Lonely Planet İstanbul Guide

SIGHTS

1

1 Galata, Tophane & Karaköy İSTANBUL MODERN

GALLERY

MUSEUM MUSEUM OF TURKISH JEWS ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; 500 Yil Vakfi Türk Musevileri, The Quincentennial Foundation Museum of Turkish Jews; % 0212-292 6333; www.muze500.com; Büyük Hendek Caddesi 39, Şişhane; adult/child under 12yr ₺ 20/free; h 10am-4pm Mon-Thu, to 1pm Fri, to 2pm Sun; m Şişhane, j Tünel) Housed in a building attached to the Neve Shalom synagogue near the Galata Tower, this museum was established in 2001 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the arrival of the Sephardic Jews in the Ottoman Empire, and moved to its current location in 2014. The imaginatively curated and chronologically arranged interactive collection comprises photographs, video, sound recordings and objects that document the history of the Jewish people in Turkey. Visitors must have photo ID with them to enter. The history of Jews in İstanbul is as long as it is fascinating. Jews were granted freedom of religion and worship in Anatolia by the Seljuks (1077– 1308), but weren’t treated as liberally by the Byzantines in Constantinople. This led many of them to view the Ottomans as saviours, particularly when Mehmet II made the following offer to Jews fleeing Spain in 1492: ‘The God has presented me with many lands and ordered me to take care of the dynasty ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; İstanbul Modern Sanat Müzesi; % 0212-334 7300; www.istanbulmodern.org; Meclis-i Mebusan Caddesi, Tophane; adult/student/child under 12yr ₺ 25/14/free; h 10am-6pm Tue, Wed & Fri-Sun, to 8pm Thu; j Tophane) This large, lavishly funded and innovative museum has an extensive collection of Turkish art and also stages a constantly changing and uniformly excellent program of mixed-media exhibitions by high-profile local and international artists. Its permanent home is next to the Bosphorus in Tophane, but the massive Galataport redevelopment project currently under way means that it will temporarily relocate to another site in Beyoğlu some time in 2016/17.