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Jewish Orphanage, Istanbul, Turkey

Description

Jewish Orphanage of Ortaköy
The orphanage was founded in the very early 1920s, perhaps a few years earlier. In Ortaköy (Ortakeuy) there has been a Jewish community since the Byzantine era. It rests on the European bank of the Bosphorus Strait, or the Strait of Istanbul, which divides Istanbul, and to a larger extent geographical Asian and European Turkey. The population of the small village cared little about the limited space afforded it throughout the centuries. Muslims, Greeks, and Armenians coexisted in the tight space, and each community boasted their own religious structures within a 500 square meter surface. [1]

With the shifting political tides in the 1920s for the Ottoman Empire and its constituent parts endured a change in status which couldn’t be helped under the newly implemented Treaty of Lausanne (1923). Turkish Nationalists discovered that within a modern, secular state, separate non-secular legal systems could not coexist. In September of 1925, the Jewish community renounced Article 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne to the Ministry of Justice. New regulations enforced by the state left the Chief Rabbinate in a weakened position, thus his responsibilities were relinquished, and communities were left without distinct leadership as they had so maintained for centuries. [7] The Istanbul director of finance declared hospitals, synagogues, and establishments such as the Ortaköy orphanage as charitable institutions.  This affirmation implied drastic changes for leadership and coordination of community organizations, and especially introduced
requirements to pay taxes on any donations or inheritances received. However, outside of a parliamentary context, life went on, and in 1921 Constantinople accommodated 102,000 refugees. [2] The Jewish community’s denunciation of the Treaty of Lausanne ensured the need for foreign aid to avoid severe hardship. The Near East Relief Foundation stepped in to provide half the support for the continued function of the orphanage. [3] It housed 210 children, a majority of young girls, and a pamphlet distributed by the Foundation notes that in 1992 the orphanage exercised a “little mother system,” where older girls were assigned responsibilities of looking after four smaller children. [4] The little mother monitored and reported to the dormitory head on the clothing and cleanliness of her assigned children, within the space of their five beds converged together.

Jewish Community and the early Republic of Turkey
The early twentieth century proved a tumultuous time for the transcontinental Ottoman Empire, which in 1923 became officially inaugurated as the Republic of Turkey. Upon signing the Treaty of Sèvres in 1918 the land which comrprised the Empire was shared among the Allied Powers of WWI. [5] Imperialist authority demanded an authority arise and take control of minorities in the remaining land which would become Turkey.
Historically and culturally this meant something different among Jews, Greeks, and Armenians.
The relationship of Jews in the Ottoman Empire has been one of internal autonomy for the Jewish diaspora there. Under the Millet system, the community enjoyed control over religious and social affairs, and operated sovereign schools, hospitals, community governments. A religious leader maintained a healthy relationship between his constituents and the Empire, ensuring taxes were paid, thus implying that majority of the community did not have direct contact with the Ottoman Government. [6]

Exhibiting Memory
The structure was abandoned years ago, though repurposed by the Beşiktaş District to exhibit art. Fotoistanbul curated the El Orfelinato (‘the orphanage’ in Spanish) exhibition, presenting documentary photography and moving image media from the past and more recent times focused on the orphanage, its children and caretakers. A central piece of the exhibit is a thematic short film by oddvidz which presents the building to the viewer in a three-dimensional display. As the omnipresent camera moves toward the building, its layers peel away, giving a full visual context of the building in all its decay. At the premiere of the exhibit, presenters spoke about their time spent in the orphanage as patrons, orphans, or both. [8] The use of the building to exhibit photographic memory of the institution highlights the community’s sensibility towards positively impacting the environment, while simultaneously preserving its history.

Donations to charitable organizations for relief funds shipped across the ocean are modern reactions to the torment and destruction brought about by violence. Whether or not it is true that the warfare at the beginning of the twentieth century was entirely attributed to modernity and its effects on politics and ideology of nations, modernity introduced the beginning of an ever increasingly interconnected global society. One example is the Ortaköy Orphanage and the charitable support it received from the Near East Relief.

Istanbul, Turkey

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