, Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times

A Festschrift in Honor of Mark R. Cohen

Edited by

Arnold E. Franklin Roxani Eleni Margariti Marina Rustow Uriel Simonsohn

LEIDEN | BOSTON Poor Relief in Ottoman Jewish Communities

Yaron Ayalon

In Judaism, charity (ṣedaqa) took on many forms. Supplying funds, food, and services, or forming organizations and institutions to support those in need were considered acts of beneficence. The Talmud distinguishes between ṣedaqa and another form of charitable giving, gemilut ḥasadim (literally, bestowal of loving kindness). While ṣedaqa applied to giving money or assets to the living poor, gemilut ḥasadim referred to any type of contribution (in cash, kind, or time invested) to all people, including the dead.1 Differences between the two types of charity, however, had blurred from Talmudic times; by the Ottoman period almost any form of voluntary giving, among individuals or between communities and individuals, was perceived as a charitable act.2 Charity was first and foremost a duty Jews had to fulfill. (d. 1204) and later scholars presented ṣedaqa as a commandment one had to follow conscientiously, as failing to give might lead to the death of those who depended on it.3 In principle any Jew, rich or poor, was expected to give ṣedaqa, even recipients of charity.4 Certain social categories, such as orphans and the utterly destitute, whose giving would jeopardize their own sustenance, were exempt, but were still allowed to contribute if they so wished.5 The rates of charity were set in Talmudic times to be no greater than one fifth (ḥomesh) of one’s assets or income, and no less than a third of a shekel a year.6 Beyond the basic obligation, giving ṣedaqa was considered one of the most reward- ing miṣvot: those who made charitable contributions would be blessed with wealth, children, and repute in this world and the hereafter. Ṣedaqa was also

1 bSuk 49b. 2 Avraham Moshe, Sefer ahavat ṣedaqa: Hilkhot ṣedaqa u-maʿaser kesafim (Jerusalem: Yad Mikhal, 2008), 27. 3 Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Matnot ʿAniyyim, 10:1; Yaʿaqov b. Asher, Arbaʿa ṭurim (Ṭur) and Yosef Karo, Shulḥan ʿArukh (Shulḥan), Yore Deʿa, 247:1. 4 Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, 7:5; Yaʿaqov b. Asher, Ṭur and Karo, Shulḥan, 248:1. 5 Moshe, Sefer ahavat ṣedaqa, 62–63, 79–83. 6 Maimonides elaborated on the three levels of giving: twenty percent was considered the true fulfillment of the idea of charity (miṣva min ha-muvḥar), ten percent was “medium” (beinoni), and giving less than that was an “evil eye” (ʿayin raʿa) meaning there was no sincere intention to give. Whoever gave less than a third of a shekel a year (shelishit ha-sheqel be-shana) was not considered to have fulfilled the miṣva (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Matnot ʿAniyyim, 7:4). See also yPeah 2b; bKet 50a and bBB 9a; Yaʿaqov b. Asher, Ṭur and Karo, Shulḥan, 249:1–2.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004267848_��7 68 ayalon a remedy for illness and a way to atone for one’s sins.7 It could therefore also be given voluntarily, in excess of the required minimum or the recommended one-fifth ceiling.8 This essay explores Jewish communal charity in the pre-nineteenth cen- tury Ottoman Empire and shows its resemblance to practices that had existed among Jews during the classical Geniza period. Using the communities of Damascus and as a primary case study, it divides Jewish charitable giving into three main spheres: public, semi-private, and private. The first included ordinary giving of money, food, and other items directly to funds the community administered. Officials appointed by each congregation were responsible for receiving and distributing charitable assets. Semi-private char- ity referred to forms of giving the community encouraged and often helped in facilitating, yet did not fund or administer directly. Caring for orphans or widows and supporting initiatives to redeem captives fell under this category. All other charitable activities were considered private: they were performed without intermediaries, away from public attention, and were almost never recorded. Examining the three levels of charity, this study argues that an array of interests and loyalties, and not formal obligations instituted by communi- ties, stimulated Ottoman Jews to participate in communal charity.

Public Charity

Jewish communal charitable institutions had existed at least since the time of the Mishnah. The Tosefta spoke of two separate institutions: an alms box or bas- ket (kuppa, pl. kuppot) and an alms tray or soup kitchen (tamḥui). The kuppa, made up of cash gifts, was intended for the local poor; the tamḥui, consisting of food, supported wayfarers and the poor of other cities. Originally, donations for the kuppa were collected once a week, and those for the tamḥui daily.9 This structure was outlined in the Jerusalem Talmud, and later in the Babylonian Talmud, and it is somewhat unclear whether it reflected actual practice or the wish of rabbis. By the time Maimonides was writing his Mishneh Torah a few centuries later, the distinction between kuppa and tamḥui had seemingly blurred, and the two had been consolidated into a single institution.10 We do

