The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic

401 Pages·1991·48.595 MB·English

by  Stanford J. Shaw

THE JEWS OF THE OTIOMAN EMPIRE
AND THE TURKISH REPUBLIC
Also by Stanford J. Shaw
BETWEEN OLD AND NEW: THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE UNDER
SULTAN SELIM III, 1789-1807
THE BUDGET OF OTTOMAN EGYPT
(editor and translator)
THE FINANCIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION AND
DEVELOPMENT OF OTTOMAN EGYPT, 1517-1798
HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND MODERN TURKEY
Volume 1: Empire of the Gazis: The Rise and Decline of
the Ottoman Empire, 1280-1808
Volume 2: Reform, Revolution and Republic: The Rise of Modern
Turkey, 1808-1975 (with Ezel Kural Shaw)
OTTOMAN EGYPT IN THE AGE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
(editor and translator)
OTTOMAN EGYPT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY:
THE NIZAMNAME-I MISIR OF AHMED CEZZAR PASHA
(editor and translator)
STUDIES ON THE CIVILIZATION OF ISLAM
(co-editor with William Polk)
L'IMPERO OTTOMANO DALLA FINE DEL CONQUECENTO
ALLACADUTA
Vol. 6: L'Impero Byzantino, L'Islamismo, e l'impero Ottomano
(with Allesio Bombacci)
OSMANLI IMPARATORLUGU VE TURKIYE CUMHURIYETI TARIHI
J
The elVS of the Ottotnan
Etnpire and the Turkish
Republic
STANFORD J. SHAW
Professor of Turkish and Near Eastern History
University of California, Los Angeles
© Stanford 1. Shaw 1991
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1991
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First published 1991 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
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and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-1-349-12237-0 ISBN 978-1-349-12235-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-12235-6
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95
Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk to the Jews of Turkey
2 February 1923
There are some of our faithful people whose destiny has been united with that
of the Turks ruling them, in particular the Jews, who because their loyalty
to this nation and this motherland has been confirmed, have passed their
lives in comfort and prosperity until now, and will continue to live
thus hereafter in comfort and happiness.1
This book is dedicated to the
Muslim and Jewish Turks of the Republic of Turkey,
in celebration of five hundred years of brotherhood and friendship.
1492-1992
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
List of Plates xi
List of Abbreviations xii
1 Ingathering of the Jews 1
The Study of Ottoman and Turkish Jewry 1
Situation of Jews in Europe 3
The Jews of Islam 9
The Jews of Rome and Byzantium 15
Jewish Absorption into the Emerging Ottoman Empire 25
2 The Golden Age of Ottoman Jewry 37
Jewish Community Organization in the Ottoman Empire 37
Jews in Ottoman Society 77
Jewish Social and Economic Life in Ottoman Times 86
The Efflorescence of Ottoman Jewish Culture 97
3 Decline of Ottoman Jewry in the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries 109
Decline and DiSintegration of the Ottoman Empire 109
The Effects of Decline on Ottoman Jewry 119
4 The revival of Ottoman Jewry in the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries 147
Ottoman Jewry and the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman
Reform Movement, 1800-76 147
The Effects of Christian Nationalism on Ottoman Jewry 187
Jewish Participation in Ottoman Life During the Last
Half Century of the Empire, 1876-1923 206
Ottoman Jewry during World War I and the
Turkish War for Independence 229
5 The Jews of the Turkish Republic since 1923 244
Appendixes 272
1 Grand Rabbis of Istanbul and the Ottoman Empire
and Chief Rabbis of Republican Turkey 272
vii
viii Contents
2 Population of the Ottoman Empire in the Late Nineteenth
and Early Twentieth Centuries According
to Official Ottoman Census Reports 285
3 Jewish Population in the Turkish Republic, 1927-1965 285
4 Population of Istanbul by Religion, 1883 Statistics
and 1927 Census 287
5 Official Turkish Jewish Community Renunciation of
Special Privileges provided by Treaty of Lausanne,
Article 42, 15 September 1925 287
Notes 289
Select Bibliography on Ottoman and Turkish Jewry 302
I The Jews of Islam before the rise of the Ottoman Empire 302
II The Jews of Rome, Byzantium, and Christian Europe 305
III Middle Eastern Society in Islamic and Ottoman Times 309
IV The History of Ottoman Jewry 310
Index 345
Acknowledgements
This study is the product of some thirty five years of research on Ottoman
history in the libraries and archives of Turkey, Great Britain, the United
States and France. It could not have been undertaken or completed
without the assistance and contributions of many people throughout the
world.
I would like to thank in particular Rabbi Haim Nahum Efendi, last
Grand Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire, whose comments to me during
several meetings in Cairo in January and March, 1956, where he had been
