ISTANBUL — Turkey’s first officially sanctioned commemoration of the Holocaust was held in a synagogue here on Thursday, reflecting government efforts to assuage the Jewish minority in the face of increasingly strained ties with Israel. But the event was overshadowed by the scheduled premiere on Friday of the latest installment in a series of popular Turkish-made adventure films that depict Israelis as evil.

“Gathering in love, brotherhood and humanity should be our common language to ensure that we must never experience this crime against humanity, this attack against humanity ever again,” Huseyin Avni Mutlu the Istanbul governor, said after lighting a candle in commemoration of the Holocaust’s victims with Ishak Haleva, Turkey’s chief rabbi, at the Neve Shalom synagogue.

The synagogue, one of many around the world commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day, carries particular symbolism here because it was the target of a local radical Islamist network loyal to Al Qaeda in simultaneous attacks around the city in 2003....