Turkey: "A public intellectual can forget about his status if he defines himself as a Zionist"

Like the Dönmeh, or crypto-Jews, of the Ottoman empire, Jewish intellectuals cannot profess their Zionism in public in Turkey, said Bali. There may be no legal obstacles to founding Zionist organizations in the country, but such a move would immediately attract the wrath of Islamists who would hurl accusations of dual loyalty, an inexcusable crime in the Turkish republic. 

“A public intellectual can forget about his status if he defines himself as a Zionist,” Bali noted. “So people say one thing in public and act differently in private.”

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