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HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN TURKEY
Jews have lived in Turkey (and, before that, the Ottoman Empire and other former states in Anatolia) for over two thousand years. For much of the Ottoman period, Turkey was a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution, and it continues to have a small Jewish population today.
Ancient history
Jews have lived in the region from very early times, including sizable Greek speaking Jewish communities. Tradition says that there was a colony of them in Thessaly in nearby Greece at the time of Alexander the Great; and later they are found scattered throughout the eastern Roman Empire. The historian Josephus wrote that Aristotle "met Jewish people with whom he had an exchange of views during his trip across Asia Minor." Remains of synagogues from the third century have been found in Bursa. Erich Posdzich
1300-1500
The first Jewish colony in Turkey proper was at Bursa, the original Ottoman capital. According to one tradition, when Sultan Orhan conquered the city (1326) he drove out its former inhabitants and re-peopled it with Jews from Damascus and the Byzantine Empire. These Jews received a ferman (Turkish for Law) permitting them to build a synagogue; and this edifice still exists, being the oldest in Turkey. The Jews lived in a separate quarter called "Yahudi Mahallesi" (Turkish for: Jewish Quarter). Outside of Bursa they were allowed to live in any part of the country; and on payment of the haraç (kharaj), the capitation-tax required of all non-Muslim subjects (see below), they might own land and houses in the city or country.
Under Sultan Murad I the Turks crossed over into Europe, and the Jews of Thrace and Thessaly came under Ottoman dominion. The change was a welcome one to them, as their new Muslim rulers treated them with much more toleration and justice than they had received from the Christian Byzantines. The Jews even asked their co-believers from Bursa to come over and teach them Turkish, that they might the quicker adapt themselves to the new conditions. The Jewish community of Adrianople began to flourish, and its yeshibah attracted pupils not only from all parts of Turkey, but also from Hungary, Poland, and Russia. The grand rabbi at Adrianople administered all the communities of Rumelia. About fifty years after the conquest of Adrianople a converted Jewish Muslim, Torlak Kiamal by name, took part in an insurrection of dervishes and preached communistic doctrines, for which he was hanged by Sultan Mehmed I.
Sultan Murad II (1421-51) was favorably inclined toward the Jews; and with his reign began for them a period of prosperity which lasted for two centuries and which is unequaled in their history in any other country. Jews held influential positions at court; they engaged unrestrictedly in trade and commerce; they dressed and lived as they pleased; and they traveled at their pleasure in all parts of the country. Murad II. had a Jewish body-physician, Ishak Pasha, entitled "Hekim bashi" (physician-in-chief), to whom the ruler granted a special firman exempting his family and descendants from all taxes. This was the beginning of a long line of Jewish physicians who obtained power and influence at court. The same sultan created also an army corps of non-Muslims called "gharibah" (= "strangers"); and to this Jews also were admitted when they were unable to pay the haraç.
Murad's successor, Mehmed the Conqueror (Mehmed II) (1451-81), issued three days after the conquest of Constantinople a proclamation inviting all former inhabitants to return to the city without fear. Jews were allowed to live freely in the new capital as well as in the other cities of the empire. Permission was granted them to build synagogues and schools and to engage in trade and commerce without restrictions of any kind. The sultan invited Jews from the Morea to settle in Constantinople; and he employed Jewish soldiers. His minister of finance ("defterdar") was a Jewish physician named Ya'kub, and his body-physician was also a Jew, Moses Hamon, of Portuguese origin. The latter likewise received a "ferman" from the sultan exempting his family and descendants from taxes.
