The book provides an expose of the treatment of the Jewish community in Turkey from 1950 to the present, their fight against anti-Semitism, the struggle for their constitutional rights, and the attitude of the Turkish state and society towards these problems. ... Groundbreaking…unearthing facts and first-hand accounts that unmistakably illustrate how the Turkish establishment blackmailed the leaders of the Jewish community—and through them Jewish organizations in the United States—to secure their support of the Turkish position against the Armenians’ campaign for genocide recognition… The book also offers rich material about how Turkish diplomats and semi-official spokesmen of Turkish policies, threatened both Israel and the U.S. ... This book serves as a valuable case study of how realpolitik in domestic politics and foreign relations distorts the truth, and how coercion by the powerful contributes to the violation of collective human rights. It will be of interest to academics and students of non-Muslim minorities in Turkey, political lobbyists in America, Israeli policy-makers, as well as to the Jewish, Greek, and Armenian communities around the world.
Armenian International Magazine
Not many books have been written on the Turkish Jews, and even fewer on the contemporary period. Bali has taken up the challenge of covering this period, and his comprehensive history is richly documented, easily readable, and in some instances reveals hitherto unknown facts. ... Bali makes good use of sources including governmental statements, protocols of community discussions, opinions published in the press, interviews, and even reports by Israeli and foreign diplomats. He usefully sums up each decade at the end of each chapter, thus clarifying the different trends of Turkish political life and the fluctuating attitudes toward Jews. All in all, Bali has produces a well-documented work that will become a classic in modern Turkish Jewish History.
Jewish Political Studies Review
This is a careful and informative work, prepared by an expert in Turkish affairs, which could profitably be read by everyone interested in the Republic of Turkey, in its Jewish community, and in minorities in the Middle East.
Middle Eastern Studies
Model Citizens of the State covers the Jewish community's relations with both state and society at large during the multiparty period, from 1950 to 2003. As usual, Bali's research is impressive. He cites documents from the Turkish, U.S., and Israeli archives; surveys Turkish press outlets representing a wide range of political views; and uses personal archives and numerous secondary sources. The book is a very important contribution to the English literature on state-minority relations in Turkey.
International Journal of Middle East Studies
With the publication of the highly original Turkish Jews in the Republican Years, Rifat Bali established himself as the leading authority on Turkish Jewry. The publication of Model Citizens of the State completes Bali’s trilogy on the history of Turkish Jews and solidifies his international reputation.
Marc David Baer, author of The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks Model Citizens of the State is carefully researched, clearly written, and persuasively argued. It narrates masterfully the complex history of Turkish Jews’ relationship to the modern Turkish Republic, exposing the tightrope act they have often undertaken as they moved between the position of suspect and model minority. Bali’s monumental book promises to become the ultimate reference work on Jews in twentieth-century Turkey for a long time to come.
Julia Phillips Cohen, Assistant Professor of Modern Jewish History, Vanderbilt University