Nadene Goldfoot
Jews lived in Asia Minor when the Ottoman Empire was established there. A synagogue was authorized in the old capital of Brusa in 1326. When Salonica was captured in 1430 and Constantinople in 1453, their Jewish communities were incorporated in Turkey.
After 1492s Spanish Inquisition when Spanish Jews discovered they weren't allowed to remain there as Jews anymore, the sultans opened the gates of the Ottoman Empire generously to the refugees from Spain and later from Portugal and other lands. The Turkish Jewish community, now mostly Sephardi, became of great importance.
Jews were found to be a valuable people in trading and were an artisan element and also as a counterpoise to the possible disloyal Christian minorities. Great communities were in Istanbul (Constantinople), Adrianople, Smyrna (Izmir), and Salonica where the intellectual traditions of Sephardi Jewry were centered.
Hagia Sophia: Christian church turned into a Mosque in Istanbul
Palestine, from 1517, was part of the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire, as were Egypt,, Yemen, Iraq, etc. The Moslem code was applied by the sultan, but went easy on Jews such as Joseph Nasi (1520-1579) , born a Marrano in Portugal, head man with the court; and Solomon Ashkesnazi (1520-1602) Turkish doctor and diplomat, settling in Turkey in 1564, who were able to influence the state. The code must have been the rule that non-Muslims such as Jews were considered as Dhimmis and had rules that Muslims did not need to follow. This Muslim code of ethics applied to Jews also is Sharia, also known as Islamic law (قانون إسلامي qānūn ʾIslāmī), is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Considering that orthodox Jews follow their own code of ethics which includes 613 points of law, I think that our Jewish ancestors had it up to here with ethical laws.
After the 16th century, life was not so favorable for the Jews. This is when there were strong anti-Jewish restrictions being applied more rigidly, but nevertheless there was no general reaction that the Ottoman Empire noticed. Jews did. They became dhimmis (People of the book) and were under restrictive laws. Dhimmis were excluded from public office and armed service, and were forbidden to bear arms. They were not allowed to ride horses or camels, to build synagogues or churches taller than mosques, to construct houses higher than those of Muslims or to drink wine in public. They were not allowed to pray or mourn in loud voices-as that might offend the Muslims. The dhimmi had to show public deference toward Muslims-always yielding them the center of the road. The dhimmi was not allowed to give evidence in court against a Muslim, and his oath was unacceptable in an Islamic court. To defend himself, the dhimmi would have to purchase Muslim witnesses at great expense. This left the dhimmi with little legal recourse when harmed by a Muslim.
Dhimmis were also forced to wear distinctive clothing. In the ninth century, for example, Baghdad's Caliph al-Mutawakkil designated a yellow badge for , setting a precedent that would be followed centuries later in Nazi Germany. Of course, Turkey was a Muslim country.
The situation of in Arab lands reached a low point in the 19th century. in most of North Africa (including , , , and ) were forced to live in ghettos. In , which contained the largest Jewish community in the Islamic Diaspora, were made to walk barefoot or wear shoes of straw when outside the ghetto. Even Muslim children participated in the degradation of , by throwing stones at them or harassing them in other ways. The frequency of anti-Jewish violence increased, and many were executed on charges of apostasy. Ritual murder accusations against the became commonplace in the .
In 1879, Laurence Oliphant (1829-1888), an English writer and proto-Zionist, traveller and Christian mystic, had submitted a scheme to settle Jews on the east bank of the Jordan River. His desire was to improve economic and cultural conditions in Turkey for the sake of the peace of Europe. he had contacted Hovevei Zion societies, traveled to Constantinople, for political negotiations, settled himself in Haifa, and wrote THE LAND OF GILEAD and HAIFA, or LIFE IN MODERN PALESTINE.
The events following the murder of Alexander II in 1881 dash all hopes the Jews might have had for further improvement of their situation. The assassination, by a small group of revolutionaries, takes place in an atmosphere of great social unrest, and the beleaguered regime falls back on a well-tried recipe: blaming the Jews. Beginning in Elizabetgrad, a wave of pogroms spreads throughout the southwestern regions, more than 200 in 1881 alone. The authorities condone them through their inaction and indifference, sometimes even showing sympathy for the pogromists. An official investigation confirms: the plunderers were convinced that the attacks were sanctioned by the Czar himself. The same investigation blames "Jewish exploitation" as the cause for the pogroms.
In 1881, something terrible had happened that affected Jewry in Russia that caused many to head for the Ottoman Empire in desperation. Someone had assassinated Tsar Alexander II, ushering in a painful new era. Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in March 1881 in a bomb attack carried out by members of the terrorist revolutionary organization Narodnaya Volya (“People's Will”). Alexander succeeded to the throne at age 36, following the death of his father in February 1855, at the height of the Crimean War.
