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Netflix series helps heal wounds of Turkey's Jews
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Izzet Bana, musician and adviser to the series 'The Club' poses in Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul on March 8, 2022. (AFP/Yasin Akgul)
A
groundbreaking Netflix series set among Turkey's Jews has been an unexpected hit there, challenging taboos and enthralling audiences with its glimpse into a long-overlooked community.
The global success of Turkish television series -- often with government-pleasing narratives -- has made the country a small-screen superpower.
But The Club and its sumptuous recreation of 1950s Istanbul is a first, not least because some of the dialogue is in Ladino, the language of Istanbul's Jews which derives from medieval Spanish.
While minorities once flourished in the cosmopolitan capital of the Ottoman Empire, they suffered persecution as it fell and discrimination ever since.
Jews have generally kept their heads down to protect themselves, sticking to the Turkish Jewish custom of "kayades", meaning "silence" in Ladino.
But The Club -- which is set around a nightclub in Istanbul's historic European quarter -- puts an end to that silence.
Pogrom against minorities
