Amid quake’s destruction, spirit of unity lives on in this Turkish city
“Antakya. Antakya. Antakya.” Yakup Cemal repeats the name of his hometown as he clutches his heart with his fists. It comes out more like a wail than the spoken word.
Mr. Cemal, who is 78 and nearly blind, was displaced from Antakya after living through two catastrophic earthquakes Feb. 6 that ruptured the land across southern Turkey and northern Syria.
The first of the quakes devastated Antakya, but he and his wife of 57 years survived in their bedroom. Their home was left uninhabitable, and they lost their synagogue, their street, their neighbors. In all, over 50,000 people died, with Antakya among the worst hit, and most agree the official toll is a vast undercount. Once known as Antioch, Antakya has been a crossroads of civilizations for over two millennia. Today it sits in nearly complete ruins.
When Mr. Cemal talks about his childhood home, with its courtyard at the center, and about growing up so easily among Christians, Muslims, and Jews, his wife hands him a napkin to wipe his eyes. “Even though we are different, we share a common culture,” he says. “I only hope my life lasts long enough so that I can return home.”
Just as much as he longs for home, his home needs him. At the time of the earthquake, Mr. Cemal was one of only 13 Jews left in Antakya. The Jewish community’s president and his wife died in the quake, and the rest were evacuated – bringing to a close the continuous practice of Judaism here for nearly 2,500 years. Mr. Cemal, now in Istanbul, is not alone in asking, how will the spirit of coexistence that defines modern Antakya be altered by the quake?
Six months since the destruction, a grief hangs in air still thick with the dust of rubble, and immediate recovery turns to the long road to reconstruction. Many religious communities, civil society groups, and business leaders are focusing their attention on not just the physical city but the spirit of harmony that marks Antakya –
