1 ***Author’s final version before publication*** Kaşlı, Z. (2018) “Negotiating History and Diversity in a Border Province: The Non-Muslim Urban Past in Today’s Edirne”, F.M.Göcek (eds.) Contested Spaces in Contemporary Turkey: Environmental, Urban and Secular Politics. I.B. Tauris: London. Pp 92-133. Negotiating History and Diversity in a Border Province: The Non-Muslim Urban Past in Today’s Edirne Zeynep Kaşlı i The Great Synagogue of Edirne, one of the largest in Europe, is located in the old district Kaleiçi, but has been, since the 1980s, derelict due to the absence of a local Jewish community. In the 1980s, the Jewish community declared their willingness twice to donate the building for public use, provided that they were allowed to use the small building in the yard for religious services. Yet, political authorities at both the local and the national levels disregarded their suggestions. ii The tide has recently changed in 2010 when the Regional Directorate General of Foundations approved the restoration project with a budget of more than 3,5 million TL. In the summer of 2013, almost three decades later than the original request of the Jewish community, Hasan Duruer, the then governor of Edirne, declared that: “The Jewish community [in Istanbul] has come to me to share their desire to both pray and hold weddings in the synagogue once renovations are complete. I told them that it will be a culture center because you do not have a community here anymore. Yet this is your place and you are welcome whenever you want to use it as long as you come to visit to Edirne. I think this will also contribute to the development of Edirne and tourism.” iii Nevertheless, immediately after the infamous clashes in Jerusalem’s al- Aqsa Mosque compound in early November 2014, iv the successor governor Dursun Ali Şahin