History of the Jews in Turkey modest Jewish population. According to Jewish scripture, Noah's Ark landed on the top of Mount Ararat, a mountain in the Taurus range in Eastern Anatolia, near the present-day borders of Turkey, Armenia, and Iran. Flavius Josephus, Jewish historian of the first century, notes Jewish origins for many of the cities in Asia Minor, though much of his sourcing for these passages is traditional. New Testament mention of Jewish populations in Anatolia is widespread: Iconium (now: Konya) is said to have a synagogue in Acts 14:1, and Ephesus is mentioned as having a synagogue in Acts 19:1 and in Paul's Epistle
Mount Judi Mount Judi Mount Judi ( ', ', , "", ), also spelled Guti and Kutu, according to very Early Christian and Islamic tradition (based on the Qur'an, Hud:44), is Noah's apobaterion or "Place of Descent", the location where the Ark came to rest after the Great Flood. The Quranic tradition is similar to the Judeo-Christian legend. The identification of Mount Judi as the landing site of the ark persisted in Syriac and Armenian tradition throughout Late Antiquity but was abandoned for the tradition equating the biblical location with the highest mountain of the region, Mount Ararat. Jewish Babylonian, Syriac, and