The Şalom newspaper in Turkey since its 1984 language transformation from Ladino to Turkish and the Turkish Jewish community

Abstract

The linguistic Turkification of the dwindling Turkish Jewish community during the period of the Republic extended to its media outlets. The Şalom newspaper, published in Turkey since 1947, changed its language from Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) to Turkish in 1984. This article takes that change as the starting point for an examination of the place of the publication within the political framework of a nationalizing secular state as well as its recent Islamification. The paper’s content is reviewed through its archives and interviews with columnists. Thus, the recent history of a Jewish newspaper in a secular Muslim country has been meticulously researched and analyzed so as to unpack the relationship between language and identity.