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

The J 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

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE.

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relaticn to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published 1991 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills. Basingstoke, Hampshire R021 6XS 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 03 02 01

7 6 5 4 3 2 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

2

3 4

5

Contents

Population of the Ottoman Empire in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries According to Official Ottoman Census Reports Jewish Population in the Turkish Republic, 1927-1965 Population of Istanbul by Religion, 1883 Statistics and 1927 Census Official Turkish Jewish Community Renunciation of Special Privileges provided by Treaty of Lausanne, Article 42, 15 September 1925

285 285

287

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, Jeru­salem; 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 (Jerusa­lem), 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.

STANFORD J. SHAW

List of Plates

1. Rabbi Hayim Nahum Efendi, Grand Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire, 1909-20 and Chief Rabbi of Egypt, 1925-60.

2. Rabbi Hayim Bejerano, Chief Rabbi of Turkey 1920-31. Courtesy of Chief Rabbi David Asseo.

3. Rabbi Rafael David Saban, Chief Rabbi of Turkey, 1953-60. Cour­tesy of Chief Rabbi David Asseo.

4. Rabbi David Asseo, Chief Rabbi of Turkey since 1961, with the author.

5. Yanbol Synagogue, Balat, Istanbul. 6. Ahrida Synagogue in Balat, Istanbul (front gate). 7. Ahrida Synagogue in Balat, Istanbul (interior). 8. BohCacr: wealthy Jewish woman pedlar by Jean Baptiste van Moor

(1719). 9. Istanbul wealthy Jewish woman by Jean Baptiste van Moor (1719).

10. Jerusalem Jews, 1873 from Osman Hamdi Les Costumes Populaires de la Turquie en 1873.

11. Bursa Jews, 1873 from Osman Hamdi Les Costumes Populaires de la Turquie en 1873.

12. Salonica Jew, 1873 from Osman Hamdi Les Costumes Populaires de la Turquie en 1873.

13. Aleppo Jew, 1873 from Osman Hamdi Les Costumes Populaires de la Turquie en 1873.

14. Sultan Abdiil Hamid II, Ottoman ruler from 1876-1909 (Illustrated London News, 23 May 1877).

15. 'Prayers offered at the Jewish Synagogue, Constantinople, for the success of Turkish arms in the Russo-Turkish war, 1877' (Illustrated London News, 9 June 1877).

xi

List of Abbreviations

AAS AE AHR AIU BAorBAA BAIU

BAO

BS BSOAS

BTTD EB EI EJ

HTA

HUCA IA IJMES

IJTS JA JEH JESHO JO JQR JSS MES MVM

REB REJ RH ROMM

Asian and African Studies. Archives des Affaires Etrangeres, Quai d'Orsay, Paris. American Historical Review. Alliance Israelite Universelle, Paris. Ba§bakanltk ATfiivi, Prime Minister's Archives, Istanbul. Bulletin de l' Alliance Israelite Universelle: Deuxieme Serie (Paris). Babt Ali Evrak Odast, Archives of the Ottoman Prime Minister's Office, Prime Minister's Archives, Istanbul. Balkan Studies. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (London). Belgelerle Turk Tarih Dergisi. Etudes Balkaniques. Encyclopaedia of Islam: New Edition. Encyclopaedia Judaica (17 volumes and supplements, Jerusalem, 1972). Historical Archives of the Turkish General Staff, Ankara (Genelkurmay Harp Tarih Ar§ivi). Hebrew Union College Annual. Istanbul Ansiklopedisi. International Journal of Middle East Studies, ed. S. J. Shaw, 1970-81. International Journal of Turkish Studies. Journal Asiatique. Journal of Economic History. JournaloftheEconomicandSociaIHistoryoftheOrient(Leiden). Journal d'Orient. Jewish Quarterly Review. Jewish Social Studies. Middle East Studies. Meclisi Viikelti Mazbatalan. Minutes of the Ottoman Council of Ministers, at Prime Minister's Archives, Istanbul. Revue des Etudes Byzantines. Revue des Etudes Juives. Revue Historique. Revue de l'Occident Musulman et de la Mediterranee

xii

TED TK

TKS

TM TOEM TV WI

List of Abbreviations

Tarih Enstitiisfi Dergisi. Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Mfidfirliigfi. Directorate of Cadastres, Ankara.

xiii

Topkapt Sarayt Archives, Palace of the Ottoman Sultans, Istanbul Tfirkiyat Mecmuasl. Tarih-i Osmani Encfimeni Mecmuasl. Takvim-i Vekayi. Die Welt des [slams.