Waiting for Ramadan

We are all waiting for Ramadan...
The time we love best...
The month in which the Qu'ran was sent...
A time of great blessing, time to controlling desires and suppressing greed...
It is a time to get united with our friends and families, it is the time to refrain from bad deeds, it is the time to raise our hands and ask for God's Rahmaa, ask for forgiveness and it is time to make a new start...



Dear friends of Turkish Community

We would love to see you all at the "Iftar" (fast breaking) table to share our dinner and to share our culture.

Please mark your calendars the following days to participate the fast breaking dinner. The location will be e-mailed to participants.  A 2 day advance RSVP is required to attend to prepare enough food.

July 13th Saturday 8.30-10 pm
July 27th Saturday 8.30-10 pm
August 3rd Saturday 8.30-10 pm

For RSVP e-mail: womensclubsyracuse@gmail.com

What is the best dish you ate at the Taste of Syracuse?

I asked this question many times to my friends for their recommendation for the Taste of Syracuse?

According to Ben Axelson, Community Engagement Specialist, Stuffed peppers and baklava from the Syracuse Turkish Cultural Center are the best dished he had tasted during the Taste of Syracuse, 2013.

'Festival of Taste of Syracuse" was organized on the first Friday and Saturday of June. Despite the rainy weather, Taste of Syracuse festival hosted more visitors this year than the previous year. 250 thousands of people attended the festival.

This year, TCC Syracuse opened three tents for the festival. Delicious samples of Turkish cuisine,  Turkish handicrafts and precious products are displayed in the tents. The visitors of TCC tents experienced very pleasant moments.

Turkish coffee, Turkish tea and baklava, stuffed grape leaves , lentil dumplings and Doner took place in the tents. Participants particularly liked the baklava and stuffed grape leaves.

The Post-Standard, also mentioned delicius Turkish food and TCC tents in their story.

http://www.syracuse.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/06/at_taste_of_syracuse_dodging_r.html

Turkish Henna Night for American Bride

Turkish Cultural Center volunteers organized a henna night for their American friend who will get married soon.

The bride, Ms. Glass', family and friends and participants of all nationalities who are curious about Turkish culture were participated to Henna night

After delicious Turkish foods, presentation about "Turkish Culture Marriage Steps";  engagement, henna night and wedding attracted great attention. Participants given the opportunity to learn more about Turkish culture in this section, the questions were answered.

After the henna ceremony, the henna night ended with folk dances and folk songs.

Ms. Glass is thankful to everyone who contributed to this night, indicated that the Turkish people are very warm and sincere friends.

 

Bosnian Ladies hosted Turkish sisters at Turkish cultural Center

On 20^th of April, at Turkish Cultural Center, Turkish ladies were guests this time. Bosnian ladies had organized and hosted the 3^rd Bosnian-Turkish Sisterhood dinner at Turkish Cultural Center.

The program began with Bosnia-Herzegovina and Turkey documentary videos. The videos were followed by Bosnian Hymn group excellent show. They sang Bosnian and Turkish hymn. Dinner from Bosnian cuisine was served and Bosnian Borek was the most popular one among all the food.

We feel like, we have stronger bonds each day with our Bosnian friends. We enjoy talking about each cultures’ values and traditions.

We sincerely thank our Bosnian friends for this lovely night. We enjoyed every moment of it and we are hoping to come together more often and serve our community together.

Boston Marathon Explosion

Dear Friends

We strongly condemn the bomb attack in Boston, MA during Boston marathon. This time, terror targeted a sport activity. It costs the lives of innocent people.  We would like to stress that any terrorist activity, no matter who does it and for what purpose, is the greatest blow to peace, democracy and humanity. 

We feel the pain of the American people from our heart, and assure everybody that we pray to God Almighty for the victims and that He may equip their sorrowful beloved ones and all other American people with patience.

TCC Syracuse Women's Club members

3rd Bosnian Turkish Night

Dear Friends
3rd Bosnian Turkish sisterhood dinner will be organized and host by our lovely Bosnian sisters at Turkish Cultural Center on 20th of April 2013.
We are looking forward to participate.

March 2013 Cooking Class

Dear Friends
We thank very much our March cooking class participants. We had another lovely, friendly and  delicious cooking class. This months menu included fellah kofte and un helvasi (Flour halvah or halwa)

Flour halwa is very easy to cook and it is the most popular dessert of Turkey.

Each woman is precious-Happy Women's Day

Dear beautiful ladies,

8th of March is international Women's Day.

