Pink Angels

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2012 in the subject Sociology - Miscellaneous, Middle east technical university (Graduate school of social sciences), course: Social Anthropology, language: English, abstract: Some Turkish Jewish women have been serving the elderly staying in the geriatric unit of the Jewish Or-Ahayim Hospital in Istanbul. Their group is recognized as 'the Pink Angels.' The volunteer women at the Jewish hospital founded a group in 1974, and Nuket Antebi named this group 'the Pink Angels.' Today this group of women is divided into three subgroups: (1) those who offer chat and art therapies, after having been trained, (2) those who distribute foods and beverages, deal with donations, are involved in the preparation process of jam jars, and offer memorial services, and (3) those who assume both duties. The Pink Angels who serve as therapists contribute to the attainment of world peace locally in Istanbul by chatting and reading various texts belonging to various world cultures in the chat therapies and making the patients create works of art and sing songs related to different cultural occasions in the art therapies by promoting global moral values. Sometimes they promote the moral values of other religious and cultural groups by celebrating different feasts and narrating stories belonging to these diverse groups by underscoring the concept unity in diversity and imposing upon the patients that they constitute a family in the hospital.
Moreover, not only the foods and beverages the Pink Angels distribute, but also the jam jars and gift baskets they prepare carry Turkish Jewish symbols. This thesis based on fieldwork tests the hypotheses that the Pink Angels employ positive symbols in the therapies and activities they conduct, avoid talking about negative issues, such as sadness and death, not only the therapies, but also all the other activities that the Pink Angels conduct evoke happiness and joy in the patients as long as the Turkish Jewish culture is rep