7 Moshe, Sefer ahavat ṣedaqa, 30–35, 83. 8 The rule guiding voluntary ṣedaqa was that one would not be risking his own sustenance by giving to others (ibid., 117–21). 9 mDemai 3:1; tPeah 4:9; yPeah 36b; bBB 8a–8b. 10 Mark Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 204–11; what Cohen inferred for medieval Cairo, Rabbi poor relief in ottoman jewish communities 69 not know for how long after Maimonides communal charity continued to be administered this way, but by the sixteenth century most communities had a general charity alms box (kuppa shel ṣedaqa) and charity officers (gabbai, pl. gabba‌ʾim) who distributed aid to specific charitable causes.11 In eighteenth-century Ottoman Aleppo, charity was administered through five separate units, collectively known as the kuppa shel ṣedaqa.12 Rabbis occa- sionally mentioned the terms kuppa and tamḥui, but it seems they were refer- ring to the collection and distribution of charity in general, not to a particular institution. Most likely, money and food were collected from the community as kuppa or tamḥui, and then allocated by the gabba‌ʾim to the five alms boxes, or to other needs as they saw fit. Such a structure apparently existed in other Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire, as well as in Europe.13 In distributing funds from the kuppot, the gabba‌ʾim followed certain guidelines that determined who should be given alms and by what priority. These were first elaborated by Maimonides, and then complemented by later Sephardi scholars. Thus the hungry preceded the naked, women had priority over men, and the learned or Torah scholars took precedence over ordinary Jews. Captives who had to be redeemed would come before all of the above.

Yaʿaqov b. Asher of Toledo (d. 1340) said explicitly: “Some argue that all those mea- surements [which determine who is eligible for charity] were only valid for their days, when they had kuppa and tamḥui and they would distribute the tithe for the poor every year . . . but now that all of these no longer exist, one may take enough to enable him to make a living” (Yaʿaqov b. Asher, Ṭur, Yore, 253:2). 11 Yosef Karo, Bet Yosef, Yore, 256:1–4. 12 The five were: the “Torah study” box (talmud torah), which supported those who stud- ied Torah full time and the education of children from poor families; the “visiting of the sick” (bikkur ḥolim) fund, which supported the community’s sick who had no one to care for them; the “hospitality” (hakhnasat orḥim) box that helped visitors and wayfarers; the “bestowal of loving kindness” (gemilut ḥasadim) fund, which assisted the poor in general and paid for burial expenses of indigents; and the “house maintenance” (bedeq ha-bayit) box, which made possible the upkeep of the synagogue building. See Raphaʾel‌ Shelomo Laniado, Bet dino shel Shelomo: sheʾelot u-teshuvot be-arbaʿa ḥelqei shulḥan ʿarukh (Jerusalem: Mekhon ha-Ktav, 1981), 112–13. 13 For the Ottoman Empire, see Yaron Ben-Naʾeh,‌ “Poverty, Paupers, and Poor Relief in Ottoman Jewish Society” [Hebrew], Sefunot 23 (2003): 230–32; Minna Rozen, The Jewish Community of Jerusalem in the Seventeenth Century [Hebrew] (: , 1984), 167–74. For the Jews of Berlin: Steven Lowenstein, The Berlin Jewish Community: Enlightenment, Family, and Crisis, 1770–1830 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 64–65. For Livorno: Renzo Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700) (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1990), 75–82, 253–58. For elsewhere in Europe: Salo Wittmayer Baron, The Jewish Community: Its History and Structure to the American Revolution (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1942), 2:320–25. 70 ayalon

In addition, when considering potential recipients of alms from the kuppa, the officers were to measure assets against needs, and deny support to those with rich relatives. How indigent one had to be to merit communal support changed over time, most rabbis agreed, but the basic principles remained the same from Maimonides’ time to the eighteenth century.14 Charitable institutions were supported primarily by daily or weekly contri- butions to the kuppa shel ṣedaqa. Little is known about specific occasions that would induce giving to the alms box, or the procedure of giving. The rabbis were conspicuously silent about it, and only one, Shelomo Laniado of Aleppo, explained that “for three kuppot money is collected at the synagogue, and they are: talmud torah, bikkur ḥolim, and hakhnasat orḥim.”15 Jews were expected to give at the synagogue on Fridays, holidays, or when going up to the Torah to offer a blessing, usually during a family celebration. The money collected would then go as “one fund” (kis eḥad) to the gabba‌ʾim, who would later dis- tribute it to the various alms-boxes as they saw fit.16 The gabba‌ʾim often faced situations in which one box was depleted and needed to be replenished by transferring money from another—a practice already outlined in the Talmud.17 For some changes, such as reallocating money collected for one purpose to another, they had to obtain the authori- zation of the maʿamad (the tax-paying male members of the congregation), which usually approved the requests of its officers.18 It is hard to tell even roughly how much was collected for each kuppa, or in total; how much people

