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November 5, 1999/26 Cheshvan 5760, Vol. 52, No.10
Ottoman for a day
Turkish swing evokes dreams of ethnic harmony
AARON B. COHEN
JUF News
No, I'm not a Turk. But there must be some part of me that's Osmanli (Ottoman). Aren't we all? Or shouldn't we aspire to be?
The thought struck me on a recent Sunday afternoon up on the stage at Lutkin Hall at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. I sat strumming my saz (Turkish mandolin) and singing in Hebrew, Turkish, Greek, and Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) in a benefit concert for Turkish earthquake relief. Our band included American Jews, American Greeks, a Dane, and mastermind of the whole affair, Terran Doehrer, self-described "ethnic Mongrel." The audience was equally eclectic: Turks, Greeks, and Israelis (including consuls from all three countries); American Jews; and others who had come to contribute to a worthy cause. (Half the proceeds will go to the Turkey Earthquake Relief Fund of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a JUF beneficiary; the other half will go to the Turkish School Rebuilding Fund.) Wittingly or not, by coming to the concert, the audience members had become Ottomans for a day - sans the despotic rule of the sultans. (The ruling force that day was the irrepressible Terran, Sultan of Turkish swing.)
When it was bad, the Ottoman Empire was very bad. (Just ask an Armenian to learn how bad.) But it was not without some merit. In 1492, Sultan Suleyman had opened the doors of the empire to the Sefardic Jews; Spain's loss would be his gain. Under the relatively laissez-faire Ottomans, ethnic and religious groups could do their own thing, so long as they didn't rock the boat. Nationalism was cruelly suppressed, but in cities like Salonika and Sarajevo, Izmir (Smyrna) and Istanbul - multiculturalism flourished. Thence the intoxicating amalgam, Ottoman music. There was a magical time when Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Romany (not to mention Arabs, Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, and Albanians) played music together in the coffee houses of the capital sharing each others' melodies and songs, joys and miseries. A whiff of that magic was in the air during the benefit as Turks, Greeks, and Jews danced together in the aisles of Lutkin Hall. Where else but in the United States could that happen again?
Maybe the concert showed, in its own tiny way, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe the bad part of the Ottoman legacy - the Balkan wars - can finally be put behind us. And in its place may rise the good part of the Ottoman legacy - Jews, Muslims, and Christians playing music, dancing, and singing together in a spirit of mutual respect and support.
It took natural disasters (devastating quakes in Turkey and Greece), regional geopolitics (common strategic interests between Turkey and Israel), the indefatigable efforts of a musician (Terran Doehrer), and the goodwill of all involved, to bring the consuls of the three countries together in Evanston. What happens next, now that they've clapped their hands to the same rhythm? God willing, the Balkan wars are over. God willing, Israel's alliance with Turkey will not be an anomaly. God willing, Greece and Turkey's fragile rapprochement will provide an example of healing along the fault lines of the Islamic and Christian worlds.
"Are you a Turk?" a Greek fellow asked me after the concert. "No, I'm an American, a Jew," I answered. Perhaps I should have added, "I'm also an Ottoman, at least for today."
Aaron Cohen is executive editor of JUF News in Chicago.
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