The Jewish immigrants who had taken refuge in Ottoman Empire between 1300-1500
Haven for the Jews
A great influx of Jews into Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, however, occurred during the reign of Mehmed's successor, Beyazid II (1481-1512), after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal. The sultan recognized the advantage to his country of this accession of wealth and industry, and bade the Spanish fugitives welcome, issuing orders to his provincial governors to receive them hospitably. The sultan is said to have exclaimed thus at the Spanish monarch's lack of wisdom: "Ye call Ferdinand a wise king — he who makes his land poor and ours rich!" The Jews supplied a need in the Ottoman empire: the Muslim Turks were good soldiers, but they were largely uninterested in business enterprises due to Islamic limitations on commercial dealings; and accordingly left commercial occupations to members of minority religions. They also distrusted their Christian subjects, however, on account of their sympathies with foreign powers; hence the Jews, who had no such sympathies, soon became the business agents of the country. Coming as they did from the persecutions of Europe, Muslim Turkey seemed to them a haven of refuge. The poet Samuel Usque compared it to the Red Sea, which the Lord divided for His people, and in the broad waters of which He drowned their troubles. The native Turkish Jews helped their persecuted brethren; and Moses Capsali levied a tax on the community of Constantinople, the proceeds of which were applied toward freeing Spanish prisoners. It may be of interest to give the following estimates of Loeb's of the numbers of those who were in Spain before the expulsion and of those who emigrated to different parts of the world:
| Algiers |
10,000 |
| America |
5,000 |
| Egypt and Tripoli |
2,000 |
| France |
3,000 |
| Holland, England, Scandinavia and Hamburg |
25,000 |
| Italy |
9,000 |
| Morocco |
20,000 |
| Turkey |
95,000 |
| Elsewhere |
1,000 |
|
_________ |
| Total emigrated |
170,000 |
| Baptized |
50,000 |
| Died on the journey |
20,000 |
|
_________ |
| Total in Spain in 1492 |
240,000 |
(from Loeb, I (1887). Le nombre des Juifs de Castile et d'Espagne au moyen Age. Revue des Études Juifs. XIV, p. 161 quoted in Sombart, Werner (1982). Jews and Modern Capitalism. Transaction Publishers, ISBN 0-87855-837-3, p. 355)
The Spanish Jews settled chiefly in Constantinople, Salonica, Adrianople, Nicopolis, Jerusalem, Safed, Damascus, and Egypt, and in Bursa, Tokat, and Amasya in Asia Minor. İzmir (Smyrna) was not settled by them until later. The Jewish population at Jerusalem increased from 70 families in 1488 to 1,500 at the beginning of the sixteenth century. That of Safed increased from 300 to 2,000 families and almost surpassed Jerusalem in importance. Damascus had a Sephardic congregation of 500 families. Constantinople had a Jewish community of 30,000 individuals with 44 synagogues. Bayazid allowed the Jews to live on the banks of the Golden Horn. Egypt, especially Cairo, received a large number of the exiles, who soon out-numbered the native Jews (see Egypt). The chief center of the Sephardic Jews, however, was Salonica, which became almost a Spanish-Jewish city because the Spanish Jews soon outnumbered their co-religionists of other nationalities and even the original native inhabitants. Spanish became the ruling tongue; and its purity was maintained for about a century.
1500-1600
The Jews introduced various arts and industries into the country. They distinguished themselves also as physicians and were used as interpreters and diplomatic agents. Selim I. (1512-20), the successor of Bayezid II., employed a Jewish physician, Joseph Hamon. This ruler also was kind to the Jews; and after the conquest of Egypt (1517) he appointed Abraham de Castro to the position of master of the mint in that country. Selim changed the administrative system of the Jews in Egypt, and abolished the office of nagid. It is interesting to note that the Turkish Jews were in favor of the conquest of Egypt, whereas the orthodox Muslims opposed it.
Suleiman I (the Magnificent) (1520-66), like his predecessor Selim I, had a Jewish body-physician, Moses Hamon II, who accompanied his royal master on his campaigns. Turkey at this time was at the high-water mark of its power and influence and was feared and respected by the great powers of Europe. Its Jews were correspondingly prosperous. They held positions of trust and honor, took part in diplomatic negotiations, and had so much influence at court that foreign Christian ambassadors were frequently compelled to obtain favors through them. Commerce was largely in their hands; and they rivaled Venice in maritime trade. In Constantinople they owned beautiful houses and gardens on the shores of the Bosphorus.