14 Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, 7:3, 8:15, 9:13–16; Yaʿaqov b. Asher, Ṭur, Yore, 250:1, 251:7, 9, 253:1–4; Karo, Bet Yosef, same references as Ṭur and 256:3; Shulḥan, same references as Ṭur and Bet Yosef; Yiẓḥak Aboab, Sefer menorat ha-maʾor‌ (Jerusalem: Mekhon ha- Midrash ha-Mevoʾar, 1988), 65, 78–79, 101–103; Eliyahu ha-Kohen, Meʿil Ṣedaqa (Jerusalem: H. Koperman, 1989), 1:86, 93–94, 420, 2:135. 15 Laniado, Bet dino, 120. 16 Ibid., 527. 17 The rabbis of the Talmud agreed that a community may change kuppa to tamḥui and vice versa; this was interpreted by later generations as a permission to change the des- ignation of charitable funds (bBB 8b; Yiṣhaq Alfasi, Hilkhot rabbenu Yiṣhaq Alfasi ha-Rif [Jerusalem: Makor, 1973], 4, Bava batra, 4a–4b). 18 Efrayim Laniado, Degel maḥane Efrayim (Jerusalem: Mekhon ha-Ktav, 1984), 58; Shimʿon Dweck ha-Kohen, Shut reaḥ sade (Monroe, NY: Y. Brakh, 1990), 65; rabbis sometimes opposed such changes. Rabbi Sasson of Aleppo ruled against an attempt to use funds contributed to the kuppa of talmud torah to support orphans, and required that the contributors of the money specifically re-designate it to its new purpose (Yisra‌ʾel Sasson, Sheʾelot [New York, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America], MS 7140, f. 149). poor relief in ottoman jewish communities 71 gave; whether it was the majority of members or just a small number of them who performed the charitable act of giving; what happened with those who did not show up at the synagogue, or those who refused to pay; by what criteria the money was distributed among the different funds; and whether giving to communal charity was a serious burden on people which they would try to escape in times of hardship. Clarifying these facets of communal charity would enrich our understanding of the dynamics and relationships between various groups within congregations. But at the moment the evidence does not allow us to address them.

Semi-Public Charity

Giving was not always channeled through communal institutions. Some of it was “semi-public,” to wit, charity that the community administered or sanc- tioned but did not fund directly or regularly. Definitely falling within this cat- egory was the appointment of guardians for orphans (apoṭropos shel yetomim), widows, or other vulnerable persons.19 A child was considered an orphan once his or her father passed away, even if the mother was still alive and able to support her children.20 The apoṭropos could be the mother’s second husband, if he accepted to provide for her children, or another person who volunteered for the task.21 An apoṭropos was responsible for giving his dependents shel- ter, food, clothes, and education, and in the case of orphans, managing their

19 The appointment itself was conferred in the Jewish court or the maḥkama (Leah Bornstein-Makovetsky, “The Community in Ottoman Egypt and Its Institutions” [Hebrew], in M. Landau, ed., The Jews in Ottoman Egypt (1517–1914) (Jerusalem: Misgav Yerushalayim, 1988), 161; Amnon Cohen et al., eds., Jews in the Moslem Religious Court: Society, Economy and Communal Organization in the XVIIIth Century: Documents from Ottoman Jerusalem [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1996), 470–71. Wealthy Muslims filled a similar function, taking in poor and orphans, who ate and stayed in their homes; for an example, see Aḥmad al-Budayri, Ḥawādith dimashq al-yawmiyya (Cairo: al-Jamʿiyya al-Miṣriyya, 1959), 137–38. 20 S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967–93), 3:277–92. The Muslim definition of orphans was similar, as reflected in Ottoman court records; Mahmoud Yazbak, “Muslim Orphans and the sharīʿa in Ottoman according to sijill Records,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 44 (2001): 2:123–38. 21 Moshe b. Ḥabib, Sheʾelot u-teshuvot ʿal shulhan ʿarukh, even ha-ʿezer (Jerusalem: Yeshuʿa ben David Salem, 1982), 155–57. 72 ayalon inheritance till they reached adulthood.22 A guardian would also represent his protégés in communal affairs.23 In most cases, appointing an apoṭropos would relieve the community of the need to support those who would otherwise rely on the kuppot. Volunteering to serve as an apoṭropos would therefore contrib- ute indirectly to communal charity. It was a legitimate way to fulfill the miṣva of ṣedaqa. The acts of giving in this case were essentially private—money, food, clothes, and shelter passed straight from a guardian to those under his sponsorship. Because one needed the community’s approval to manage the affairs of orphans or widows, this type of charity was semi-public or indirect: the community arranged for the protection of the needy but did not directly pay for their care. Redemption of captives or prisoners (pidyon shevuyim) was another chari- table cause to which Jews were expected to give and one that may be classified as semi-public. It was considered one of the greatest charitable acts a Jew could perform.24 Most communities did not have a regular kuppa for this purpose, and funds to such ends were collected whenever the need arose.25 Some com- munities were known for their pidyon shevuyim fund-raising capabilities. For example, the Jews in Cairo, who normally did not maintain a pidyon shevuyim fund, collected considerable sums for ransoming captives of the 1648–49 Khmelnytsky pogroms in Poland.26 Measures to prevent the imprisonment of Jews also fell under the category of pidyon shevuyim. This included paying the jizya for those who could not afford it, as the inevitable outcome of not paying would be imprisonment.27 One rabbi ruled that a community may sell syna- gogue holy artifacts not only to fund the redemption of captives but also to pay

