Ottoman Jewry

“Millet” is an Arabic word, which means “nation”, “nationality”, but in the
Ottoman Empire it had a different meaning, pointing to religious and national origin, and more specifically, to non-Muslim communities.
In the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire created Millet system, and non-Muslim population was divided into three ethnic-religious communities: Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic and Jewish. Formation and activity of the Millets, of course, was
due to a number of internal and external political factors of Empire.
The Millets enjoyed legal autonomy in community life. As the head of each religious community was Millet bashi (head of community), that is the patriarch or the rabbi. The head of the Armenian Millet was Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, whose powers were extended to the entire monotheist communities of the Empire. Ottoman sultans, retaining the right of a final decision, had granted certain priorities to Armenian patriarchs over the gouvernance of the Armenian religious and secular
communities of the Empire. The evidence of this are the Arabic, Ottoman Turkish and Armenian documents (sultans’ berats, fermans and correspondence) preserved in the archive of Catholicoses of St. Etchmiadzin, in Matenadaran Collection.

Gershom Scholem in Deutschland
Zwischen Seelenverwandtschaft und Sprachlosigkeit
Hrsg. v. Gerold Necker, Elke Morlok u. Matthias Morgenstern

Die Biographie des in Berlin geborenen und ab 1923 in Jerusalem lebenden Kabbala-Forschers Gershom Gerhard Scholem ist von den Katastrophen und Umbrüchen des 20. Jahrhunderts geprägt. Im Horizont des für Scholem ambivalenten deutsch-jüdischen Verhältnisses nehmen die Autoren des Bandes seinen Werdegang im Kaiserreich und in der Weimarer Republik in den Blick sowie die Bedeutung, die er als israelischer Gesprächspartner für die Zeitgeschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland hatte. Die Beziehungen zu Walter Benjamin und Hannah Arendt, zu dem Theologen Otto Michel und dem Verleger Siegfried Unseld dokumentieren auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen Scholems Verbindung zu Deutschland, die ihn auch bei persönlicher Lyrik und sogar bei seiner wissenschaftlichen Prosa zur jüdischen Mystik begleitete.

A second unit will ask who did originally create this modern distinction of oktoechos mele known as Constantinopolitan hyphos and trace it to the Archon Protopsaltes Panagiotes Halacoglu, Ioannes Trapezountios, Daniel the Protopsaltes and Petros Peloponnesios, who were also very active as transcriptors of makam music and contributors to own makam genres like Phanariot songs. This Ottoman culture was based on two different ideals: (1) the innovative composer who enriched the oktoechos mele by the exchange with Armenian musicians, Maftirim brotherhoods at the synagogues, and dervish composers, and who was honoured by anthologies explicitely dedicated to his compositions (Petros Bereketes), and (2) the traditionalist composers who kept the Byzantine heritage intact with a reference to Manuel Chrysaphes (the last lampadarios at the Palatine chapel of the Empire), also by changing and prolonging the thesis of the melos (Georgios Raidestinos, Panagiotes the New Chrysaphes, and Germanos of New Patras). The emphasis of this unit is to understand the synoptic and exegetic manuscript notation of the 17th and the 18th centuries, in order to perceive the exegeseis of the printed editions as possible realisations, but not as authoritative. Until today, Archon Protopsaltes of the Patriarchate are expected to contribute with their own realisations to revive the tradition known as Constantinopolitan hyphos.

İnsanın ilk ortaya çıktığından beri bütün insanlar hayatlarını devam ettirebilmek
için sürekli ekonomik arayış içine girmiş ve farklı dönemlerde farklı ekonomik
faaliyetleri bulmuştur. Bu faaliyetlerle beraber de varlığını sürdürmüştür. Bu çalışma
da ağırlıklı olarak XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII ve XIX. yüzyıllarda Osmanlı Devleti’nde
yaşayan gayrimüslimlerin ekonomik faaliyetlerinin neler olduğunu Türk tarihinin
önemli şehirlerinden olan Bursa’daki Yahudiler örneği ile açıklamayı amaçlamıştır.
Bursa hem siyasal açıdan hem de sosyo-ekonomik açıdan oldukça önemi bir yere
sahiptir. Bu önemini Bursa’da sadece Müslüman Türkler değil Bursa’da yaşayan diğer
etnik unsurlar ile gayrimüslimler de sağlamıştır. Müslümanlar ve gayrimüslimler bir
araya gelerek hem kendi aralarında hem de şehirlerarası v e uluslararası ekonomik
faaliyetlerde bulunarak bugün ki Bursa ekonomisinin temelini atmışlardır. Ayrıca
üzerine çalışılan dönemde Bursa’da Yahudilerin kısıtlı bir ekonomik faaliyette
olmadıkları birden fazla meslekle uğraştıkları da açıklanabilmiştir. Çalışma esnasında
ise Yahudilerin ekonomik faaliyetlerini açıklamak için başta Bursa Şer-iyye Sicilleri ve
dönemi aydınlatan diğer kaynak eserlerden yararlanılmıştır.