The pogroms after his death were followed by the notorious "MAY LAWS" of May 3, 1882 which stepped up economic discrimination against the Jews. Jews were not allowed from living or acquiring property except in towns in the PALE OF SETTLEMENT (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, etc) . They were finally revoked in 1915 but legally by march 1917 after the Russian Revolution. They resulted in recurrent local expulsion of Jews, intolerable overcrowding in the Pale of Settlement, and the blocking of economic opportunities which caused the wholesale Jewish emigration from Russia during the period they wee in force. They're the cause of what brought so many Jews to the USA.
April 28, 1882's Ottoman Empire notice was that Jews were not allowed to settle in Palestine. In Constantinople, Oliphant found about two hundred Jewish refugees. He also discovered that on entry to the Empire they were required to adopt Ottoman nationality and declare not only that they accepted the laws of the Empire without reserve, but also that they would not settle in Palestine. Oliphant approached the American Minister at the Porte to see if he would be prepared to try and clarify the position. When General Wallace said that he could only do so if a request came from the Jews themselves, Oliphant sent a telegram to Jews he had met in Bucharest and thus another delegation seeking permission for Jews to settle in Palestine hurried to Constantinople.
In the Mutasarr&flik of Jerusalem, Jewish newcomers put forward equally unlikely explanations for the difficulties they encountered on arrival. They pointed a suspicious finger at local Sephardim (Oriental Jews) who had no particular liking for Ashkenazim (European Jews), and at certain Jews living on alms in Jerusalem who feared that the immigrants might also have to be supported from the same funds. Others claimed that the Mutasarrif, Rauf Pasa, was personally ill-disposed towards Jews. Admittedly Rauf Pa?a does not sound at all sympathetic from contemporary (Jewish) records but, whatever his personal feelings, the fact remains that at all times he was acting on strict instructions from Constantinople.
A group, called the Sublime Porte (The Sublime Porte, also known as the Ottoman Porte or High Porte, was a synecdoche (a term for a part of something refers to the whole of something or vice versa.) for the central government of the Ottoman Empire.) had decided to oppose Jewish settlement in Palestine in the autumn of 1881, even before the increased flow of Jews started. Palestine at this time was not managed with a single administrative unit but was made up of the Mutasarriflik of Jerusalem to the south and the Sancaks of Nablus and Acre in the north. They were part of the Vilayet of Sam (Syria) until 1888, later incorporated into the new Vita of Beirut.
During the 19th century, the position of community remained almost unchanged, but not as enlightened as in other countries. It had the 3rd largest population in the world after Russia and Austro-Hungary. They numbered 350,000 in 1900. From then on the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire brought numbers of its Jewish population in the Balkans, etc, under other authorities, with worse conditions for Jews.
This culminated with the 1st Balkan War and World War I, when the Ottoman Empire was destroyed. Turkey was now reorganized on nationalist lines,. former minorities were largely disappearing through exchanges of population with Greece. “By 1917 widespread food shortages coupled with the devastating effects of World War I incited the Russian Revolution.” (Historical Insights).
Sephardic Jews in Turkey were told to assimilate. Today’s generation is reclaiming its identity through the Ladino language: Altaras-Zevulun wedding in Istanbul at the Zülfaris Synagogue (June 3, 1950). Author’s great-grandparents, Istanbul is a major city in Turkey that straddles Europe and Asia across the Bosphorus Strait. Its Old City reflects cultural influences of the many empires that once ruled here. In the Sultanahmet district, the open-air, Roman-era Hippodrome was for centuries the site of chariot races, and Egyptian obelisks also remain. The iconic Byzantine Hagia Sophia features a soaring 6th-century dome and rare Christian mosaics.
Salamon and Estrula Altaras, seated on either side of the bride and groom.
In the remaining territories, the position of Turkish Jewry, no longer the favorite minority, but now a recalcitrant one, was in a poor position. There was discrimination, actual rather than legal in Turkey, and 37,000 Jews emigrated to Israel after 1948. There were 20,000 Jews in the Turkey in 1990 with about 18,000 in Istanbul, 1,500 in Izmir, and smaller communities in Edine, Brusa, and Ankara. The spiritual and cultural distinction of former day, had ended.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4282539?seq=1
http://ismi.emory.edu/home/documents/Readings/Mandel,%20Neville%20J.%20Ottoman%20Policy.pdf
https://medium.com/exploring-history/the-exodus-of-jews-from-russia-b893ca44b496
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-treatment-of-jews-in-arab-islamic-countries
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