22 Goitein, Mediterranean Society 3:207–302; for a particular case in Aleppo, see Sasson, Sheʾelot, 122–23. 23 When signing or agreeing to a communal ordinance, an apoṭropos was also representing the opinions of the orphans or widows he supported (Laniado, Bet dino, 516–17). 24 bBB 8a–8b; Maimonides argued that pidyon shevuyim took precedence over giving to the poor and should be financed even with funds originally intended for the synagogue or other holy purposes. This reflected a very high priority for pidyon shevuyim: the Talmud established that funds from the sale of a synagogue may only be used for holy purposes. Maimonides ruled that pidyon shevuyim superseded this principle, as refraining from doing so risked people’s lives. bMeg 26a–26b; Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, 8:10–11; Karo, Bet Yosef, Yoreh, 252. See also Cohen, Poverty and Charity, 121–23. 25 Moshe Alshekh, Shut maharam Alshekh (Safed: Bet Yosef, 1975), 133–36. 26 Bornstein-Makovetsky, “The Community in Ottoman Egypt and Its Institutions,” 195–96. 27 Laniado, Bet dino, 119–20. poor relief in ottoman jewish communities 73 debts to the government, as not doing so might result in the incarceration of communal leaders.28 Finally, mention should be made of private societies or confraternities (ḥevra, pl. ḥevrot), organized in many cities to provide charitable services the community could not manage effectively. Jews in Spain first formed such societ- ies in the late thirteenth century to institutionalize poor relief, hitherto limited mainly to private initiatives. By the fifteenth century, almost every congrega- tion in Spain had associations of this kind, including societies of undertakers (ḥevrat qabbarim), which took care of burial arrangements for those unable to afford them, and others for Torah study (talmud torah), which undertook the education of poor children and orphans.29 When the Sephardim came to the Ottoman Empire, they established such ḥevrot in almost every city, which included, besides those mentioned above, the ḥevrat gemilut ḥasadim and ḥevrat bikkur ḥolim. Duties of the former overlapped with those of the ḥevrat qabbarim, but also supported the poor and contributed to the redemption of captives. The ḥevrat bikkur ḥolim fulfilled the miṣva of visiting the sick and arranging for medical aid for those who could not afford it. By the seventeenth century, such ḥevrot were widespread in Anatolia and the , and there is evidence that Cairo too had a burial society.30 Ḥevrot were very prestigious organizations. They had the features of elite clubs that did not admit new members easily, and although dependent on the community as a whole for financial support, they exerted considerable politi- cal influence and were involved in communal decisions. This often occurred to the dismay of rabbis, who saw the ḥevra as an invasive competitor to the old communal order.31 The influence of ḥevrot on seventeenth- and eighteenth- century Jewish communities led one scholar to assume that they were ubiq- uitous in the Sephardi communities of the empire and a basic mark of the Jewish urban communal landscape.32 This may have been so, but there is little

28 Avraham ʿAntebi, Sefer mor ve-ohalot (Jerusalem: Mekhon ha-Ktav, 1983), 22–25. 29 Yom Tov Assis, “Welfare and Mutual Aid in the Spanish Jewish Communities” [Hebrew], in Moreshet Sefarad: The Sephardi Legacy, ed. Haim Beinart (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992), 263–79. 30 For ḥevrot in Anatolia, see Yaron Ben-Naʾeh,‌ Jews in the Realm of the Sultans: Ottoman Jewry in the Seventeenth Century [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2006), 211–13. For Egypt, see Bornstein-Makovetsky, “The Community in Ottoman Egypt and Its Institutions,” 191–95. 31 Yaron Ben-Na‌ʾeh, “Burial of the Dead, Burial Societies and Funerary Inscriptions from the Jewish Cemetery of Cairo circa 1700” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 98–99 (2004): 189–93. 32 Yaron Ben-Na‌ʾeh, “Jewish Confraternities in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th and 18th Centuries” [Hebrew], Ẓion 63 (1998): 277–318, and especially 293–308. 74 ayalon evidence of the existence of such societies in Aleppo, and none for Damascus. Yaron Harʾel has suggested that ḥevrot were established in Damascus only in the 1870s, and that Aleppo had a few such societies in the eighteenth century.33 Syrian rabbis seldom talked about ḥevrot, and when they did, mentioned them in passing without explaining the functions or structure of these organiza- tions.34 Ḥevrot in pre-nineteenth-century Damascus and Aleppo thus remain something of a puzzle. They may have existed, but if so their role was probably less central to communal life than it was elsewhere.35

Private Charity

An elderly Jewish woman of Damascene descent whom I met at a conference told me that in family celebrations in that city, guests would sometimes bring as a gift vouchers indicating the sum of money given to charity on behalf of the hosts. The woman seemed to remember that this had been a custom in her community at least since her grandparents’ time. It is a good example of pri- vate charity. Such charitable acts usually went unrecorded, and we know little about the recipient’s identity or the sums passing from hand to hand. Another

