoban, ‘Various Representations,’ 20.
49 Balcı, Yeşilçam Sinemasında Gayrimüslim, 220-221, and Balcı, ‘Agop, Salomon,’ 8-9.
50 Çoban, ‘Various Representations,’ 22.
51 Çoban, ‘Various Representations,’ 24.
52 Çoban, ‘Various Representations,’ 11.
53 Selçuk, ‘Kurtlar Vadisi Irak.’
54 Çoban, ‘Various Representations,’ 22.
55 Carney, ‘Genre Strikes Back.’
56 Cohen Yanarocak, ‘Decoding Payitaht,’ 4-7, and Çevik and Friedman, ‘Turkey’s Soldier’s Matrix.’
57 Aviv, Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism, 151-155; Nefes, ‘Understanding Anti-semitic Rhetoric’; and Çevik, ‘The Empire Strikes Back’; also see works of Bali (cited above in note 38).
58 Klein, ‘Netflix’s,’ par. # 4
59 Cohen Yanarocak, The Erdoğan Revolution, 31.
60 Fishman, ‘Creating [Jewish] Sites.’
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Senem B. Çevik
Senem B. Çevik is a communications scholar focusing on the intersectionality of media, identity, and politics in Turkey. Her publications on Turkish television series have appeared in Middle East Critique and Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.
Esra Aydın Kılıç
Esra Aydın Kılıç is a communications scholar focusing on studies that examine the effect of communication tools on audience, consumer and voter behavior, with an emphasis on Turkey and Northern Cyprus.