(MENAFN) While anti-Semitism is increasing in the world, Jewish residents stay an integral part of Turkish society, Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a statement on Sunday.

"Our Jewish citizens, with whom we live together with a strong sense of unity, togetherness, and belonging, are an inseparable part of our society today, as they were in the past," Erdogan announced in a declaration celebrating the beginning later Sunday of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights.

Hanukkah is an eight-day holiday celebrating the rededication of the second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in the second century B.C.

"While anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia threaten global peace as well as social peace in many countries today, the unity and solidarity of all our citizens in our country, without any discrimination, with the understanding of mutual respect and love, constitute an exceptional example to the whole world," Erdogan added.

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