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) (/ 1994 19 -Relations Between J ews and Non-Jews in the Late : Some Characteristics

by Jacob M. Landau

RESEARCH ON THE Jews of the Ottoman Empire has advanced visibly in the last generation. W e now know, much mo re than be­ forehand, about the history, culture, sociology, and economics of Jewish communities throughout the empire, at various periods. How­ e~er, the very large majority of these studies have applied themselves to the "micro" level, focusing on limited and specific subjects, rather than on the "macro" one, which would attempt to arrive at conclusions of a more general character. This was only natural, for without con­ siderable "micro" research, it is impossible to undertake a "macro" approach. However, due to the impressive number and range of studies available on specific subjects, it may now be possible to attempt to draw same more general, "macro"-type conclusions, referring to the relations between Jews and non-Jews in the Ottoman Empire. In an article published so me time ago in Pe'amim, 1 Professor Moshe Maoz and I attempted to draw up a model for relations between Jews and non-Jews in Syria and Egypt during the nineteenth century. W e suggested that these relations could be best expressed graphically as a triangle, the vertices of which represent Muslims, Christians, and Jews. However, even our limited examination of these two provinces revealed obviously different patterns: In Syria, Jews and Christians competed as rivals and Muslims despised both communities, while in Egypt there was unofficial collaboration between Muslims and Copts, frequently fareing the Jews into an inferior status. Considering that such variations-and most probably atlıers as well-were evident in a study of two provinces, it is obvious that no single exclusive model may be found for a comprehensive typology of inter-group relations in the Iate Ottoman Empire, i.e., from the end of the nineteenth century through the first two decades of the twentieth. Nevertheless, one may delineate several general patterns

539 540 The jews of the Ottoman Empire concerning various important aspects of these relations, attempting to carreiate them with factors governing variation. Evidently, these. are only preliminary suggestions or queries intended to stimulate an exchange of views, rather than present a definitive framework. To impose some order on the multifaceted web of inter-group relations, we limit o ur frame of reference in time, geographical scope, and spheres of concentration: We consider only the last generatian of the empire; the provinces ruled by the Ottomans directly (excluding most of North Africa, ruled by the French and British, whiclı exhibit sornewhat different features and will be referred to only exception­ ally); and the larger Jewish communities, to which many Jews were maving at the time, such as Salonica, , Izmir, Bursa, Aleppo, Baghdad, and others. One important pattern concerns the worsening of relations be­ tween Jews and non-Jews-in different degrees with Muslims and Christians, as we shall see. This occurred despite a long history of Ottoman welcome offered to Jewish refugees (as well as to others­ Iranians, Polish, Russians). Relations were apparently exacerbated by two major phenomena in the Iate Ottoman Empire: a sharp economic decline and a swift rise in nationalİst sentiment. Without subscribing blindly to the zero-sum theory, I believe that it may be used to illus­ trate-and, perhaps, explain to some extent-the general characteris­ tics of both these spheres of relations. a. The economic decline of the empire, along with marked signs of inflation (e.g., in the Fertile Crescent) and occasional wartime shor­ tages of certain commodities (e.g., in the Balkans), heightened existing animosity between Christians and J ews. These two minorities had a long tradition of competition in several areas of commerce and manu­ facture, most particularly in those not pursued by Muslims. No less an authority than Haim Nahum (Nahoum), the halıambaşı, ı:-eferred to this situation in an article on the Jews in the Ottoman Empire, which he contributed to a book on modern , published in 1924. His words merit quotation:

Detailed statistics would prove that, in proportion to their num­ bers, the J ews of Turkey have been more successful than all other nationalities residing in the Turkish Empire in lines of finance and in the export and im port business with Europe and America. At the same time, it must be recognized that both the Greeks and the Armenians are very active in commerce, and more particularly Relations Betweenjews and Non-Jews 541

in industry. But the development of the commerce in paper, hard~are, colonial products, glassware, hosiery, textiles, and other manufactured products is due largely to the Jews. Fallaw­ ing the example of the Jews of and Salonica, the J ews of Aleppo and Baghdad played a great part in the develop­ ment of commerce in Syria and Mesopotamia. By establishing business houses in Egypt, Manchester, Bombay, and New York, they increased the trade of Persia through Baghdad. The influ­ ence of the Jewish business houses of Messa Fils, established in Aden, which developed the commerce between Sanaa (Yemen) and the ports of the Red Sea in Egypt, are worth mentioning.2