As a result of the trade agreements that accompanied the peace treaties of Karlowitz (1699) and Passarowitz (1718) between the Ottoman and the Habsburg Empires merchants from the Ottoman lands started coming to Vienna in the early 18th century. While most of them were Orthodox Christians (Greeks), there was also a smaller group of Sephardi Jews as well as some Armenians and Muslims (Turks). The origins of what later became the two Greek-Orthodox and the Turkish-Israelite communities of Vienna can be traced back to the first half of the 18th century. The fact that these merchants were tolerated even though they belonged to non-Catholic confessions has to do with the trade privileges they enjoyed as Ottoman subjects based on the peace treaties between the two empires. For this reason, the members of Vienna’s Sephardic community had much more rights than the local Jews and the so-called Turkish-Israelite Community thus became the first officially legitimated Jewish community in the city. Both the Greek Community of St. George and the Turkish-Israelite Community were given documents that granted them the right to exercise their religion already by empress Maria Theresa, i.e. before her son Joseph II. published his patents of toleration for non-Catholic believers (Protestants and Greek-Orthodox in 1781, Jews in 1782).
While during the 18th century we can observe a range of similarities between the Turkish-Israelite Community and the Greek Community of St. George of the Ottoman subjects, in the course of the 19th century there are also parallels with the Greek Community of the Holy Trinity of the Austrian subjects (founded in 1787).
On the one hand this is due to the reason that the Austrian administrative authorities demanded analogous modes of organization and administration by the non-Catholic communities, on the other hand there was obviously an exchange between the Sephardic and the two Greek communities in dealing with upcoming organizational and institutional issues they faced in the 19th century. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the communities show similar features regarding their acculturation and integration into the Viennese Habsburg society.
Apart from a short presentation by myself in 2017 the relations between the Turkish-Israelite and the Greek communities in Vienna have not been studied. In my paper I want to give an overview of all aspects of the parallels and similarities in the history of these communities starting from the early 18th century and ending with World War II.

Review on:
1. S. Glick with D. Arad and Z. Stampfer et al., Seride Teshuvot, A Descriptive Catalogue of Responsa Fragments from the Jacques Mosseri Collection, Cambridge University Library, Leiden 2012
2. ש' גליק, בשיתוף ד' ארד וי' שוורץ, שרידי תשובות מחכמי האימפריה העות'מאנית, א-ג, ירושלים תשע"ג-תשע"ד

Review article on Bedross Der Matossian's Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire, Michelle U. Campos' Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth- Century Palestine and Feroz Ahmad's The Young Turks and the Ottoman Nationalities: Armenians, Greeks, Albanians, Jews, and Arabs, 1908-1914.

In the late 19th century the French-Jewish Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) established and administered primary schools for Jewish communities throughout the Muslim world, with a focus on North Africa and the Ottoman Empire.  The AIU’s actions in the territories that later became Iraq have been seldom studied compared to the schools in other geographic areas and have been almost totally ignored with regard to Basra.  This article utilizes the letters of the Archives of the Alliance Israelite Universelle (AAIU) and other select primary sources to explore the AIU’s relationship, and to a lesser extent its sister organization’s, the Anglo-Jewish Association (AJA), relationship with the Jewish community in Basra in the 1890s and early 1900s leading to the AIU takeover the Basra Jewish School in 1903.  In doing so it provides a foundation for future scholars to more fully examine both the AIU’s subsequent work in the city and also the history of Basra’s Jewish community in the first half of the twentieth century.

