A memoir out of a culture both deeply Ottoman and deeply Jewish

(c) Stanford University Press

Years ago sitting in the manuscript room of the Israel National Library, Aron Rodrigue came across something and as soon as he laid his eyes on it, he knew it was going to be something very special.

What he had come across that day was the earliest known memoir in the Ladino language, written sometime in the early 1880s by a Jewish printer who lived in Salonica, Greece in the days of the Ottoman Empire named Sa’adi Besalel A-Levi.

After years of having the manuscript sit on his shelf , unsure of what to do with it, Rodrigue and his co-editor, Sarah Stein, finally translated and transliterated the book from its original Judaeo-Spanish text in to English and launched the book at an event hosted by the center for Jewish studies at UCLA, Wednesday.

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Gülen Movement, emphasis on service, and reaching out

Dr. John Esposito speaks to Pacifica Institute

At a fundraiser sponsored by the Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV) on Wednesday February 15th, Dr. John Esposito, one of America’s leading experts on Islam, was invited to give a talk about the future of Islam in the 21st century.

After a brief introduction of Dr. Esposito by the president of MPV, Ani Zonneveld, the event was started with a 30-minute lecture followed by a Q&A session moderated by KPCC’s Shirley Jahad.

Dr. Esposito started off by giving a brief history of the turbulent relationship the West has had with Islam and its origins.

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Turkish President shares his vision of the new constitution

During a speech given at the Turkish Grand National Assembly in October of last year, President Abdullah Gül talked about some of the problems the country could face in the near future. Among the most important issues was the need for a new constitution.

The necessity to throw out the almost 30-year-old constitution of 1982, he said stems from the fact that “The constitution currently in force does not meet our needs, attempts to restrict Turkey’s democratic maturity and diversity, and ignores the richness that Turkey represents.”

Not only is a new constitution vital in order to achieve true democracy in Turkey, he said, the way in which language is used in the new constitution is also extremely important.

“Up until now, our constitutions have been skeptical and rigid on the subject of freedoms, but expansive and flexible in language concerning restrictions,” Gül said.

In an article President Gül wrote for the Turkish Review he outlines exactly what changes and benefits the new constitution should bring to the Turkish people and the country.

He starts out by stressing that the new constitution should avoid going into too many details. Instead, he said it should “set out fundamental principles” which will allow for “flexibility and progress.”

The new constitution should also “strengthen and guarantee the concept of equal citizenship in every aspect on the basis of fundamental rights and freedoms for everyone,” he said.

“The road to ensuring this outcome is a freedom-based approach, acting under the precepts of a vision of trust in each and every individual in our nation, regardless of political view, orientation or background,”

Furthermore, keeping the achievements of the country’s last 200 years in mind, he said the new constitution needs to be uncompromising in protecting “the fundamental principles of [the] republic as a democratic, secular, social state respecting the rule of law shared by us all.”

Another element vital to the new constitution, the writer points out is that the “constitution should clearly depend on the general will of the people as in contemporary democracies, instead of implicitly providing for tutelage through other bodies of authority.”

The new constitution should also reflect “important qualities of contemporary democracies such as transparency and accountability,” and a system of checks and balances should also be established.

Most importantly, Mr. President said, “the new constitution should not bear the seal of any particular idea, party, ideology or doctrine.” It should bare only one seal, the seal of the Turkish nation.

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