As Haim Nahum perceived it, there was an economic rivalry between the Jews, on the one hand, and the Greeks and Armenians, orl the other. Christians were attracted, indeed, to many of the fields in whichjews were then economically active. W e know this, alsa, from the reports in the archives of the Allian ce Israelite Universelle in Paris, which comprise valuable information aboutjewish occupations in sev­ eral parts of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth. Dr. Paul Dumont, who has recently examined this information, co ncludes that J ews penetrated in that period in to many new occupations, covering a wide range of those available at the time, from the lowliest (water carriers, boot cleaners, and peddlers) to the most respected and affluent (moneychangers, clothmakers, and jewellers).3 These included numerous trades of artisans; and since Greeks and Armenians were alsa being driven away from same of these by the increasing penetration of goods manufactured in Europe, there must have been an almost unavoidable decrease in economic openings for all concerned. Examples are the spinning and weaving of silk, e.g., in Bursa, which w ere earlier entirely in the hands of Greek and Armenian women, and in the period under discussion were "in­ filtrated" by Jews.4 Such competition has often been a major factor in inter-com­ munal strife, in which the Christians, who almost invariably outnum­ bered the Jews, were at times guilty of anti-Jewish agitation and even blood libels, as well as physical violence. In Salonica, too, whosejewish inhabitants comprised more than half of the city's population in the early twentieth century (according to a local source, about 73,000 out 5 of 120,000 ), feelings ran high between Christians and Jews. This is at least partly explained by the general occupational distribution of 542 The ]ews of the Ottoman Empire

Salonica's Jews, according to the evidence of a person who had a factory in the area: 4,000 of them are merchants who do a significant export and import trade, some are also factory owners; about 5,000 to 6,000 are tradesmen and artisans, shopkeepers and handicraftsmen; about 3,000 to 4,000 in the tobacco industry. The majority of lawyers, doctors, teachers & journalists are J ews. J ewish fishermen & porters are very much in evidence.6 Consequently, the anti-J ewish rio ts, instigated by the Greeks, fallawing their conquest and annexation of Salonica in 1912, should not have come asa surprise. Many Jews then felt that it would be prudent to emigrate. Obviously, in the case of Salonica, the relatively large J ewish presence served as an exacerbating factor. The Jewish presence, indeed, seems to have affected Christian­ Jewish relations (in cases where it was either absolute or relative) as a tension-producing factor elsewhere in the empire as well. Due to rising insecurity, on the one hand, and the pressing need to earn a living, Jews tended increasingly to leave the sınaller localities and move to the larger towns for instance in Iraq7 and Egypt.8 The in­ creased interaction in business, which resulted in some large towns, such as Izmir,9 between Jews and Christians, added an ingredient to the worsening of relations, as did their inter-community rivalry to obtaining those administrative posts open to non-Muslims, for in­ stance in Syria. 10 b. The rise of nationalism was very probably a patent factor in the worsening of relations between the Muslim Turks and the minorities. However, it hardly played a role in the relations between Christians and Jews, as many of the former agitated politically for autonomy and independence and had no immediate quarrel with their Jewish neighbors on this account. The Muslim Turks, however, became increasingly suspicious of what they considered overt and covert designs of revalt and secession by the major Christian denarni­ nations and several non-Turkish Muslim groups, such as the Alban­ ians and the Arabs. Once these suspicions became certainties, some leading Turkish nationalists included the Jews among the suspect groups; since then the Jews, being one of the weakest (or, perhaps, the very weakest) group in the empire, faced a delicate situation. While a measure of Muslim anti-Jewish sentiment was not un­ known in the Iate Ottoman Empire, it had few of the features of Relations Between jews and Non-jews 543

