The Jewish-Muslim mixed marriages: self-identifications and experiences of Jewish-Muslim couples and their children in contemporary Turkey

Download
2010
Yıldıztekin, Bürin
This thesis explores Jewish-Muslim mixed marriages with a particular focus on the mixed couples’ and their children’s self-identifications regarding religion and their experiences in a predominantly Muslim country, Turkey. By adopting a qualitative research design, in-depth interviews were conducted with 9 Jewish-Muslim mixed couples and 3 children in Istanbul and in Izmir. In addition, an official from the Turkish Jewish Community and an active member of the community were interviewed to determine the general perception of the Turkish Jewish Community regarding mixed marriage. The Jewish-Muslim mixed couples’ self-identifications with their Jewish and Muslim cultures and heritages reveal the importance of understanding individuals’ self-perceptions about their own identities since their self-perceptions cannot be understood by primordial ascriptions. The children of these mixed couples’ self-identifications provide important insights into the issue of the relative attractiveness of Jewish and Muslim identities in Turkey. The Jewish-Muslim mixed couples’ and their children’s experiences in the private and public spheres reveal significant aspects of being Jewish, being mixed-married and being a child of a mixed marriage in a predominantly Muslim country, Turkey.

Suggestions

The military in Turkey from a gender perspective
Kuloğlu, Ceyda; Ertürk, Yakın; Department of Sociology (2005)
This thesis demonstrates the experiences of the women from different generations in the Turkish Military in the integration process. It also evaluates the attitudes of the men in the military towards this integration.
The work strategies and experiences of the wave of 1989 immigrants from Bulgaria settled in Ankara
Karakılıç, İlhan Zeynep; Erdemir, Aykan; Department of Sociology (2007)
This study focuses on the work strategies of 1989 immigrants who had to move from Bulgaria to Turkey and settled in Ankara. During this immigratio wave, nearly 150,000 people immigrated to Turkey and settled permanently. In this study, the operational definition of the immigrant work strategy is the activities and the attitudes that the immigrants take to find and maintain thier first jobs, immediately after immigration. To learn about the work strategies of the immigrants, I conducted a field research whic...
The experiences of British citizens in Didim a coastal town in Turkey : a case of lifestyle migration
Nudralı, F. Özlem; Kalaycıoğlu, Hediye Sibel; Department of Sociology (2007)
The aim of this thesis is providing an initial insight into the quite recent Northern European immigration to Coastal Turkey through exploring its causes and consequences within the context of a particular locality, Didim where a single nationality group, the British, comprise the most prominent lifestyle migrant category. In that frame, three aspects of the migratory move namely the causes and the meaning of the move through the migrant narratives; the new social spaces created in terms of everyday practic...
Representation of the Kurdish question in Hurriyet and Cumhuriyet (1990-2006)
Bayındır, Özge; Yeğen, Mesut; Department of Sociology (2007)
The aim of this study is to analyze the transformation of the official discourse and perception of the Kurdish issue and Kurds through its representations in Turkish media since 1990. Ottoman period and the Republican period till 1990s are studied in the first phase, in order to provide the historical backgroud of the Kurdish question and state’s perception of the issue. In the second phase, representations of state’s perception of the Kurdish issue in Hürriyet and Cumhuriyet newspapers are analyzed by usin...
The parenting practice of single mothers in Turkey: Challenges and strategies
Kavas, Serap; Hoşgör, Hatice Ayşe (Elsevier BV, 2013-09-01)
Drawing on 24 interviews with single mothers in Turkey, this qualitative study examines various cultural and structural factors facing single mothers in a patriarchal society. It identifies strategies single mothers devise to handle the hardship of bringing up a child alone and stand up for themselves as single parents. Results demonstrate that single mothers in this study face numerous challenges, including the difficulty to maintain authority in their new family setting; the struggle to keep the sense of ...
Citation Formats
B. Yıldıztekin, “The Jewish-Muslim mixed marriages: self-identifications and experiences of Jewish-Muslim couples and their children in contemporary Turkey,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2010.