33 Yaron Harʾel, Bi-sefinot shel esh la-maʿarav: temurot be-yahadut suryah be-tkufat ha-refor- mot ha-othmaniyot 1840–1880 (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar, 2003), 104–105. This assumption is still somewhat dubious. In ibid., 18, Harʾel cites Yehuda Kaṣin’s Sefer Maḥane Yehuda (Jerusalem: Ahavat Shalom, 1989). On the page he refers to (p. 202 in the edition used here), Kaṣin explains that the frankos (European Jews stationed in Aleppo) contributed to bikkur ḥolim and gemilut ḥasadim, but makes no mention of institutions or societies that took care of such matters. Kaṣin uses the term ḥevra once elsewhere in his work (see next note). For similar arguments, see also Alexander Lutzky, “The ‘Francos’ and the Effect of the Capitulations on the Jews in Aleppo (from 1673 till the time of the French Revolution)” [Hebrew], Ẓion 6 (1941), 70–72; David Sutton, Aleppo: City of Scholars (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 2005), 328. 34 Examples include ḥevrat qabbarim (Josiah Pinto, Nivḥar mi-kesef: sheʾelot u-teshuvot ʿal seder arbaʿa ṭurim [Aleppo: A. Sasson, 1869], 13), ḥevrat gemilut ḥasadim (Laniado, Bet dino, 527), and ḥevrot of talmud torah, gemilut ḥasadim and bikkur ḥolim (Kaṣin, Maḥane Yehuda, 147). 35 Mark Cohen ascribes the absence of confraternities from Geniza documents to the non- existence of parallel organizations, such as guilds, in the surrounding Muslim society of the time. He suggests that charity was dispensed through “private gifts . . . pious founda- tions . . . monies left in wills, and . . . public charitable distributions,” rather than through confraternities. Cohen’s assumption appears to be applicable for the Ottoman period, though guilds did exist at the time in question; see Cohen, Poverty and Charity, 197–98, quotation from 197. poor relief in ottoman jewish communities 75 example of private charity was handing alms to the poor who loitered outside the synagogue. People coming in for the morning prayer (shaḥarit) would give them something, but we do not know what was considered a conventional sum to donate or how many givers or receivers would be involved. In fact, we learn of this custom only indirectly, from a rabbi’s complaint that people were arriv- ing late for shaḥarit, or not at all, so as to avoid the encounter with the poor.36 Such acts of charity took place outside the synagogue, unrelated to communal institutions or the gabba‌ʾim, and thus were hardly ever documented.37 With a mere handful of casual references at hand, reconstructing the scene of pri- vate charity is inevitably speculative. We may assume, for example, that just as there were Muslim beggars there were Jewish ones, who would not hesitate to knock on doors and ask for help. It is similarly plausible that Jews, like their Muslim neighbors, helped their fellows in need, whether local or visitors.38 It might well be that such informal acts of beneficence made up the greater share of giving to charity in Ottoman society, Jewish and otherwise.39 One cannot discuss private charity without considering foundations of con- secrated property (qodesh or heqdesh, pl. heqdeshim). Originally applied to property dedicated to the Temple, in post-Talmudic times heqdesh became a generic term for assets set aside for charitable purposes, namely, assisting the community’s poor and Torah students, and sometimes Jews living in Palestine.40 There were few limitations on what one could dedicate; dedications included immovable and movable property, and cash.41 In general, special officers or

36 Avraham ʿAntebi, Sefer ḥokhma u-musar (Jerusalem: Mekhon ha-Ktav, 2000), 104. 37 Cairo Geniza documents offer an exceptional insight into private giving. They contain numerous personal petitions of the poor who wrote to ask for assistance, through which one can construct a fair image of private charity for medieval Cairo; see Mark Cohen, The Voice of the Poor in the : an Anthology of Documents from the Cairo Geniza (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 1–94. 38 There are references to beggars in rabbinical sources, where it was argued that beggars should be given less support than those who received alms from the kuppa (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, 7:7; Yaʿaqov b. Asher, Ṭur and Karo, Shulḥan, Yore, 250:3). For Muslim beg- gars, see Adam Sabra, Poverty and Charity in Medieval Islam: Mamluk Egypt, 1250–1517 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 41–68; Abraham Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity: Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 214–15. 39 Amy Singer, Charity in Islamic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 91–92. 40 For example, a Jew from Budapest dedicated the income of a fund he established to sus- tain Torah students in Safed (Pinto, Nivḥar, 191). 41 Moshe Gil, Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundations from the Cairo Geniza (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 22–27. 76 ayalon treasurers (gabba‌ʾei heqdesh or gizbarim) administered foundations meant to benefit the poor or the community.42 Not all heqdeshim were established with the community’s needy in mind. They were also set up to support one’s own family members or for other purposes the donor saw fit. Sometimes they were founded as a means to avoid paying debts, since property set aside as heqdesh was no longer considered one’s own and could not be taxed or confiscated.43 Sephardi communities in the Ottoman Empire continued the tradition of institutionalized foundations that had existed in the Arab world before the Ottoman conquest, as well as in Islamic Spain. These heqdeshim were some- times administered by the gabba‌ʾim, but were more often run by their donors or the persons entrusted by the donors.44 In the Ottoman Empire, a heqdesh was usually founded by dedicating immovable property or a large sum of money. The income from rent or interest was used to support the ends speci- fied by the founders. The evidence for speaks only of funds or the profits from renting or selling houses and gardens dedicated to cities in Palestine.45 Judging by the practice of other communities in the empire, heqdeshim were also founded to fund housing and clothing for the poor, and to sustain full-time Torah students and rabbis.46 The practice of charitable foundations in Jewish communities evolved in ways strikingly similar to that of the Muslim pious endowment, or waqf (pl. awqāf).47 Like the heqdesh, a waqf could be land, property, or money, dedicated by individuals in perpetuity. Mosques were often built as pious foundations, as were other institutions connected with them, such as a school (madrasa), a soup kitchen, and a hospital (bīmāristān).48 Both waqfs and heqdeshim were