Christian anti-Semitism; moreover, anti-Semitism was not prevalent at the time among the Muslim masses and was confined to tiny peripherai groups (or mostly to individuals). Anti-Jewish feelings, al­ though not entirely divorced from economic considerations, proved to be (when extant) more characteristic of some Turkish intellectuals, such as Yunus Nadi, Celal Nuri, and, more particularly, Ebüzziya Tevfik (an Albanian who considered himselfa Turk),11 whose writings attacked the J ews on grounds of patriotism, as perceived by them. These intellectuals were, so it seems, keenly aware of their histarical past and of their hoped-for future, both of which they were reluctant to share with non-Turks and non-Muslims. As Dr. Kemal Öke and I have attempted to demonstrate in a recent paper,12 nationalİst suspicions were chief!y directed toward the Jews in Palestine; however, as the Ottoman leadership grew increas­ ingly wary of Zionist political designs in general, its suspicions were extended sornewhat and began to exert an adverse effect on overall relations between Muslim Turks and Jews, despite some steady at­ tempts by the latter to stern this tide. 13 One little-known example of this extended suspicion concerns the Hebrew language, which had been officially recognized in Tripali in 1913, soon after its annexation by the Italians. The Ottoman government was all the more annoyed by the Zionist demand that Hebrew be recognized in the Ottoman Empire as well. 14 Naturally, queries ought to be directed at the Jewish side, too, regarding multilateral relations with non-Jewish groups. Again, an entire ran ge of multifaceted relations prevailed, differing throughout the vast Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless, some major patterns may be noted, bearing the numerous local exceptions in mind. a. Social relations were frequently limited to business contacts, either by the J ews' own cho ice or as a result of constraints imposed on them from outside their community, or both. As one knows from the responsa literature of the time, Jewish religious circles saw no useful purpose in socializing with Gentiles, as they believed such con­ tacts bore lurking dangers of assimilation or sin. Other Jewish circles apparently had few practical opportunities for socializing, as many Jews stilllived among their own, in distinct residential quarters, while those who moved into "mixed" neighborhoods were mostly active in their own circles. There were exceptions, of course: for example, wealthy Jews occasionally moved in non-Jewish social circles; even then, however, such relations, while ref!ecting a certain degree of 544 The jews of the Ottoman Empire

mobility, were nonetheless formal, in general, with little or no close companionship. This situation appears to have equally applied, mutatis mutandis, to the poorer Jewish dasses as well. Professional associatioris among lawyers, physicians, and other members of the liberal profes­ sions appear to have been meaningful only in the last years of the Ottoman era. b. Economic relations were often marked by the fierce competition deseribed earlier-a situation hardly conducive to close companion­ ship. While there were cases of business cooperation, even rare partnerships, the Jews (and, apparently, the non-Jews as well) seemed to prefer associating with their own (as the Jewish press of the time informs us) and using the all-important bonds of religion and lan­ guage to ensure the prosperity and security of their own enterprises. c. In the intellectual domain, there were very few Jews genuinely · interested in Turkish culture (as pointed out by Professor Bernard 5 Lewis latelyi ) or in that of other minorities. (Even fewer non-Jews were concerned with Jewish culture, often expressed in languages which they probably considered bizarre.) The rare exceptions, such as Abraham Galante in Istanbul, Moi:se Cohen (alias Munis Tekinalp) in Salonica, 16 and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi in Palestine only confirm the charac­ ter of the overall situation. d. The political sphere appears to have been characterized by the same phenomena prevailing in intellectuallife. Insofar as Jews were involved at all in politics, their interests focused primarily on the local affairs of their own community. Hardly any participated actively in the nationalİst movements of the non-Turkish minorities. The few who shared the politics of generally attempted to de-emphasize their Jewishness. The above Moi:se Cohen and the better-known Emmanuel Carasso (who was influential in the inner circles of the Committee of Union and Progress) wrote and spoke as Turks rather than as Jews; this was the case, also, of the very few Jews elected to the Ottoman parliament. During the last two decades of the Ottoman Empire, the handful of Jews who were involved in gen­ eral s ta te politics, usually at the si de of Turkish nationalists, acted on a strictly individual basis. The vast majority of Jews in the Ottoman Empire appears to have remained largely indifferent, if not hostile, to any direct political involvement. The only possible exception seems to have been the Jewish com­ munity in Palestine, where its leaders insistently advocated whole­ hearted Ottomanism among the local Jews. David Ben-Gurion and Relatiorıs Between jews and Non-jews 545

Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (later to become, respectiyely, Prime Minister and President_ of the State of Israel), who were both fluent in Turkish, wrote and spoke insistently in this sense during the years immediately preceding the First World War. However, evenin this extreme case, political involvement in favor of Turkish nationalism primarily can­ cemed individuals, with little or no organization to back it. Isolation by choice or compulsion, although slightly diminishing in scope in the Iate Ottoman Empire, continued unabated, with limited opportunities for closer relations between Jews and non-Jews. While allowing for local differences, the Jews had to tailor their relations to othergroupsin accordance with changing (and generally worsening) conditions. Thanks to long years of experience in surviving under difficult conditions in a hostile environment, they succeeded in perse­ vering in the Iate Ottoman Empire as well. To their good fortune, apparently, the two spheres of animosity-the one due to economic competition in an increasingly impoverished environment and the other originating in the rise of nationalism-generally remained sepa­ rate from one an other in the J ews' relations with the Christian minorities and the Muslim Turks, respectively. The two spheres did combine, however, to worsen relations up to a breaking point in several states which seceded from the empire and attained a serni-independent or independent status. In Romania, for example, the Jews were persecuted as economic undesirables and perceived as a minority not fully committed to the raw nationalism of the new Romania. Hence accommodation failed and J ews who w ere able to emigrate did so--quite a few of them to the Oçtoman Empire itself. This sorry situation prevailed in several other of the empire's successor states, too, such as the Arab countries, particularly those whose governments sought to increase the majority's economic role and considered the Jews (and sometimes other minorities) as impair­ ing the state's homogeneous character. Once again, inter-group rela­ tions worsened over time, eventually compelling numerous Jews to leave. No paraUel phenomena occurred in the truncated Ottoman Empire itself during its existence. This was largely due to the long tradition of toleration for minority groups, but no less to the fact that the two spheres discussed above, the economic and the political, usu­ ally remained separate in majority-minority relations. 546 The j ews of the Ottoman Empire

Notes

l. J.M. Landau and Moshe Ma'oz, "Yehudim ve-lo-Yehudim be-Mitzrayim ba-Me'ah ha-ı9" [Jews and non-Jews in Nineteenth Century Egypt], Pe'amim Qerusalem), no. 9, May ı98ı, pp. 4-ı3. 2. Haim Nahoum, "Jews," in E.G. Mears, ed., Modern Turkey (New York: Macmillan, ı924), pp. 92-94. 3. Examples in Paul Dumont, "Jewish Communities in Turkey during the Last Decades of the Nineteenth Century in the Light of the Arehiv es of the Alliance Israelite Universelle," in Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis, e ds., Christiarıs and 1 ews in the Ottoman Empire (N e w York: Holmes & Meier, ı982), vol. ı, p. 2ı6 and ff. 4. Ibid., p. 223. 5. N. Mayer, The1ews ofTurkey (London: n.d. [ı9ı3]), pp. 38-39. 6. Ibid. 7. Dumont, op. cit., pp. 224-25. 8. J.M. Landau, 1ews in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (New York: New York University Press, ı969), p. 50. 9. Haim Gerber, Yehudei !zmir ba-Me'ah ha-19 [The Jews of Izmir in the Nineteenth Century] Qerusalem: Misgav Yerushalayim, ı984), pp. ı6-ı7. ı o. Moshe Ma'oz, "Changes in the Position of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire" (in Hebrew), in Mi-Kedem umi-Yam, Studies on the 1ewry of Muslim Lands (Haifa: University of Haifa, ı98ı), p. 22. ıl. Ebüzziya Tevfik, quoted in N. J. Mandel, The Arabs and Zionism Before World War I (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, ı976), p. ıoo. Cf. Celal Nuri, "Irk ve Millet," Edebiyat-ı Umumiye Mecmuası, vol. 3, 7 Şaban, ı336/18 May, ı918. - ı2. J. M. Landau and M. K. Öke, "Ottoman Perspectives on American Interests in the Holy Land," in Moshe Davis, ed., W ith Eyes Towards Zion, vol. 2 (New York: Praeger, 1986), pp. 261-302. ı3. J. M. Landau, "The '' and Zionism," in V. D. Sanua, ed., Fields of Offering: Studies in Honor of Raphael Patai (Rutherford: Fairleigh Diekinson University Press, ı983), pp. ı97-205. 14. India Office Records (London), UP&S/ı9, F. O. Confidential Prints, Asiatic Turkey and Arabia ı9ı3, Louis Mallet's no. 1023, to Sir Edward Grey, dated Constantinople, 2ı December, 1913. ı5. Bemard Lewis, The 1 ews ofIslam (Princeton, N .J.: Princeton University Press, ı984), pp. 175-76. ı6. J. M. Landau, Tekinalp, Turkish Patriot 1883-1961 (Istanbul and Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut, 1984).