Part of a series of articles on Jews and Judaism
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Jews have lived in the geographic area of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) for more than 2,400 years. In the later Middle Ages, Ashkenazi Jews migrating to the Byzantine Empire and Ottoman Empire supplemented the original Jewish population of Asia Minor. At the end of the 15th century, a large number of Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution in Spain and Portugal settled in Asia Minor on the invitation of the Ottoman Empire. Despite emigration during the 20th century, modern day Turkey continues to have a small Jewish population.

Ottoman rule
The Jewish population of Ottoman Empire had reached nearly 500,000 at the start of the 20th century. The troubled history of Turkey during the 20th century and the process of transforming the old Ottoman empire into a modern Western nation-state after 1923 had a negative effect on the size of the Jewish community.
The planned deportation of Jews from Thrace and the associated anti-Jewish pogrom in 1934 was one of the events that caused insecurity among the Turkish Jews.
In 2003, a bombing attack on two synagogues in Istanbul was carried out by Al-Qaeda.
See also: Turkey-Israel relations

Literature