We are with our children when they perform on school stage, we are with them when they celebrate their birthday, we are with our husband when he gets a promotion... We celebrate festivals, Christmas, holidays...Actually all these times, and these moments turn to a celebration with women's presence. The environment of a spiritually mature woman constantly exudes a scent of joy to her family and to her environment like an incense burner and grace the environment with her presence.

A place that contains an honorable, well-mannered woman loyal to her family, to her friends, to her home is a corner from Heaven.
.
Today, 8th of March, is our day to celebrate. We celebrate our presence. We wish you a happy women's day with all the joy, light and beauty you deserve. And we pray to illuminate out heart with the light of faith and we pray to enlight our minds with knowledge to build our homes anew each day by adding new dimensions of beauty to it.

"Each woman is a precious, exalted jewel that must not be violated and thrown into a sewer. We hope that fortunate future generations will awake to knowledge, spirituality, and truth so that women may once again become "the apple of their eye." "  (F. Gulen http://en.fgulen.com/pearls-of-wisdom/1095-women)

written by a woman :)

February Cooking Class

Dear Friends
We had wonderful time during February Cooking class. We cooked crepe with potato filling and Kalbura Basti dessert. I hope you enjoyed cooking as much as we did. We have learned new skills and tried new recipes. We talked about meaning of cooking for each of us. It was interesting to learn that we have the same saying about cooking in USA, Turkey and Bosnia. It was a friendly, relaxing and fun Saturday afternoon. Thank you for your interest and we hope to see you next time.

We thank our friend Ayna for the photos. 

2nd Bosnian Turkish Dinner

Bosnian-Turkish Sisterhood Dinner

Dear Friends

The First Bosnian Turkish Friendship dinner was held on February 2, 2013 at the Turkish Cultural Center by Women’s Club in collaboration with our Bosnian friends. 50 people participated in the event.

Women’s Club volunteer Elif Yavuz talked about the past activities Turkish Cultural Center and mentioned about some future projects. She emphasized the importance of being together in America to built a better community without changing our valuable tradition.

Alma Begic, one of the organizers of the dinner, gave a brief historical overview of Bosnian Turkish relationship, and talked about the similarities that she had observed when she was in Turkey for her studies. We are grateful to Alma for the opportunity to organize this dinner together.

We danced together at the end of the dinner. It was so much fun to learn Kolo, a Bosnian folk dance.

A big thank you to those who made Bosnian-Turkish sisterhood dinner possible. We had lovely time during the dinner. We enjoyed talking about each culture with the company of great food. We hope to organize more projects together with our Bosnian friends.

Winter clothes and toys charity drive

Dear Friends

One of the latest events organized by Syracuse Turkish Cultural Center (TCC) and their American friends who are attending breakfast meetings is the "winter clothes and toys" charity drive where more than 400 pieces of clothes and toys were donated for refugees.

Pooling the efforts of the Turkish cultural center members in Syracuse, more than 3 dozens of bags filled with coats, hats, scarves, gloves, baby clothes and toys were collected and distributed by members of TCC.

 "This idea came to our minds when we were having Turkish breakfast meeting with our American neighbors. It's gone very well, with a lot of support from our American friends." said Ayna Yagmurova who organized this event. "I think a lot of people, when they heard about it through the TCC just opened up and donated stuff, because they know times are tough for refugees. Some people donated clothes, some donated toys, some people donated their times and some donated their cars to be used to collect the items. It was really inspiring to see how my neighbors, my friends wanted to help. I am very thankful to live in such a nice community"

TCC members arrived West Side Learning Center (WSLC-422 Gifford St, Syracuse, NY) in the morning to set up tables for the items. They also presented TCC activities and events to the students and teachers of the WSLC. Students and teachers at WCLS had participated the presentation with great attention. TCC members also cooked fresh pastries, brought fruits and drinks to be served during the presentation. Mr.Sula, who is also a student at WSLC, said " I have been noticing a refugee friend who comes to classes with very old clothes and she did not have a coat. I was feeling guilty to wear my coat next to her. I saw her getting lots of items during this event. These refugees need more winter items. Thank you for organizing this event and I hope we can help more."

"We were not expecting this much of items. This is the biggest donation ever happened at WSLC. We were able to reach more then 100 people. Thank you for organizing this event." Said Miss. Elise who teaches English as a second language at WSLC. 

Refugee families thanked to event organizers after presentation, and mentioned about their needs.  TCC members said, they plan to organize more events to reach more people who are in need and they are thankful for all people who donated items for this event and people who care about the others.