But even though Turkey has a sizable Jewish population, unlike Egypt, the shift had not translated into meaningful representation. Since the Arab Spring a decade ago, Turkey’s film and television industry has replaced Egypt’s as the largest and most influential in the Muslim world. One of her past projects, “The Bride of Istanbul,” became a smash hit in Israel, where Turkish soap operas have become increasingly popular in recent years.
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The six-episode series isn’t director Zeynep Günay Tan’s first experience with Jewish audiences. “It is the holiday of contradictions, the revealing of that which was hidden.”
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“You must know what Purim is, Matilda,” Bana’s character Haymi says. “Ah, that day when you people don’t even touch a light switch,” Çelebi smugly says before switching them off, leaving Matilda working in the dark with Shabbat approaching.Įpisodes later, Çelebi’s true back story is revealed in the midst of a Purim party, and quickly followed with a monologue deftly delivered by Bana, a veteran of Ladino theatre. Set in the 1950s, the plot follows Matilda (played by Gökçe Bahadir), a Sephardic Jewish woman who has just been released from prison, her daughter Raşel (pronounced Rashel, and played by Asude Kalebek) and the other workers of the titular nightclub, Club Istanbul, where Matilda finds herself working. “So of course, I felt a belonging to the story.” “I saw in the show five or seven people that I know in person,” Haligua said. They and several other members of the Istanbul Jewish community had small roles in the series. To get the setting right, the show’s producers brought on many prominent Ladino speakers from the Turkish Jewish community, including theater actor Izzet Bana, actress Forti Barokas and Karen Şarhon, also an actress and editor of the last printed Ladino language magazine, El Ameneser. Today it is one of Istanbul’s biggest tourist attractions, thanks to its eponymous tower, but in the era in which the show is set, the neighborhood was home to a large and close-knit Jewish community, where one was as likely to hear Ladino on its twisting streets and alleyways as Greek or Turkish. Much of “The Club” takes place in the Istanbul neighborhood of Galata, colloquially known as Kula, a site that evokes a strong sense of nostalgia for Turkish Jews.