42 Ben-Na‌ʾeh, Jews in the Realm of the Sultans, 219–22. 43 Maimonides, Mishpaṭim, Malve ve-love, 18:12. 44 Gil, Pious Foundations, 37–47; Assis, “Welfare and Mutual Aid,” 259–63. 45 Beṣalʾel Ashkenazi, Sheʾelot u-teshuvot (Jerusalem, 1968), 25 for a woman who on her deathbed bequeathed half of her property to the heqdesh in Damascus; and 29, for a woman who dedicated her property to the communities of Safed, , and Jerusalem. 46 Ben-Na‌ʾeh, Jews in the Realm of the Sultans, 219–22. 47 Gil, Pious Foundations, 27–36. 48 A waqf is “a pious endowment, established according to the stipulations of Islamic law.” Property could be directly designated as waqf, which protected it from sale or confisca- tion. Money could also be designated as waqf, or contributed to existing foundations. Waqfs supported mosques, schools, sufi lodges, soup kitchens, hospitals, fountains, roads and bridges, but also relatives of the founder and other general beneficiaries, like the poor, travelers, and orphans; see Amy Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneficence: An Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 17–22, quotation from 17; Osman Ergin, Türk şehirlerinde imaret sistemi (Istanbul: poor relief in ottoman jewish communities 77 supported not only by their founders, but also by later contributions made to such institutions.49 Establishing a waqf was not restricted to Muslims. In theory, non-Muslims could dedicate property or money as waqf to support any charitable goal, as long as its purpose did not contradict Islamic law, as in giving to a church or a synagogue. In practice, in Aleppo throughout the sev- enteenth and eighteenth centuries, Christians and Jews designated property designed to benefit a church or a synagogue as waqf.50 As waqfs were regis- tered in the Muslim court, they provided their founders, Jews and Christians included, a safe way to secure assets against confiscation or creditors of all reli- gions. Funds and assets included in a Jewish heqdesh were similarly protected from debt collection,51 although their status as dedicated property was main- tained only as far as people respected the community’s rules. At any time one could turn to a Muslim court, where the Jewish heqdesh had no legal standing against a debtor. Whether this meant more Jews preferred to establish waqfs is unknown. Further study is needed to reveal why and how Jews used pious foundations.

Why Give?

In Ottoman society, religion and charity were intertwined and deeply rooted in people’s daily lives. Although communal boundaries may not have been so strict, and one’s faith was not necessarily the chief determinant of one’s

Cumhuriyet Matbaası, 1939), 19–54. When sulṭāns founded waqfs, they did so as individu- als, not as office holders; see Singer, “Charity’s Legacies: A Reconsideration of Ottoman Imperial Endowment-making,” in Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts, ed. Michael Bonner et al. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), 295–313. On the motives for establishing imperial waqfs, see Annette Kaiser, Islamische Stiftungen in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Syriens vom 16. bis 18. Jahrhundert (Berlin: K. Schwarz, 1999), 20–21; Richard Van Leeuwen, Waqfs and Urban Structures: The Case of Ottoman Damascus (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 97–101. 49 On waqfs, see Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneficence, 15–37, and idem, Charity, 90–100. On heqdeshim, see Gil, Pious Foundations, 5–13, 82–87, 102–116. 50 Singer shows that one legitimate way for Christians to give to a church was to designate the beneficiaries of a waqf as the poor of the church; Singer, Charity, 99. In his list of waqfs in Aleppo, al-Ghazzī denotes contributions made by Christians and Jews as intended to benefit a church or a synagogue, but it is not clear whether such donations were chan- neled through the arrangement mentioned by Singer; Kāmil b. Ḥusayn al-Ghazzī, Kitāb nahr al-dhahab fī ta‌ʾrīkh ḥalab (Aleppo: Dār al-Qalam al-ʿArabī, 1992), 2:430–56, 482–501. 51 Gil, Pious Foundations, 14–15. 78 ayalon socioeconomic status or lifestyle, religion in itself characterized realities in Ottoman cities more than anything else. Its symbols were everywhere: from houses of worship to soup kitchens, and from calls to prayer to the manner people dressed and talked. The inhabitants of cities like Damascus and Aleppo were immersed in religious practices wherever they went. And since reli- gion was ubiquitous, so was charity. The ultimate incentive for giving was the reward of pleasing God and obeying Him, and many believers practiced char- ity primarily to meet a religious obligation. Like all other religious command- ments, charity came with rewards for fulfilling it properly and punishments for avoiding it. And since much of our knowledge about charity comes from sources that are of a religious nature, historians have tended to ascribe acts of charity above all to religious sentiments.52 Yet, powerful as religion was in Ottoman society, it cannot account for all charitable acts. Sometimes religion was only a means to articulate and imple- ment altruistic behavior which otherwise would have found different chan- nels. This was evident to religious scholars too, who emphasized that it was difficult to ascertain one’s true intention (niyya in Arabic, kavvana in Hebrew) for giving charity. In Islam, it was for God alone to determine whether one’s niyya was genuine; if it was not, the donation would not be counted as benefit- ing the recipient. Expecting a reward, bragging about one’s contribution, or excluding the better part of one’s possessions while giving, were all signs of an insincere niyya, which would void the act of giving.53 Judaism had a slightly different view on the issue of intention. While a true kavvana was required for one’s prayer to be accepted, rabbis differed on whether the lack of kavvana annulled certain miṣvot. With respect to charity, most rabbis agreed that giving

