History of the Jews in Turkey

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Jews have lived in what is now known as 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.

Contents 1 Ancient history 2 1300-1500 2.1 The Jewish immigrants who had taken refuge in Ottoman Empire between 1300-1500 2.2 Haven for the Jews 3 1500-1600 4 1700-1800 5 1800-1900 5.1 Blood libels 6 Jewish culture in Turkey 6.1 Literature 7 1900-Today 8 See also 9 External links

[edit] Ancient history

Jews have lived in the region from very early times, living especially in the many Greek colonies and city states, followed by Hellenistic times, and the Roman and Byzantine Empire including sizable Greek speaking Jewish commumities.

[edit] 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 imperial edict) 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 yeshiva 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.

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.

[edit] The Jewish immigrants who had taken refuge in Ottoman Empire between 1300-1500

• Jews of Hungary, in 1376
• Jews of France, in 1394
• Jews of Sicily, at the beginnings of 15th century
• Jews of Bavaria/Germany, in 1470
• Jews of Venice, in 1490
• Jews of Spain and Portugal, in 1492

[edit] 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.

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.

[edit] 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.

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 caprie of a despotic ruler. 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. Sabbatai Zevi was caught by the Ottoman authorities and when given the choice between death and Islam, he adopted the latter.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

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.

[edit] Blood libels

Accusations of ritual murder by Ottoman Christians 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 Suleyman 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.

[edit] Jewish culture in Turkey

[edit] 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.

[edit] 1900-Today

The Jewish population of Ottoman Empire had reached nearly 500,000 at the start of the 20th century.[1].

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 approximately 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 Hahambaşı, 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.

Turkey was the first Islamic country to recognize the State of Israel, and remains among the only ones to voluntarily do so. Turkey and Israel have closely cooperated militarily and economically. In the book Israel's Secret Wars, Benny Morris provides an account of how Mossad operatives based in Turkey infiltrated into Iraq and helped to orchestrate a number of Iraqi Kurdish uprisings to weaken the Iraqi government. Israel and Turkey have signed a multi-billion dollar project to build a series of pipelines from Turkey to Israel to supply gas, oil and other essentials to Israel.

In 2003, a bombing attack on two synagogues in Istanbul was carried out by Al-Qaeda.

See also: Turkey-Israel relations

[edit] See also

• Khazars

[edit] External links

• History of the Jews in Turkey
• Sephardic Studies
• New Sefer Torah for the Istanbul Community: In Memory of Jews Murdered in the 2003 Istanbul Synagogue Bombings -- November 2006