Great Contribution From a High School Student to Tire´s Jewish Heritage

Translation by Janet MITRANI

Yiğit Özalp told us how his interest in the cultural heritage of the Jews of Tire had started and what he did by himself within the scope of this study:

"As you know once there was a Jewish presence in Tire as well as Izmir. This population ended with the death of Sami Günel from the Beja family, publicly known as 'Eczaci [Pharmacist] Sami', in 2009. However, the Jewish cultural heritage in Tire always preserved itself in memories, recollections, and within the city's culture.

The Tuesday Market of Tire is well-known. As I was helping two old ladies coming back from the market on one Tuesday, things unraveled with my learning that their houses were in the Jewish Quarter. I was unaware of this existence previously. Later I read the books on Tire Jews of Munis Armağan, a historian from Tire, and Siren Bora and I reviewed the research done. I started meeting people in Tire who knew Jews. I've come across ones who cried and I've seen ones talking about the Jewish girl he was in love with, but in the end, things I was continuously told were stories that made one emotional and smile.

I was really moved by this and took a step to realize the 'Tire Jews With the Last Living Witnesses' Project. I got in touch with our Jewish citizens who had been born and grown up in Tire such as Avram Cen, Naomi Amado, Avraham Galante, Jale Beja, and Yossi Kohen. I've talked to the children and even the grandchildren of the Jews of Tire. I also carried out and recorded my interviews with the people of Tire and performed an oral history study.

The Jews of Tire section added to the Tire Town Museum

Since it was not possible to reach all of them face-to-face I found the Jewish citizens from Tire and of Tire origin, not only in Izmir and Tire, but also from the USA, Argentina, Uruguay, Israel, France, and Canada."

Yiğit Özalp's study did not end there. Getting in touch with the Tire Town Museum, he conveyed the necessity of opening a section on Jews in the museum. Initiating the signing of a protocol between his school and the museum, he provided that a section on Jews was indeed opened in the museum.

Yiğit Özalp then turned his accomplishments into a TUBITAK (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye) project and entered the competition among high schools. His project made the first 1000 among the 27,000 projects from all around Turkey. Therefore, Özalp qualified for the Aegean Regional Finals.

Finally, 19-year-old Özalp expressed his thoughts on the subject as follows:

"In fact, I am neither from Tire nor a Jew. However, I took a step by myself as a nineteen-year-old, because I was really moved by the relationship between the two communities and because this cultural heritage would disappear if no one took action, and this project came to be."

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