52 Israel Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1896), 35–61; Ephraim Frisch, An Historical Survey of Jewish Philanthropy (New York: Macmillan Company, 1924); Baron, Jewish Community, 290–350; Abraham Galante, Histoire des Juifs de Turquie (Istanbul: Isis, 1984), 3:42–43; Ben-Na‌ʾeh, “‘Oni ve hitmodedut ‘imo ba-ḥevrah ha-yehudit ba-imperyah ha-‘othmanit,” Sefunot 23 (2003), 221–22; Moshe, Sefer ahavat ṣedaqa, 30–38; Susan Holman, ed., Wealth and Poverty in Early Church and Society (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008); Singer, Charity, 17–26; Brian Pullan, Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice: The Social Institutions of a Catholic State, to 1620 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 327–55 and elsewhere throughout the book; Michael Mullett, The Catholic Reformation (London: Routledge, 1999), 104; Euan Cameron, The European Reformation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 258–60; Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 357–62; Joanna Smith, The Art of Doing Good: Charity in Late Ming China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 248–78. 53 Singer, Charity, 55–58. poor relief in ottoman jewish communities 79

ṣedaqa was valid anyway, as the recipients benefited from it regardless of the intention. In one case, the Talmud argues that even giving ṣedaqa for personal gain was permissible under certain circumstances.54 These discussions about intention in giving indicate that Islamic and Jewish scholars acknowledged that charity was not always offered out of pure benevolence, and the real pur- poses of the donors could not be ascertained. Religious considerations aside, several factors could motivate charity in the Ottoman context. Supporting people by providing them a place to stay, food, work, and social status created dependency, loyalty, and patron–client relationships. Those receiving charity were expected to be thankful and loyal to their benefactor, but at the same time they could serve as patrons of oth- ers of lower rank whom they supported. The ultimate patron in the Ottoman Empire was the sulṭān, who in the name of the state distributed alms, provided free meals, and sponsored periodic public celebrations. Sulṭāns were also the founders of the greatest endowments (waqfs), many of which helped the poor through soup kitchens, education, and healthcare. By displaying generos- ity patrons gained influence and prestige that increased with the number of people they sustained. In fact, charity was an essential facet of a ruler’s or a wealthy person’s biography. People were remembered for their beneficence, and the desire to leave behind such a reputation required giving substantial amounts to charity throughout one’s lifetime.55 With so many possible considerations at play, it is hard to pinpoint the reason Jews consistently contributed to communal charities. There were, no doubt, those who made daily or weekly donations purely out of pious senti- ments, although even that was not utterly selfless, for the giver expected a reward in heaven. For the rich who served as parnasim, however, there were further possible incentives to sustain the communal kuppot. As was the case for Muslims, giving charity within the community was a way for wealthy Jews to build prestige. Those who supported communal charity generously were also held in high regard by the rabbis, and that in turn guaranteed the par- nasim further political sway over their congregations. For those with fewer resources, giving to the kuppot and following the lead of the parnasim were aspects of an unspoken agreement between the community and its leaders, who were responsible for communal administration and funded the greater