Chief Rabbi since 1925, inspired me to begin this work and provided me
with the first inklings as to the actual nature of the relationship among
the different religious communities in the Ottoman Empire; Rabbi David
Asseo, Chief Rabbi of Turkey since 1961, who kindly allowed me to
consult the library and archives of the Chief Rabbinate in Istanbul and to
visit and photograph many of the synagogues under his jurisdiction; the
pioneering historian of Ottoman Jewry, Avram Galante, who during our
meeting on Kmahada, Istanbul in May, 1957 gave me the initial direction
as to how I should approach the subject of Ottoman and Turkish Jewry;
Nairn Giileryiiz, Historian and Counsellor to the Grand Rabbinate, who
opened many doors for me in Istanbul; and to many others whom I
interviewed regarding the situation of Jews in the Turkish Republic,
including Mr. Jak Kamhi and Mr. Elie AClman, of Istanbul, Stella and
David Candioti, of Jerusalem, Istanbul, and Rome, and Nedim Yahya of
Istanbul.
I would also like to thank Professor Ismet Miroglu, General Director
of the B~bakanllk Ar~ivi (Prime Minister's Archives) and Professor Yusuf
Hala~oglu, Director of the Ottoman Archives section of the B~bakanltk
Ar~ivi in Istanbul; Professor Georges Weill, Director of the Archives and
Library of the Alliance Israelite Universelle in Paris; and to the directors
and staffs of the major libraries and archives used in this study: the
Archives de la Guerre, Chateau de Vincennes, and the Bibliotheque Nationale
in Paris; the Municipal Library, Bayezit General Library, and Istanbul
University Library in Istanbul; the Historical Archives of the Turkish
General Staff, the library and archives of the Turkish Historical Society
(Turk Tarih Kurumu) and the Turkish National Library (Milli Kutiiphane)
in Ankara; the University Research Library at the University of California,
Los Angeles; the Harry Elkins Widener Library and Houghton Library at
Harvard University; and the Library of Congress and National Archives
in Washington, D.C.
Particular gratitude must be paid to the pioneers in the study of Otto-
ix
x Acknowledgements
man and Turkish Jewry: Avram Galante, whose many works provide an
essential source of reference; Joseph Nehama, one of the few Salonica Jews
to survive Nazi concentration camps to complete his masterful history
of Salonica Jewry; Moise Franco, of Istanbul; Professor Bernard Lewis,
of the Walter Annenberg Institute for Judaic and Near Eastern Studies,
Philadelphia, Pa.; Professor Salo Baron, of Columbia University; Professor
Uriel Heyd and Professor Jacob Landau, of the Hebrew University, Jeru
salem; Rabbi Mark Angel of New York City; Solomon Rozanes; Cecil
Roth; Gershom Scholem; and Israel Zinberg; and among the brilliant
young contemporary scholars whose works have been used extensively
for this study: Yaakov Barnai (Israel), Esther Benbassa (Paris), Benjamin
Braude (Boston), Amnon Cohen (Jerusalem), Paul Dumont (Strasbourg),
Haim Gerber (Tel Aviv), Joseph Hacker (Jerusalem), Haim Hirschberg,
David Kushner (Haifa), Neville Mandel (Israel), Moshe Ma'oz (Jerusa
lem), Robert Olson (Kentucky), Mim Kemal Oke (Bosporus University,
Istanbul), Aron Rodrigue (Indiana), Mark Epstein, David Farhi, and
Aryeh Shmuelevitz (Tel Aviv).
My gratitude to the following publishers for granting permission to
include quotations from their works: The Cambridge University Press
for the first quotation by Rabbi Tzarfati, taken from Philip Argenti, The
Religious Minorities of Chios: Jews and Roman Catholics (Cambridge, 1970),
pp. 150-152; the Hebrew Union College, for permission to publish the
second quotation by Rabbi Tzarfati, taken from Israel Zinberg, A History
of Jewish Literature, vol. V, The Jewish Center of Culture in the Ottoman Empire
(New York, 1974), pp. 5-6; the Jewish Theological Seminary of America,
for permission to quote from Israel M. Goldman, The Life and Times of
Rabbi David Ibn Abi Zimra (New York, 1970), pp. 88-91, regarding the
powers and duties of the Ottoman Rabbi; the Herzl Press of New York
for permission to publish Kaiser Wilhelm II's statement supporting
Zionist settlement in Palestine, from the Herzl Yearbook, ed. Ralph Patai
(New York, 1961-62) IV, 236-68, and Sultan Abdiilhamid II's purported
statement to Newlinsky opposing Jewish settlement in Palestine, from
Theodor Herzl, The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, ed. Raphael Patai
(5 vols, New York and London, 1960), I, 378.
Rabbi Jacob Ott, Rabbi Perry Netter, and Cantor Isaac Bahar, of the
Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, Los Angeles, California, inspired me
to bring alI my research materials together into this study by inviting me
to give three public lectures on Ottoman and Turkish Jewry during April
1989, while the warm welcome provided by their congregation gave me
the courage to publish the results.
FinalIy, my special appreciation to my wife, Ezel Kural Shaw, Professor
of History, California State University, Northridge.
J.
STANFORD SHAW