All the favor shown to individual Jews, however, did not affect the lot of the community as a whole, whose fate depended on the caprice of a despotic ruler. Sultan Murad III, for instance, on one occasion ordered the execution of all the Jews in the empire merely because he was annoyed by the luxury which they displayed in their clothing. It was only after the intervention of Solomon Ashkenazi and other influential Jews with the grand vizier, seconded by the payment of a large sum of money, that the order was changed into a law restricting dress. Thereafter Jews were required to wear a kind of cap instead of a turban, and to refrain from using silk in making their garments.
1600-1700
The prosperous condition of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire during this period was not a deep-rooted one. It did not rest on fixed laws or conditions, but depended wholly on the caprice of individual rulers. In addition there was no unity among the Jews themselves. They had come to the Ottoman Empire from many lands, bringing with them their own customs and opinions, to which they clung tenaciously, and had founded separate congregations. And with the waning of Ottoman power even their superficial prosperity vanished. Ahmed I, who came to the throne in the early years of the seventeenth century, was, it is true, favorably disposed toward the Jews, having been cured of smallpox by a Jewess (see above); and he imprisoned certain Jesuits for trying to convert them. But under Murad IV. (1623-40) the Jews of Jerusalem were persecuted by an Arab who had purchased the governorship of that city from the governor of the province; and in the time of Ibrahim I (1640-49) there was a massacre of Ashkenazic Jews who were expecting the Messiah in the year 1648, and who had probably provoked the Muslims by their demonstrations and meetings. The war with Venice in the first year of this sultan's reign interrupted commerce and caused many Jews to relocate to Smyrna, where they could carry on their trade undisturbed. In 1660, under Mehmet IV (1649-1687), Safat was destroyed by the Arabs; and in the same year there was a fire in Constantinople in which the Jews suffered severe loss. Under the same sultan Jews from Frankfort-on-the-Main settled in Constantinople; but the colony did not prosper. It was also during this reign that the pseudo-Messiah Sabbatai Zevi caused such an upheaval in Judaism. It is characteristic of the Turkish attitude toward the Jews, and in striking contrast with the attitude of European powers, that no steps were taken to punish the Jews who took part in the agitation. Sabbatai Zevi was one of the few pseudo-Messiahs who have left sects behind them.
1700-1800
The history of the Jews in Turkey in the eighteenth century is principally a very brief chronicle of misfortunes. One name stands out against the dark background—that of Daniel de Fonseca, who was chief court physician and played a certain political role. He is mentioned by Voltaire, who speaks of him as an acquaintance whom he esteemed highly. Fonseca was involved in the negotiations with Charles XII of Sweden.
In 1702 a law was passed forbidding Jews to wear yellow slippers and ordaining that in future they should wear only black coverings for the feet and head. In 1728 the Jews living near the Balık Pazarı, or fish-market, were obliged to sell their houses to Muslims and to move away so as not to defile the neighboring mosque by their presence. In 1756 one of the most terrible fires that Constantinople has ever experienced broke out in the Jewish quarter and devastated the city; in the following year the sumptuary laws against the Jews were renewed; and in the next year an earthquake destroyed 2,000 Jewish houses in Safat.
1800-1900
The attitude of the Ottoman government towards the Jews in the 19th century was very tolerant, although there were a number of attacks against Jews throughout the empire, prompt punishment followed attacks on the Jews. Thus reparative acts on the part of the government followed the events that caused the Damascus Affair in 1840; the abduction of a Jewish girl at Haifa in 1864; the extortions of the governors of Bagdad, Larissa, and Salonica in 1866; the troubles in Janina in 1872; and those in Smyrna in 1873. In 1883 the sultan publicly expressed his sympathy for the fate of the Jews of other countries and declared his satisfaction at the presence of Jewish officials in the Ottoman administration. That same year, when a fire devastated the Jewish quarter at Hasköy, in Constantinople, the sultan subscribed £1,000 for the relief of those who had been left homeless, and placed certain barracks at their disposal. In 1887 the minister plenipotentiary from the United States to the Ottoman Empire, Oscar S. Straus, was a Jew. Straus was again minister from 1897 to 1900. The Jews repaid the loyalty. In the war of 1885, although not admitted to the army, they gave pecuniary and other aid. In Adrianople 150 wagons were placed by them at the disposal of the government for the transportation of ammunition; and in the war of 1897 the Jews of Constantinople contributed 50,000 piasters to the army fund.
