ISTANBUL — Jews have been present in Antakya — known in antiquity as Antioch — for nearly 2,500 years, since its founding under the Seleucid Empire.
The late Fortuna and Saul Cenudioglu, inset; buildings and property demolished by the Hatay earthquake, Feb. 7.
(Ibrahim Oner/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty)
The earthquakes in southeastern Turkey, which struck Feb. 6, have put an end to the Jewish community once governed by Antiochus, the villain of the Chanukah story.
“The end of a 2,500 year old love story,” the Turkish Jewish Community’s president, Ishak Ibrahimzade wrote on Twitter.
Antioch is frequently mentioned in the Talmud; and was a major center of Jewish scholarship in ancient times, associated closely with the larger Jewish community of neighboring Aleppo.
As recently as 1941, several hundred Jews lived in the city. The death of Fortuna Cenudioglu was confirmed on Feb. 9, and the death of her husband, Saul Cenudioglu, the president of the small Jewish community in Antakya, was confirmed Feb. 10. This marks the end of the community.
An Israeli search team pulled Mrs. Cenudioglu body from the wreckage of the apartment building in which she and her husband were believed to have been buried when their building collapsed in the first of two massive earthquakes that struck Turkey on Feb. 6.
Mr. Cenudioglu was born in 1941. By last year the number of Jews in Antakya had dwindled to only 14, the youngest of whom was over 60. Many of them worked in shops in the city’s Long Bazaar.
Now, Turkish Jews say, it’s unlikely that any will remain.
So far the death toll is nearing 20,000 across both Turkey and Syria. The grim toll is expected to rise.
Fortuna’s body was found by a team from the Israel Defense Forces that was combing the devastated city as part of the Israeli relief delegation and had been dispatched to the Cenudioglus’ address.
Over 500 Israeli rescue workers have arrived in Turkey and are working alongside the more than 30,000 relief workers who have descended on the affected zone since early last week.
Jewish nonprofits from around the world are also gathering donations and preparing to distribute aid to the affected areas and the hundreds of thousands of people who lost their homes in the quakes.
Saul Cenudioglu’s niece Ela, who was born and raised in Antakya but now resides in Istanbul, said he was a “visionary leader committed to the Jewish community and the values it represents.”
She said the family had a textile business in the city.
“He did everything in his capacity to have the small Jewish community of Antakya thrive and connect with the rest of the communities in Turkey and the world.”