The relations between the Janissaries and the Jewish community is often mention to negatively. But there are also different sizes of this relationship. Thessaloniki Jews had been weaving broadcloth for the Janissaries for centuries. Thanks to this, Thessaloniki became one of the most important weaving centers in the Ottoman Empire. The Janissary Corps also benefited from the Jewish physicians. The Jews which have the closest relationships with the janissaries were the bazirgans of the Janissary Corps. The bazirgan of the Janissary Corps was responsible to provide financial source in order to treat the financial and material needs of the Janissaries. The bazirgan of Janissary Corps was under the monopoly of some Jewish families who got great income and influence thanks to the tutorship of Janissaries. For this reason the disappearance of The Bazirgan service with with the abolition of the Janissaries had a profound effect on The Jewish Community.

The collaboration between political and religious authorities, directed at imposing religious uniformity and at establishing denominational boundaries in the course of Early Modern times, has traditionally been investigated within the interpretative framework of ‘Confessionalization’ - a concept originally developped and applied only to the European (and especially German) case. Nonetheless, recent historiography has begun to investigate the conditions that shaped the construction of a Sunni Islamic orthodoxy between the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, by considering the possibility of applying the historiographical paradigm of Confessionalization also to the Ottoman Empire.
In following and broadening this approach, the aim of this workshop is to carry on in a comparative way a reflection upon the progressive construction of confessional identities within the communities of the Ottoman Empire. Such a process was almost always determined by the confrontation or clash with a rival religious group (Sunni vs. Shiite Muslims, Orthodox vs. Catholic Christians, Sephardic vs. charismatic and mystic Jewish movements) or with the members of the other communities. A special attention will be placed on the two-folded nature of this process (top-down and bottom-up) as well on the possible comparisons and on the interweaving relationship between the European and the Ottoman ‘Confessionalization’.

La collaborazione in età moderna tra autorità politiche e gerarchie ecclesiastiche nell’imposizione di un’uniformità religiosa e nella creazione di marcatori identitari esclusivi è stata tradizionalmente studiata all’interno del quadro interpretativo della “confessionalizzazione” – un concetto nato per il caso tedesco e finora applicato solamente ai territori europei. Recentemente, però, alcuni studiosi hanno cominciato ad esaminare il processo di costruzione di un’ortodossia islamica sunnita tra la fine del Medioevo e la prima età moderna, nel tentativo di applicare il paradigma storiografico della confessionalizzazione anche all’Impero ottomano. Inserendosi in tale dibattito ma ampliando il campo d’indagine, questa giornata di studi si propone di riflettere in maniera comparativa sulla progressiva costruzione delle identità confessionali tra le comunità dell’Impero ottomano: si tratta di un processo quasi sempre determinato dal confronto con un gruppo religioso rivale (islam sunnita e sciita, cristianesimo ortodosso e cattolico, ebraismo rabbinico e movimenti mistici o carismatici) o con i membri di un’altra comunità. Un’attenzione speciale sarà rivolta alla duplice natura di tale processo (dall’alto e dal basso) così come alle possibili somiglianze, differenze e intrecci tra la “confessionalizzazione” europea e ottomana.

This article focuses on a tragic event: the destruction of the old synagogue in the
Jewish quarter of Damascus by the Muslim authorities, which probably occurred
in 1552. The sources for this event are diverse and not entirely in agreement.
This article tries, first, to recover the historical details. In so doing, it also seeks
to demonstrate that an earlier analysis of one of the main sources on the event,
which claims that the destruction took place in Jerusalem in 1542, is wrong.
The historical memory of this event in recent centuries took shape among the
Damascene Jews in various ways. Even though the event occurred close to the
spring holiday of Passover, the community commemorated it on the summer fast
day of
Tish’ah be’av
, to which were ‘attached’ many tragedies throughout Jewish
history, in addition to the destruction of the two temples. The Jews of Damascus
recalled the destruction of the old synagogue by reciting a lamentation describing
the event. This lamentation was preserved in two different versions, in Hebrew
and Judeo-Arabic. In addition, popular legendary accounts of the destruction were
transmitted from generation to generation. A close examination of these accounts
and their motifs illuminates the process of shaping a common memory within the
community. Some historical facts were forgotten, while various mythical elements
appeared in the legends. These legends, however, along with the lamentations,
ensured the transmission of the story to each successive generation.
The modes employed by Jews in Islamic countries to preserve and remember
their own history sometimes differ from the forms of collective memory employed
among the Jews in the Christian world. This article offers a possible starting point
for future research on this topic

"Jewish power brokers played an important role in the 16th century Constantinople by not only engaging in factional politics, but also providing the Ottomans with information regarding the developments in Europe and the Western Mediterranean. Relying on already extant networks of international trade and establishing their own intelligence networks, these power brokers used the gathered information in order to increase their standing in the Ottoman court. In the face of the resistance of some Ottoman grandees who felt threatened by these outsiders’ extracurricular activities, their contributions as information traders justified the unusually active role they played in Ottoman politics by allying themselves with court factions and manipulating the Ottoman decision-making with the information they provided.

