Turkish Jews /

The history of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey covers the 2,400 years that Jews have lived in what is now Turkey. There have been Jewish communities in Asia Minor since at least the 5th century BCE and many Spanish and Portuguese Jews expelled from Spain were welcomed to the Ottoman Empire (including regions part of modern Turkey) in the late 15th century. Despite emigration during the 20th century, modern day Turkey continues to have a small Jewish population. The ancient Israelites were known to have imported honeybees from Turkey. A team of Israeli archeologists found 30 intact hives made of straw and unbaked clay, and evidence that there had been over 100-200 more, on the site of the joint Israelite-Canaanite city of Tel Rehov. According to some evidence, the bees were probably imported from Turkey after Turkish bees proved easier to handle than local bees, which had proved to be extremely aggressive. According to Jewish scripture, Noah's Ark landed on the top of Mount Ararat, a mountain in the Taurus range in the Republic of Turkey, near the modern borders Armenia and Iran. Flavius Josephus, Jewish historian of the first century, notes Jewish origins for many of the