ISTANBUL, Turkey (WJC)– A provincial governor of Turkey whose anger at Israel led him to call for turning a synagogue into a museum, has apologized to the country’s chief rabbi – though he claimed he was misunderstood.
Dursun Şahin, governor of the northwestern Edirne province, offered an “apology” that expressed “profound sadness” that his words were “distorted,” the office of Chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva said in a statement.
Şahin told reporters on Friday that because of Israeli actions on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, he had ordered the historic Büyük Synagogue, built in 1907, to be turned into a museum. “When those bandits blow winds of war inside the al-Aqsa and slay Muslims, we build in their synagogues,” Şahin said, according to to the newspaper ‘Hürriyet‘.
“I say this with a huge hatred inside me. We clean their graveyards, send their projects to boards. The synagogue here will be registered only as a museum, and there will be no exhibition inside it.”
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arinc also weighed in on Monday, saying that the governor had made a “mistake” and assured that the synagogue’s status would not be changed, according to the report. “The governor made a mistake. I respect and appreciate him. He acted emotionally. We condemn the atrocities against the al-Aqsa Mosque, but we cannot look at the Jews here with an evil eye,” he said.
The synagogue has been undergoing restoration since 2010, and work is almost finished.
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Preceding provided by the World Jewish Congress