Furthermore, touting for patrons outside the empire as well, these Jewish entrepreneurs dealt with other governments and wove dense networks of patronage across empires by meditating between two worlds. The marketed their connections in the Ottoman capital as well as adroitness and acumen in Ottoman politics by not only providing foreign governments with information about the things Ottoman but also by offering their services as middleman in important matters such as diplomacy and slave ransoming. It was in all these qualities that these power brokers provided channels of communication between rival empires at each other’s throats, the Ottomans and the Spanish Habsburgs, and enabled the possibilities of cooperation between the imperial elites.
"

There were strong economic and political motives for Christian princes to establish and maintain diplomatic relations with the Muslim Ottoman Sultans, but these relations were complicated by serious religious differences. In addition to the religious divide between the Abode of Islam (dar al-Islam) and Christendom, the sixteenth century also witnessed dramatic splits within Christendom and these new divisions were reflected in the burgeoning diplomatic corps at Constantinople. This paper will explore the religious culture of the late sixteenth century diplomatic corps in Constantinople from the perspective of the first two resident English ambassadors: William Harborne and his secretary and successor, Edward Barton. Religious identity significantly influenced the relationships between these English diplomats and their Venetian, Ragusan, French, Imperial (Habsburg), Polish, Transylvanian, Moldavian and Wallachian counterparts, as well as their Ottoman hosts and the Ottomans' politically active Greek Orthodox and Jewish subjects. It shall be argued that diplomatic relationships across the multiple religious divides in Constantinople ranged from open hostility, to simmering rivalry, begrudging toleration and both tacit and open co-operation. While religious identity remained paramount, relationships also varied according to political circumstances and commercial interests, as well as the personal temperaments of the particular individuals involved. Despite the all too real conflicts and rivalries between Christian diplomats, their vulnerable position as representatives to a Muslim potentate with no respect for Christian laws and customs © 2016 Daniel J. Bamford. Page 1 of 2. Daniel J. Bamford. Proposal for 'Centres of Diplomacy, Centres of Culture II'. frequently served to reinforce a shared sense of Christian identity across the confessional divides.

The relations between the Janissaries and the Jewish community is often mention to negatively. But there are also different sizes of this relationship. Thessaloniki Jews had been weaving broadcloth for the Janissaries for centuries. Thanks to this, Thessaloniki became one of the most important weaving centers in the Ottoman Empire. The Janissary Corps also benefited from the Jewish physicians. The Jews which have the closest relationships with the janissaries were the bazirgans of the Janissary Corps. The bazirgan of the Janissary Corps was responsible to provide financial source in order to treat the financial and material needs of the Janissaries. The bazirgan of Janissary Corps was under the monopoly of some Jewish families who got great income and influence thanks to the tutorship of Janissaries. For this reason the disappearance of The Bazirgan service with with the abolition of the Janissaries had a profound effect on The Jewish Community.

This article demonstrates how architecture and politics concomitantly reflect Jewish history in the Ottoman Empire. Architecture shows concrete cultural entities that may afford us with opportunities to broaden social inquiry and our understanding of history. The study traces Galata Jewry under the Ottoman Empire and deciphers their role in the
formation of Galata’s urban texture and ethnic outlook. Additionally, it investigates the Ottoman administrative system and the active role of Galata Jewry in this system, whereby Jews contributed to the urban and economic development of the Empire.

Based on Ottoman and Scottish archival sources, this study explores the ways in which marginal spaces of Izmir, which were frequently visited and inhabited by the impoverished Jews, were depicted in the records of missionaries from the Church of Scotland during the late nineteenth century. By concentrating on the relationship between marginality, exclusion, and modernity, this research intends to bring the spatiality of an imperial port city into a broader conversation with social exclusion through a historical sociology approach. Moreover, the analysis of Scottish missionaries’ corporal and ideological penetration into the inner quarters of the city will shed light on the interaction of “Izmirli” and “non-Izmirli” subjects within the material and affective space of the city.