That's Turkish for 'Hello, friends!' I feel incredibly lucky to be writing this entry about my trip last weekend to Istanbul where I reunited with Zak and was honored to join his family (father - 'the other' Brad, mother - Lori, older sister - Jessie and younger sister- Carrie) on their vacation. My participation in this trip would not have been possible without the Wainer's generosity and I cannot thank them enough for including me.
The city of Istanbul was utterly thrilling, unlike any place I have ever visited, and I believe it to be unlike any place in the world. Before I went, I didn't actually realize that the city itself, by straddling the Bosphorous River, is situated both in Europe and in Asia. The reality of its geographic location was most striking when we took a 20 minute ferry ride across the Bosphorous to have dinner in Asia and then came back to Europe.
Okay, so the city itself is on two continents, and Turkey is considered to be the only secular muslim state of the Middle East. Despite this secular identification, there are over 3000 mosques within the city limits of Istanbul and each one broadcasts 5 live calls-to-prayer daily. Yet, according to our tour guide, only 10-15% of the city's population identifies as "religious" and Islam seems to be much more of a cultural way of life for many people in Istanbul. I saw women covered from head to toe in burkas walking near women wearing miniskirts and high heels. Prostitution is legal in Turkey and alcohol is sold, although it is more expensive because it is forbidden according to the laws of Islam. It became clear from the beginning that Istanbul, in many ways, is a city of paradoxes and contradictions.
A. Our Neighborhood:
We stayed in an incredible apartment in the neighborhood of Karakoy/Galata which is on the European side of Istanbul. The neighborhood had a very local feel to it. Istiklal street, one of the largest pedestrian walkways in the world, was only a few hundred meters from our apartment. About 90% of the traffic on Istiklal Street are locals --- about 3 million people pass through this street every day. Walking on the street was overwhelming and by far the most people I have seen in one place in my life. I felt very much like an observer as the crowd bustled around me, almost as if I were a salmon swimming upstream.
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| Galata Tower -- just a few hundred meters away from the apartment where we stayed in the neighborhood of Karakoy/Galata |
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| View of Istiklal street, one of the largest pedestrian walkways in the world and just a few hundred meters from our apartment. Shout out to Braid Wainer in the bottom left corner of the photo :) |
B. Turkish Delight -- Spice Bazaar:
I loved wandering through and getting lost in the Spice Bazaar. As the crowd carried us along, we heard entertaining shouts of choice English phrases - "Hello! Hello! Chicago! New York! Yes, yes yes! America! Come buy here!" and "Hello! How can I help you spend your money?" Zak and I purchased some delicious spices to season the fish we bought from the local fish market and then attempted to cook on our own. In the Spice Market, people would offer you samples of Turkish delight, the most delicious of which was the pomegranate/pistachio flavor. There were giant trash bags full of naturally dried teas, all different flavors of nargilah (hookah) and more dried fruit than you can possibly imagine.
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| Delicious spices and teas at the Spice Bazaar |
C. Hagia Sophia -- is that a mosque, a church or a museum?
So many ancient empires utilized Istanbul as their capital city -- the Byzantines, the Romans, the Ottomans, just to name a few. Istanbul truly was a melting pot for so many different cultures and religions. The history of the relationship between Catholicism and Islam is particularly interesting because it is visible in sites like the Hagia Sophia Museum. The current structure was actually the third rendition of the Great Church. In 532 BC, Emperor Justinian commissioned the new basilica and it was constructed in just 5 years and remains the most impressive example of Byzantine architecture in the world. The walls and gigantic basilica of the church, which spans 250 ft across, are covered in exquisite mosaics depicting Virgin Mary, Jesus and various saints and emperors. When the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453, the Hagia Sophia church (along with many other churches in the city) was converted into a mosque. According to the laws of Islam, one cannot pray in a room where there are human images or idols. Because of this, when the church was converted into a mosque, the detailed mosaics were covered with plaster and leather and then painted so that the building could be used for worship. When Ataturk ordered the mosque to be converted into museums in 1935, the plaster covering the mosaics was removed. Restoration efforts are still works in process today and bring full circle the diverse histories of this incredible site.
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| View of the Hagia Sophia Museum through an archway of the Blue Mosque |
D. Jewish Istanbul
Today there are 20 active synagogues in the Istanbul area and we visited three of them. All of them were very inconspicuous -- if you weren't looking for the synagogue you probably wouldn't even look twice at the building. Below is a picture of Neve Shalom which was built in the late 1930s as a response to the increasing Jewish population of the Galata district. Since its existence, the synagogue has suffered three terrorist attacks, the latest of which was the Al-Qaeda attack of 2003 in which 23 individuals were killed. Despite the tragedies it has suffered, the synagogue continues to serve the Jewish community of Istanbul. It was a wonderful feeling to be greeted with "Shalom!" in Istanbul and to hear Zak's sister Jessie who is a first year rabbinical student speak Hebrew with the staff. In the first synagogue we visited, a man asked if anyone spoke Spanish! His mother was from Spain and he is a sephardi Jew. It was quite bizarre to be speaking Spanish with another Jew in a synagogue in Istanbul. This just goes to show you the incredible diversity of the city.
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| Bimah of Neve Shalom Synagouge. |
I've babbled on for quite a while and I think it's time to end this post. But it's true, my adventures in Istanbul with the Wainers now feel almost like a dream. I can't really believe that I was there, that I experienced so much culture, change and emotion in such a short period of time. For now, all I can think about is how lucky I am.
Adios,
AB
I leave you with one last picture:
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| View (from left to right) of the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia Museum from a ferry crossing the Bosphorous River from the Europe side of Istanbul to the Asian side. |
