istanbul

Hasköy Jewish cemetery is a higgledy piggledy site on top of a hill. The gravestones are horizontal as in the Sephardic tradition. The views are great even if it is all somewhat melancholy. But then İstanbul, as you may have already discovered, has a very pervasive melancholy side.

Abraham Kamondo Mausoleum: Abraham Kamondo was a banker, a
leader of the Jewish community in Istanbul in the 19th century and also
one of the founders of the municipality. His mausoleum will restored to its
past glory and to highlight the cohtribution of the Jewish community in the
cultural life of Istanbul.

Dying at Paris at the age of eighty-eight, Camondo, according to his last wishes, was buried in his family vault in the Jewish cemetery at Hasköy, İstanbul. The Ottoman government held memorial services in his honor.

http://www.onderkaya.net/arsiv/2007/03/19

To view the Kamondo Mausoleum you must take a ride on the Birinci Çevreyolu, the expressway which skirts the central area of the city to the north of Hasköy. Tragically, the path of the expressway passes directly through the midst of the large Hasköy Jewish Cemetery.

A birdseye view of the Jewish cemetery of Haskoy (Istanbul), 1583 onwards.
Picture taken by Minna Rozen, August 1995.

A typical view at Haskoy Jewish cemetery; Tonbstones from the mid 17th century and 2nd half of the 18th century.
Pictures taken by Laurence Salzman, August 1987.

Burial caves of the Jewish cemetery of Haskoy in Istanbul, mid 17th century.
Picture taken by Mehmet Ali Cida , August1988.

The Kamondo mausoleum is set prominently on a hill just to the north of the roadway, a short distance northeast of the Golden Horn, especially when travelling westbound.

http://www.turkeytravelplanner.com/special/jewish/JewishHaskoy.html

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Balıklı Ayazma

Ayazmas are fountains which are believed by the Christian world to have healing powers.

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The Zoodikhos Pighi Ayazma, which is outside the city walls and is the subject of an ancient legend, is now referred to as the Balıklı Ayazma. An interesting feature of this sacred spring, which lies within the boundaries of a monastery,are the gravestones of the Orthodox population of Karaman (a province in Central Anatolia), with which this courtyard is paved. Due to the fact that these Anatolian Christians were, in all probability, of Turkish origin, their language was Turkish. The inscriptions on their gravestones were in Turkish written using the Greek alphabet.

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The real name of the Balıklı Ayazma, being the most famed ayazma in Istanbul and being called as “Holy Water” by the Othodox Christian world, is “Zoohodos P i y i” which in fact means “life sparing fountain”.  Christians dedicate it to Virgin Mary.

Ayazma is located just outside the gate that was named as “Porta Selymbria” by the Byzantines which is named today as Silivrikapı.  It used to be called as Porta Piyi at the end of the 15th century.

There used to stand in the mid 5th century the Panayia Church, next to the balıklı Ayazma, both were made by Leo.I. (457-474).  This peaceful and quiet place out of the town gained fame by the erection of the ayazma.

According to the sayings Leo, who was a jobless person before he became the emperor, met a blind person while he was wandering around one day.  The old man asked for some water from him and to take him to a shadowy place.  While he was looking around with the hope to find such a suitable spot Leo heard a voice from nowhere telling him where a fountain is, and where the blind man could begin to see again if they washed his eyes with its water and that he himself would become the emperor.  Upon the old mans beginning to see again after having washed his face with this fountain’s water Leo believed that he shall also be the emperor, went and enrolled with the army.  Not long after he has promoted to the rank of general and dethroned Emperor Markianos with a revolution and was crowned by the Patriarch of Constantinople to become the emperor in 457.  He soon had this ayazma erected where that fountain was as a sign of his thankfulness.

As the famed historian Prokopios says Emperor Justinianos I., who reigned between 527-565, had this ayazma rebuilt in 560 because it healed a malicious illness of his, and also had a chapel built next to it with the surplus material left over from the construction of Hagias Sophia.
Both the ayazma and the chapel have been ruined several times in the history because they were outside the city walls, and also were damaged from the earthquakes.  But each time they have been re-constructed to keep them serviceable.  Last repair works carried out at the ayazma was in 1960 after the 1955 earthquake.

There exist one another Ayia Paraskevi Ayazma too in Zeytinburnu on the Demirhane Street across the Kazlıçeşme Fallen Soldiers Cemetery.

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Melville writes about Istanbul in the 45th chapter of his masterpiece Moby Dick. He talks about a historian called Procopios, who lived in this city in the 10th century. He says he remembers a whale that attacks ships in the Marmara Sea. After Melville wrote his book, he decided to visit Istanbul, searching for the “Holy Fish”. He visited a chapel with engravings about Virgin Mary. This place is called Balıklı Ayazma. The story behind the place inspires Melville:

In June 1422, a man was frying fish in Ayazma next to the sea and suddenly he was told that Murat the 2nd conquered the city. He did not believe the news and said: „It would have been as ridiculous as seeing these fish jump from the pan into the sea and at that moment the fish came alive and jumped out.” It is believed that after that day, the fish in the pool in Ayazma keep on jumping. We can read this story from Robert Walsh’s book about Istanbul, published in 1838.

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