•That trust that we both, Turks and Sephardim, take for granted has been nurtured by over 500 years of living peacefully together side by side.
•We Sephardim may have a claim to prior knowledge of the Turkish character and take it for granted that we are friends and allies, having 500 years of common history to fall back upon.
•And this is the reason why the American Association of Jewish Friends of Turkey was founded, to show to the American people, Jews and non-Jews alike, that there is a basic historical precedent for strong friendship between Turks and Jews, a friendship that comes from the heart as much as from the head.