54 The Talmud rabbis argued that a father who gave charity so that his son could live was a righteous man (ha-omer selaʿ zo li-ṣedaqa bishvil she-yiḥye beni . . . harei ze ṣadiq gamur; bPes 8a–8b). See also Elchanan Blumenthal, “Kavvanah” in EJ2, 12:39–40; Moshe, Sefer ahavat ṣedaqa, 52–53. 55 Singer, Charity, 21–22, 81–87, 100–04, 121; Cohen, Poverty and Charity, 185–88. 80 ayalon share of public expenses. This exchange was probably a major reason people chose to give to charity. Although making daily and weekly donations to the kuppot was required in theory, there was no mechanism that could enforce it effectively other than such communal conventions. Those who declined to pay could be summoned to the Jewish court, which could only excommunicate them, but the courts were usually reluctant to apply such an extreme measure. We know of cases of Jews who refused to comply with communal norms and managed to get away with it.56 What made the balance between the rich and the rest of the community worth maintaining? As we have seen, in return for their contribution to public funds, the rich assumed leadership positions within the community. Although expected to address the wishes of their congregations as defined by the maʿamad, the rich usually got their way, because everyone was aware of the dependence of communal organizations on their generosity. But why would anyone except the rich be interested in preserving such a social arrangement? Money was an issue for all, and everyone sought to pay less. Indeed in certain communities, the parnasim advocated a limited welfare system, in which pau- pers relied on begging and private almsgiving rather than on the public kuppa. As the parnasim were the main funders of the community’s alms-boxes, it is easy to see why they opted for the privatization of charity: it would require them to give no more than anyone else. The middle class and the poor, on the other hand, favored an all-embracing system that would minimize the need for private charity, and take beggars off the streets.57 Presumably, the parnasim enjoyed their leadership positions, which allowed them to develop ties with the Ottoman elite—ties that were valuable for their businesses. The other groups too had a clear interest in upholding the com- munal balance of power. Instability marked people’s economic fortunes in the premodern era, and a few months’ illness or a sudden rise in the prices of basic staples could quickly relegate one to the indigent class.58 Unless well-off, people knew with near certainty that at some point in their lifetime someone

56 See, for example, the story of Shemuʾel Laniado, the chief judge (av beit din) in Aleppo in the early eighteenth century, who prohibited his community from eating vine leaves after hearing testimonies about the presence of tiny worms. Some members of the community openly challenged the rabbi by announcing that eating vine leaves was permissible. The group was threatened by excommunication, but the measure was never imposed. Ḥayyim Abū l-ʿAfya, Ḥanan elohim (Jerusalem: Mekhon ha-Ma‌ʾor, 1993), 261–77. 57 Assis, “Welfare and Mutual Aid,” 268–69; Karo, Bet Yosef, Yore, 250:5. 58 For more on the definition of poverty and its structural and conjunctural conditions, see Cohen, Poverty and Charity, 33–71. poor relief in ottoman jewish communities 81 in their family would need to depend on communal charity. Since, as far as we know, Jews did not resort to Muslim soup kitchens or hospitals, did not attend weekly prayers at the neighborhood mosque, and probably did not frequent areas where alms were distributed by Muslims, their own community’s ability to help in times of hardship was for most Jews their only hope. Charity thus seems to have promoted segregation rather than pluralism in Ottoman urban society. With few options to obtain charitable assistance outside the commu- nity, Jews in the empire regarded communal funds as crucial. In theory, giving to communal charity was voluntary, as there were very few methods to enforce it regularly. But in practice, giving to the kuppot was anything but voluntary. The Jewish community in the Ottoman Empire was one among several circles one belonged to, the others being business partners, friends, neighbors, and family. As such, the community was in constant com- petition with other groups over the attention and allegiance of its members. The authority of rabbis was not backed by state law and their rulings were not binding as were those of qāḍīs (judges in the sharīʿa courts); indeed the lim- its of their authority were tested time and again. The responsa literature from the Ottoman period abounds with examples of rabbis who had to confront disobedient congregants. Yet even those who openly defied the leadership of their community understood the need to give to communal charity: the funds collected in the kuppot provided the services many congregants relied on; and they guaranteed that in times of crisis, such as natural or man-made disasters, people would have a relief agency to turn to. More than anything, knowing a person’s contribution would protect one when he or she needed communal support provided the incentive to give. In an Ottoman society where Jews, Christians, and Muslims interacted on many occasions, charitable support was still handled almost exclusively at the communal level. Giving to one’s com- munity or helping members of one’s faith was therefore an inextricable part of an Ottoman Jew’s experience.

Select Bibliography

Assis, Yom Tov. “Welfare and Mutual Aid in the Spanish Jewish Communities.” [Hebrew.] In Moreshet Sefarad: The Sephardi Legacy, edited by Haim Beinart, 259– 79. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992. Ben-Na‌ʾeh, Yaron. Jews in the Realm of the Sultans: Ottoman Jewry in the Seventeenth Century. [Hebrew.] Jerusalem: Magnes, 2006. ———. “Poverty, Paupers, and Poor Relief in Ottoman Jewish Society.” [Hebrew.] Sefunot 23 (2003): 195–238. 82 ayalon

Cohen, Amnon et al., eds. Jews in the Moslem Religious Court: Society, Economy and Communal Organization in the XVIIIth Century: Documents from Ottoman Jerusalem. [Hebrew.] Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1996. Cohen, Mark. Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. Marcus, Abraham. The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity: Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. Mollat, Michel. The Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Pullan, Brian. Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice: The Social Institutions of a Catholic State, to 1620. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Rozen, Minna. A History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul: The Formative Years, 1453– 1566. Leiden: Brill, 2002. ———. The Jewish Community of Jerusalem in the Seventeenth Century. [Hebrew.] Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1984. Sabra, Adam. Poverty and Charity in Medieval Islam: Mamluk Egypt, 1250–1517. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Singer, Amy. Charity in Islamic Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. ———. Constructing Ottoman Beneficence: An Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.