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Jewish Institutional Structures as Organizational Models
While the TBB attempts to form an alliance with the Jewish community
and employs the Jewish narrative in its substance, the Turkish Commu-
nity of Berlin (Türkische Gemeinde zu Berlin, henceforth referred as Ce-
maat, as it is known among Turks), one of its Turkish nationalist and
religious counterparts, employs Jewishness as a model. It focuses on, and
emulates, the Jewish institutional structure in order to receive recognition
for Muslim religious rights in Germany. Accordingly, for the first time,
(Turkish) Muslims see themselves as a diaspora and are looking for mod-
els of diasporic life. The vice chairman of the Central Council of Muslims
in Germany, for example, recently observed that Muslims lack a theology
of integration. The old scriptures rarely, if ever, explained how to behave
in non-Muslim societies.
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Jewish institutional structures are used as models for religious Turk-
ish associations in order to achieve the type of community solidarity
and collective unity they believe to be present in the Jewish associations.
Although Jewish organizations have different interests and are often in
conflict, these conflicts are not readily apparent to the mass media or
to outsiders. Unaware of possible contention within Jewish associations,
the executive committee member of the Cemaat, Ahmet Yılmaz, glorifies
their strong fellowship:
I wish from Allah that no other nation would live the difficulties
that the Jewish nation had experienced, but [I wish from Allah that
he would] provide their solidarity to everyone. There is a Jewish
community that speaks for all Jews. My heart wishes that all Turk-
ish organizations will come together under the same roof, and keep
equal distance to all [German political] parties.
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Although Yılmaz’s yearnings have not been realized, his organization
has modeled its organizational structure on the Jewish Community in
Berlin, in both its hierarchy and its religious orientation. Indeed, the
Jews and Turks in Germany after 9/11 · 85
original name of the Cemaat, Türkische Gemeinde zu Berlin, mimics the
Jewish Community’s official name, Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin.
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In the German corporately oriented democracy, state authorities
would welcome a strong representation by Turkish immigrant organi-
zations that could represent their common interest—and discipline the
Turkish community. However, Turkish immigrant organizations are far
from unified. The controversy around the headscarf is one example.
The TBB campaigns strongly against the use of the headscarf in public,
whereas the Cemaat supports it—not by holding public campaigns but
by providing social services for women with headscarves or assisting
them with employment. As a result of this Turkish fragmentation, Ger-
man state authorities play down the role of immigrant organizations as
their interlocutors.
Some political leaders of the Turkish immigrant communities, such as
the foreigners’ commissioner of the Tempelhof-Schöneberg borough in
Berlin, Emine Demirbüken, resent political disunity among Turkish im-
migrant associations. She draws parallels between the Jewish community
and the young Turks and stresses that it is essential to demonstrate the
economic and intellectual potential of Turks to German society:
The Jewish community combines its members’ economic power
with their brain power. Turks also have economic power here. We
have many people who are bilingual, who can speak perfect Ger-
man and Turkish. Why can’t we combine our economic power with
our brain power? Why don’t we show our power to the Germans?
Why can’t we force them to take us seriously? If we don’t do this,
then they will always stereotype us as members of a society who
do not want to learn German, whose women are battered by their
husbands, and whose daughters are locked up at home.
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Demirbüken argues that a consolidation of its organizational structures
would lead to a change in the Turkish guest worker stereotype. Despite
their economic achievements, many Turks in Germany still follow tra-
ditional practices such as conservative child-rearing habits. Moreover,
many Turkish immigrants, forcibly and voluntarily, are isolated from
German society and do not speak German, a problem Germans today
decry as the “parallel society.” However, young Turks are better educated
and have better language and social skills than their immigrant parents.
According to Demirbüken, Germans will take the Turkish community
86 · Gökçe Yurdakul and Y. Michal Bodemann
more seriously when they have to deal with young German Turks as their
counterparts in the immigrant associations. Just as in the Jewish associa-
tions, she looks for economically and socially capable people to be in the
Turkish frontline.
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