Despertar Izmir was formally titled Strengthening the Izmir Jewish Community through Inclusive Leadership. It was supported under the European Union’s Civil Society Support Programme III and ran from 1 April 2021 to 30 June 2022.
Its purpose was direct: to make a small, ageing and often unseen community more visible in Izmir, in Turkey and in wider civil society networks. The project did not treat Jewish Izmir only as a historic subject. It presented it as a living community with people, institutions, culture, memory and a civic voice.
The name was suggested by the Foundation’s then president, Sami Azar. In Ladino, despertar means awakening: a concise way to describe the project’s ambition to wake up public attention around Jewish Izmir and to help the community take a more active part in civic life.
Project opening
Despertar İzmir begins
This opening video introduces the project as a public effort to make Jewish Izmir more visible through culture, memory and civic participation.
Community base
The project grew from within the Izmir Jewish Community Foundation.
Civic partner
Kentimiz İzmir Derneği joined as the civil-society partner for the application.
EU support
The work was funded under the Civil Society Support Programme III.
Project team (2021-2023)
Jacob Ceki Hazan
Co-coordinator
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Barış Özcan
Co-coordinator
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Belin Benezra Yensarfati
Women's studies lead
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Riella Zalma
Visual communications lead
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Liza Cemel
Press and publications lead
LinkedInProject moments
Why it began
The project began from a practical concern: the Jewish population of Izmir had become smaller and older, while the community’s contribution to the city’s story remained far larger than its public visibility. Despertar was created to change that balance.
The idea took shape in 2019, when young community work, heritage planning and civil-society project writing began to meet. The first application was submitted for the Civil Society Support Programme III call with a deadline of 17 September 2019. The pre-application was accepted on 13 July 2020, the final application was submitted by 1 September 2020, and the project was approved at the end of December 2020. Implementation began on 1 April 2021.
Project method
Visibility through culture, not slogans
Despertar worked by creating public encounters: festivals, synagogue and heritage visits, exhibitions, documentaries, a city game, media work and a national gathering of community foundations. The story became easier to see because people could experience it in different forms.
What Despertar created
Cultural routes
Visits to Sardis, Bikur Holim Synagogue and other heritage settings connected participants with places that carry Jewish memory in and around Izmir.
Public festival
The March 2022 intercultural festival opened conversations through visits, exhibitions, concerts, children's workshops, food culture and public panels.
City game
The treasure hunt turned the city into a route of clues, codes and discovery, drawing attention to Jewish heritage through play.
Documentaries
Film became one of the project's most durable outputs, carrying Izmir Sephardic women's stories beyond a single event.
A timeline of the work
Designing the project
The project idea was prepared for the Civil Society Support Programme III call. The application moved through a long two-stage process before approval.
Despertar begins
The project opened with inclusive leadership, community visibility and wider civic participation as its main frame.
Cultural routes
Early cultural visits included Sardis and Bikur Holim Synagogue, helping participants connect the project to place, memory and continuity.
Intercultural Festival
The festival ran from 20 to 28 March 2022 with synagogue, mosque and church visits, an exhibition on Foto Gagin's Izmir Jews and Karataş, concerts, workshops, a food-culture gathering and a panel on multicultural Izmir.
Treasure hunt
Forty-one teams and about 200 people followed clues through Jewish Izmir. Registration began at the Historical Elevator, the game started at Bet Israel Synagogue, and the route continued towards the Kemeraltı synagogue area.
A summit for community foundations
Representatives of Greek, Armenian, Syriac and Jewish community foundations gathered in Izmir for a three-day summit in April 2022, creating a rare space for shared minority-community experience.
Intercultural Festival
20-28 March 2022
A week of public encounters
The Despertar Intercultural Festival made Jewish Izmir visible through the fabric of the city. Its programme included interfaith visits, the Foto Gagin exhibition at Etz Hayim, children's creative work, an Izmir food-culture meeting at Hevra, Smyrneika and Sephardi music, museum and drama training, and a panel on multicultural Izmir from the Ottoman period to today.
Treasure Hunt
The Despertar treasure hunt was designed as a public heritage game. Instead of asking people to read first, it invited them to move, look, decode and notice. With 41 teams and about 200 participants, it brought people of different ages into contact with Jewish Izmir through a route that began with registration at the Historical Elevator, started at Bet Israel Synagogue and continued towards the Kemeraltı Havralar area.
The game mattered because it changed the mood of heritage. It made Jewish Izmir approachable without making it shallow.
Treasure hunt
Despertar Hazine Avı
The event turned Jewish Izmir into a route of clues, teams and shared discovery.
March 2022
Heritage as a city game
The treasure hunt used codes and clues to draw attention to specific points of Jewish cultural heritage, opening the route to participants from different age groups.
April 2022
Community Foundations Summit
The three-day summit hosted representatives of Greek, Armenian, Syriac and Jewish community foundations in Izmir, placing Despertar within a wider minority-community conversation.
Film and lasting outputs
The strongest outputs of Despertar are the ones that can still travel: film, archives, public writing and cultural material. The documentary below belongs directly to the Despertar Izmir project and is one of its clearest long-term outputs.
Izmir Sephardic Women Hand in Hand
Produced within the Despertar Izmir project, this documentary records the century-long contribution of Sephardic Jewish women to community life, welfare, education and cultural continuity.
The legacy
Despertar Izmir sits beside the Izmir Jewish Heritage Project as part of a larger public turn: making Jewish Izmir easier to see, discuss and protect. It helped the community speak outward, work with civic partners and produce material that still introduces the city to its Jewish memory.
The project also explains why this site exists. IzmirJCC.org is not only a noticeboard. It is part of the same effort: a public, careful and accessible gateway into Jewish Izmir.