Rıfat Bali
Rıfat Nesim Bali is a Turkish historian specializing in Jews in Turkey.
Bali was born to a Sephardic family in Istanbul in 1948. After receiving his primary education in a Jewish school, he went to Lycée Français Saint-Michel for secondary school and Saint-Benoit for high school. He graduated from the Sorbonne University Department of Theology in 2001. He is married and has two children.
Since 1996, he has been conducting research and publishing on topics such as non-Muslim minorities, particularly Jews, antisemitism, conspiracy theories as well as cultural and social change in Turkish society. His articles have been published in various journals, including History and Society, Social History, Birikim, and Virgül. He has contributed articles to numerous compilations and encyclopedias and edited numerous books.
In 2005 he won the Yunus Nadi Award for his book From Anatolia to the New World and again in 2008 with his book Sami Günzberg, the Chief Dentist of the Palace and the Republic. In 2009 he won the Benveniste Research Award for his published writings on Turkish Jewry. He is the managing director of Libra Books, an academic press based in Istanbul specializing in topics related to Turkish and Ottoman history.
Books in English
The Turkish Cinema in the Early Republican Years, Rifat Bali, 2007, ISIS Publishing Ltd, Oxford UK,.A Scapegoat for All Seasons: The Dönmes or Crypto-Jews of Turkey, 2008, ISIS Publishing Ltd, Oxford UK,.
Turkey in the 1960’s and 1970’s: Through the Reports of American Diplomats, edited by Rifat Bali, 2010, Libra Kitnap, Istanbul,.
Model Citizens of the State: The Jews of Turkey during the Multi-Party Period, Rifat Bali, 2012, Fairleigh Dickenson University Books, Teaneck New Jersey,.
Antisemitism and Conspiracy Theories in Turkey, Rifat Bali, 2013, Libra Kitnap, Istanbul,
The Attempted Pogrom Against Turkish Jews of Thrace, June–July 1934, Rifat Bali, 2021, Libra Kitnap, Istanbul,.