Thread by @DanielSeidemann

@Istanbultelaviv Thread.

1/

The only Ottoman mosque story I can tell.

Years ago, I attended an absolutely intolerably boring conference in Istanbul on Israel-Palestine.

At one point, a Palestinian friend, a world class expert on Jerusalem and Islamic heritage said: let's get out of here.

@Istanbultelaviv 2/

We ended up in the historic core of Istanbul. I am so ignorant - don't ask me to be more precise.

My friend pointed out a mosque to me, which was not, at least to my untrained eye, particularly impressive.

"Does that mosque look familiar to you" he asked.

Nope, I answered.

@Istanbultelaviv 3/

"Ignore the minaret. Pretend it's not there" he said. "Now does it look familiar"?

Nope I said.

"The Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City" my Palestinian friend told me. "It's a precise copy, once you lop off the minaret".

@Istanbultelaviv 4/

"That's no coincidence" he said. "The same Ottoman architect planned both. He cut corners by removing the minaret and using the plans for the Hurva Synagogue".

That exhilarated me then, and still does.

@Istanbultelaviv On a bleak, hopeless gut-wrenching night like this, a story like this is therapeutic.