The Voice of Kayadez: La Boz de Turkiye (1939–1949) and Quietism as Jewish Politics in Turkey

ABSTRACT: Censorship and self-censorship were aspects of Jewish public life in the late Ottoman period and the early Turkish republic but Jewish experiences in Turkey in the 1940s crystallized extreme silence, known as kayadez in Ladino, as the hegemonic mode of Jewish public life in Turkey. The extent of this political quietist credo was far beyond what was practiced among other non-Muslim communities in Turkey or in Jewish communities in other countries in the region. This kayadez mode was constructed by the communal leadership and literati in the pages of La Boz de Turkiye , the only Jewish newspaper in Turkey from 1939 to 1947, and the biggest publication until its 1949 closure. The ironically named “The Voice of Turkey” observed a credo of silence regarding matters crucial to Jewish life such as World War II, the Holocaust, and the rising local popularity of Zionism. Kayadez also expanded to quashing critiques of Jewish leaders, which had been commonplace in earlier eras. The writers of the newspaper were committed to Turkey’s republican project but as the promise of equality faded, they increasingly embraced Zionism, though muffled by their own rules of silence.