Zionism and Turkey
The Ottoman government allowed any individual, regardless of nationality or religion, to immigrate into Turkey, but did not permit mass settlement in any specific area. Foreign Jews were also allowed to enter Palestine for pilgrimage purposes on renewable three-month visas (Karpat, 2002, p. 796). The question of mass Jewish immigration to Turkey came to the fore in 1882, when the good offices of the United States were invoked in obtaining permission for Russian Jews to settle in Turkey; permission was denied in accordance with established policy on mass settlement, but the Porte issued an order allowing Russian Jews who had accepted Ottoman citizenship to settle anywhere other than Palestine in groups of no more than 100-150. This restriction was gradually tightened until full prohibition on further settlement by Russian Jews in 1891. Until around 1880 Ottoman Jews formed a majority of Palestine's Jewish population and they became a majority in the city of Jerusalem in about 1860. They enjoyed full citizenship rights and were able to purchase shops and land in the area. Ottoman Jews in territories which had been under the authority of the sultan until their loss in the nineteenth century were treated as equals to Muslims and were allowed to settle freely in Ottoman territories until further Jewish settlement in Palestine was prohibited on 29 July, 1899. This order was largely rescinded in 1907. During the period 1862-1914 approximately 120,000 Ottoman Jews migrated into the Ottoman Empire (Karpat, 2002, pp. 155-161).
Blood libels
Accusations of ritual murder were frequent during the nineteenth century, hardly an interval of more than two or three years passing in which a disturbance on that score was not created in some part of the country. So late as 1903 there was a serious outbreak in Smyrna. The Ottoman government has always been quick to punish the guilty. The law made in the sixteenth century by Suleiman the Magnificent in this connection has already been noticed. In 1633 a plot to injure certain Jews by the same accusation was discovered by the grand vizier, and the offenders were summarily punished by the sultan. In 1840 an outbreak in Damascus (see Damascus Affair) caused so serious a massacre of the Jewish inhabitants that the attention of the outside world was attracted to the sufferings of the Jews.
Jewish culture in Turkey
Literature
The flourishing period of Jewish literature in Turkey was in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, after the arrival of the Spanish exiles, though before this time, also, the Turkish Jewry had not been without its literary and scientific men. Printing-presses and Talmud schools were established; and an active correspondence with Europe was maintained. Moses Capsali and his successor, Elijah Mizraḥi, were both Talmudists of high rank. The latter was noted also as a mathematician for his commentary on Euclid's "Elements," as well as for his independent work "Sefer Ha-Mispar." Mordecai Comtino wrote a Bible commentary entitled "Keter Torah," and commentaries on the mathematical and grammatical works of Ibn Ezra and others, and on the logical works of Aristotle and Maimonides. Elijah Capsali, in Candia, a nephew of the ḥakam bashi, wrote in Hebrew a history of the Turkish dynasties (1523), and his correspondence, entitled "Sefer No'am," is of historical value concerning the disputes between Italian, Greek, and Turkish rabbis. Another contributor to historical literature was Samuel Shullam from Spain, who edited Abraham Zacuto's "Yuḥasin" (1566) and wrote a continuation of Abu al-Faraj's "Historia Dynastiarum." Solomon Algazi wrote a compendium of chronology; and Peraḥyah and Daniel Cohen (father and son) in Salonica, and Issachar ibn Susan in Safed, published mathematical and astronomical works. Karaite literature was represented by Elijah Bashyaẓi and Caleb b. Elijah Afendopolo.
