Academic literature on the topic 'BUTSI (Organization)'

Abstract The extraordinary involvement of Jewish women in charitable and social welfare organizations reflected a combination of deeply held Jewish traditions as well as social transformations within Imperial Germany. Among the latter, the evolution of women’s role in the public arena is prominent. For many women, it was the religious social welfare context from which their feminist perceptions and move ment grew. Indeed, excluded until 1908 from most political involvement, women’s social service activism can be interpreted as a form of women’s politics, a way in which women created their own power structures alongside the political and busi ness spheres dominated by men. After the founding of the German Empire, the complex interaction between state and private welfare and the Jewish minority also affected the involvement of Jewish women in voluntary social welfare. Further, social welfare was a form of minority self-help and self-protection in an era of increased anti-Semitism. It was also a form of liberal, bourgeois politics vis-a-vis those of a lower social class: specifically, German Jews tried to alleviate the conditions of Eastern European immigrant Jews and help them acculturate to German society.

The projects sponsored by the Gülen-inspired movement are numerous, international and costly in terms of human and financial capital. Critics of the movement often question the fi- nancing of these initiatives – with some convinced of collusion with Middle Eastern govern- ments, others (within Turkey) suspicious that Western governments are financially backing the projects. Aware of these criticisms, in a recent comment to a group of visiting follow- ers, Fethullah Gülen indicated greater financial transparency must become a priority for the movement. This paper addresses the financing of Güle