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THE HAMIDIAN ERA THROUGH the JEWISH LOOKING-GLASS a Study of the Istanbul Rabbinical Court Records*

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THE HAMIDIAN ERA THROUGH the JEWISH LOOKING-GLASS a Study of the Istanbul Rabbinical Court Records* THE HAMIDIAN ERA THROUGH THE JEWISHMinna LOOKING-GLASS ROZEN 113 THE HAMIDIAN ERA THROUGH THE JEWISH LOOKING-GLASS A study of the Istanbul Rabbinical Court Records* INTRODUCTION Sultan Abdülhamid II was considered an intelligent, learned, able, and even charismatic ruler by some, but a cruel reactionary tyrant, whose hands were stained with the blood of thousands, by others1. He is the only Ottoman sultan whose reign was officially documented by the Jew- ish community of Istanbul. These documents, which have survived in the Istanbul Rabbinical Court Records, give the historian a rare glimpse into the official and normative perception of the Ottoman ruler at this period, the twilight of the glorious Ottoman Empire, as formulated by the Jewish community. The documents shed light on both the Sultan and his Jewish subjects, as well as on their respective political cultures. Minna ROZEN is Professor, Department of Jewish History, University of Haifa, Israël. [email protected] * This paper is dedicated to my friend and colleague, Prof. Butrus Abu Manne, on his seventieth birthday. 1 Cf. (±≥≤ Á vuLDÁ) ÊUDK q eÁ ,f—Ëœ “—Ë“; Georges DORYS, Abdul-Hamid Intime (Paris, P.V. Stock, 1901)∞; HIDAYETTE, Abdul-Hamid révolutionnaire ou ce qu’on ne peut pas dire en Turquie (Zurich∞: Art. Institut Orell Fussli, 1896) with Tahsin Pa≥a, Abdülhamit Yıldız Hatıraları (Istanbul∞: Muallim Ahmet Halit Kitaphanesi, 1931)∞; Carter V. FINDLEY, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire∞: The Sublime Porte 1789-1922 (Princeton NJ∞: Princeton University Press, 1980), p. 224-290∞; Kemal H. KARPAT, The Politicization of Islam∞: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith and Community in the Late Ottoman State (New York∞: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 155-182. Cf. note 4, below. Turcica, 37, 2005, p. 113-154 114 MINNA ROZEN The documentation of the Hamidian era can be found in Registers 4 and 5 of the Rabbinical Court Records of Istanbul spanning the periods 1871-1894 and 1894-1915, respectively. Although such registers have been available since 1709, all of them, whether pre- or post-Hamidian, contain only summaries of litigations brought to these courts by the Jews of Istanbul, or, at best, the results of the elections to the various committees of the Istanbul Jewish Commu- nity and, very occasionally, the obituaries of Jewish dignitaries of Istan- bul and abroad. It is only during the Hamidian Era that the registers be- gan to document historical events in, and outside, the Empire. While many of these documents relate to the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II, others give a much more detailed and clearer idea of the internal Jewish politics than any of the pre-Hamidian documents. During this period, the protocols of the Rabbinical courts are reminiscent of the protocols of the Shari‘a courts, the sicilat, in various places in the Empire, which com- ment on important historical events, or at least events deemed important by the court clerk. Nevertheless, it is not the sicil that was instrumental in bringing about this change in the Istanbul registers. In fact, it is not easy to determine why, all of a sudden, the registrar began incorporating historical events into the court records, and why he ceased doing so straight after the Young Turks Revolution (1908). One might, at first sight, be justified in thinking that the inclusion or exclusion of historical events in the registers was just a simple whim on the clerk’s part. How- ever, a closer look at the events recorded, their time frame, and the way they are portrayed, gives us some clue as to the registrar’s motives, and rules out the hypothesis that the court clerk was of an exceptionally im- aginative and industrious disposition. The first thing that strikes the reader about the documentation is its time frame, which encapsulates Sultan Abdülhamid II reign from his ac- cession to his effective deposition. This is hardly coincidental, as we shall see below. But first, in order to fully apprehend the significance of these documents, we must subject them to close scrutiny, bearing in mind the Jewish social and political scene in the Ottoman Empire of the second quarter of the 19th century. From the range of documents portraying the Hamidian era we have selected the following, listed in chronological order∞: THE HAMIDIAN ERA THROUGH THE JEWISH LOOKING-GLASS 115 DESCRIPTION OF DOCUMENTS A. Abdülhamid II’s Accession and Related Events (1876) The first event documented in the registers is the Sultan’s accession and related events. The events that took place from the deposition of Sultan Abdülaziz (May 30, 1876) until the end of the war with Serbia (October 17, 1876), appear in the registers in their right place (the early summer of 1876) but were recorded and inserted only in the winter of 1877, well after the end of the war and the beginning of Abdülhamid’s reign2. The painful events preceding Abdülhamid’s accession are described tersely. The reasons for Abdülaziz’s deposition are not mentioned, and the choice of Murad V as his successor is described as a necessary step in order to prevent discord and its attendant dangers. This is natural, bearing in mind that when these lines were penned, Abdülaziz was al- ready dead, Murad deposed, and a new sultan installed. There is a brief description of the bloodbath following Abdülaziz’s deposition, but again no mention of the reasons that prompted it. The next event mentioned is the Serbian proclamation of war and this is followed by Sultan Murad’s deposition. This major event is attributed to Murad’s mental instability, but there is no attempt to analyze the causes of this instability, or to re- late it to the aforementioned bloodbath. At that point in time, it was probably considered futile to dwell on such “∞trivial∞” details. The next link in the chain of events presented by the registrar is the festive accession of Abdülhamid, the young, wise and benevolent sultan, the new constitution he dictated to the Grand Vizier, Midhat Pa≥a, and the Sultan’s order that the Constitution be observed.. In reality Abdülaziz was deposed because he squandered money, was disinterested in matters of state, and acted in a tyrannical, some say even deranged, manner. All this made everyone — even his most loyal minis- ters — aware that he had to be deposed. The conspirators, headed by Midhat Pa≥a, chose Abdülaziz’ nephew, Murad V, as his successor, in the hope that this liberal and enlightened prince would help them lead the Empire into a modern, liberal and well-governed era. They failed, however, to take his delicate nature into account. According to the offi- cial version, a few days after his deposition, Abdülaziz committed sui- cide and a few days later his young wife, Mehri Sultan, died in child- 2 Istanbul Rabbinical Court Records, no. 4, p. 52, sec. 5. 116 MINNA ROZEN birth. Rumor has it that both were murdered3. Mehri’s bereaved brother, Çerkes Hasan, who understood that his sister’s death heralded the end of his glamorous days at the court, attacked members of the former govern- ment who had allegedly been part of the conspiracy, killed three of them and mortally wounded the fourth, along with some of their servants. It was this chain of events — especially the fact that some of those assassi- nated were Murad’s relatives and friends — that precipitated the mental breakdown of the newly crowned sultan, who was in any case of a deli- cate and sensitive disposition. He believed that the deaths of Abdülaziz and Mehri Sultan had been engineered by the anti-reformists who sought to delegitimize any attempt at reform. We do not know whether Sultan Murad linked the former sultan’s bloody end to the person who eventu- ally succeeded him. Be this as it may, the reformist conspirators were unhappy with the choice of Sultan Abdülhamid II, which proved to be a bad choice from their point of view, as time would show4. Moreover, the 3 Dr. Avraham de Castro who was one of ten doctors who checked the corpse and signed a document attributing his death to violence, received a phone call the following day from an anonymous caller from Yildiz who reproached him for his temerity in so doing, and for generating confusion and insecurity in the country (Charles HECQUARD, La Turquie sous Abdoul-Hamid II (Bruxelles∞: Henri Lamartin, 1901), p. xxii. 4 For anti-Hamidian perspectives on the deposition of Abdülaziz, the accession of Murad V, his subsequent deposition, and the accession of Abdülhamid II, see Clara Erskine Clement WATERS, Constantinople∞: The City of the Sultans (London∞: Gay and Bird, 1895), p. 158-164∞; Constantinople avant et après la constitution (Istanbul∞: A. Zellich Fils, 1908), p. 71-77∞; HIDAYETTE, Abdul-Hamid révolutionnaire, pp. 7-42∞; Georges DORYS, Abdul-Hamid intime, p. 23-52, and for a book dedicated to Murad V, “∞the true Sultan of the Ottoman Empire,∞” see∞: Charles HECQUARD, La Turquie sous Abdoul-Hamid II, p. xiii-xxx∞; Edwin PEARS, Life of Abdul Hamid (London∞: Constable & Co., 1917), p. 37-46. For an Ottoman source on these events, see∞: Tahsin Pa≥a’s memoirs Abdülhamit Yıldız Hatıraları (Istanbul∞: Mualim Ahmet Kitaphanesi, 1931), p. 9-13, which elaborate on the favors bestowed by Abdülhamid on his unfortunate brother, and paint an idyllic picture of their relationships. No less interesting are the memoirs of Abdülhamid himself written in 1917 (Ikinci Abdülhamid’in Hatıra Defteri (Istanbul∞: Selek Yayınevi, 1960), p. 117-124. On the above and on the 1876-7 wars, see also∞: George YOUNG, Con- stantinople (London & New York∞: Methuen & Co. & George H. Doran C., 1926), p. 209- 214.
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