Talmudists
Especially eminent as Talmudic authorities were Levi Ibn Chaviv (son of Yaakov Ibn Chaviv of Salonica, author of Ein Yaakov) and Jacob Berab, the dispute between whom, noticed above, causing the leading rabbinical writers to take sides with one or the other. Moses Alashkar, the synagogal poet, defended Ibn Chaviv, while Moses b. Joseph Trani, the ethical and homiletic writer, took up the cudgels in behalf of Berab. Trani wrote a collection of ethical treatises entitled "Bet Elohim," and a commentary on Maimonides' "Mishneh Torah". His son, Joseph Trani, was also prominent in this field. Other Talmudic scholars were: David ibn Abi Zimra, who wrote exegetic, cabalistic, and methodological works; Samuel Sedillo of Egypt; and his namesake in Safed, who wrote a commentary on the Palestinian Talmud. Collections of Responsa were made by David ha-Kohen, David b. Solomon Vital, Samuel de Medina, Joseph b. David ibn Leb, Joseph Ṭaiṭazaḳ, Eliezer Shim'oni, Elijah ibn Ḥayyim, Isaac Adarbi, Solomon b. Abraham ha-Kohen, Solomon Levi, Jacob b. Abraham Castro, Joseph ibn Ezra, Joseph Pardo, Abraham di Boton, Mordecai Ḳala'i, Ḥayyim Shabbethai, Elijah Alfandari, Elijah ha-Kohen, Benjamin b. Metalia, and Bezaleel Ashkenazi of Egypt. The leading representative of the Halakha was Yosef Karo, whose Beth Yosef, the only really great work of Jewish law published on Turkish soil, marked an epoch in the history of Judaism.
Commentaries on different books of the Old Testament were written by Jacob Berab, David ibn Abi Zimra, Joseph Ṭaiṭazaḳ, Isaac b. Solomon ha-Kohen, Joseph Ẓarfati, Moses Najara, Meïr Arama, Samuel Laniado, Moses Alshech, and Samuel Valerio. Moses b. Elijah Pobian published a translation of the Bible into modern Greek (1576); and a Persian translation was made by Jacob Tawus, who appears to have been brought from Persia to Constantinople by Moses Hamon. Moses Almosnino, a celebrated preacher in Salonica, wrote articles on philosophy and astronomy, a commentary on the Bible, a collection of sermons, and a description of Constantinople entitled "Extremos y Grandezas de Constantinople." Poetry, also, flourished. The most important Hebrew poet of Turkey and of the century was Israel ben Moses Najara of Damascus, who is represented in the ritual of Jewish congregations everywhere.
Cabalistic writers
The more distinguished cabalistic writers were: Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, Solomon Alḳabiẓ, Moses Galante and his sons, Elijah di Vidas, Moses Alshech, Moses Basula, and, most celebrated of all, Isaac Luria and Chaim Vital.
1900-Today
The Jewish population of Ottoman Empire had reached nearly 500,000 at the start of the 20th century.[1] Turkey granted protected minority status to the Jews in 1926. During World War II, Turkey served as a safe haven for Jews—while the Jewish communities of occupied Greece were wiped out almost completely by German and Bulgarian occupation forces, the Turkish Jews remained secure.
The present size of the Jewish Community is estimated at around 26,000 according to the Jewish Virtual Library. The vast majority live in Istanbul, with a community of about 2,500 in Izmir and other smaller groups located in Adana, Ankara, Bursa, Canakkale, Iskenderun and Kirklareli.
Sephardic Jews make up 96% of Turkey's Jewish population, while the rest are primarily Ashkenazic.
Turkish Jews are legally represented, as they have been for many centuries, by the Hahambasi, the Chief Rabbi. Rav Izak Halevas, is assisted by a religious Council made up of a Rosh Bet Din and three Hahamim. Thirty-five Lay Counselors look after the secular affairs of the Community and an Executive Committee of fourteen, the president of which must be elected from among the Lay Counselors, runs the daily affairs. The Turkish Jews are the wealthiest community in Turkey today.
In 2003, a bombing attack on two synagogues in Istanbul was carried out by Al-Qaeda.
See also
External links
Sources
This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.
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