Nadene Goldfoot
It's called Istanbul today but it's original name was Constantinople of world history. The Ottoman Empire of Turkey that lasted 400 years was centered here. It's in Asia and it's in Europe.
Many people living in Turkey’s largest city shared Rahvanci’s feelings, in particular following the massive earthquakes – with magnitudes of 7.8 and 7.6 – on Monday that killed more than 21,000 people and wounded more than 80,000 others in southeastern Turkey as of Saturday. Thousands of others were killed in Syria. Officials said they expect the death toll to continue to rise. The country is particularly prone to earthquakes, as it lies in an area where several tectonic plates meet. Quakes usually occur along the boundaries between plates. The North Anatolian Fault, which divides the Eurasian and Anatolian plates, runs close to Istanbul.
Istanbul Mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, said in a recent interview that there were some 90,000 buildings that were highly vulnerable to earthquakes in the megalopolis with a population of some 20 million people. The mayor said another 170,000 buildings were in the medium-risk status in case of a strong earthquake, according to research conducted by Istanbul Municipality. After Monday’s earthquakes, more than 6,400 buildings have reportedly collapsed in southeastern Turkey.
The Ottoman Empire, historically and colloquially the Turkish Empire, was an empire that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt (modern-day Bilecik Province) by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe and, with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed the Conqueror.Netflicks has a movie on TV about him that is most interesting. https://www.netflix.com/title/80990771 on Ottoman Empire.
In the mind of Medieval individuals, for more than a thousand years, Constantinople held the title of one of the most important cities in the world. Here’s why. Constantinople, the contemporary city of Istanbul in Turkey, was the capital city of the Roman Empire for more than a thousand years. Rising from an ancient Greek colony established in the 7th century BCE, it came to be one of the most important cities of the Middle Ages. In 324, Emperor Constantine officially moved the capital of the Empire from Rome to the city of Byzantium and named it Constantinople, after himself. This event sparked more than a millennium of history infused with Greek culture, Roman state organization, and Christianity. Until the 29th of May 1453, Constantinople, along with its politics and religion shaped the life of the Middle Ages in the region.The small city of Byzantium, between two continents and two seas, connected to both the Black Sea and the Aegean and Europe and Asia, was the obvious choice.
Turks captured Salonica in 1430 and Constantinople in 1453, which included taking in a lot of Jews. After the terrible 1492, the sultan opened the gates of the Ottoman Empire generously to the refugees from Spain, and then Portugal and other lands, and the Turkish Jewish community of Sephardi Jews became most important. They were favored as valuable trading and artisan element and also as a counterpoise to the potentially disloyal Christian minorities. The Sephardi intellectuals were centered in the cities of Constantinople, Adrianople, Smyrna (Izmir) and Salonica.
Palestine was added to the Empire in 1517. Egypt, Yemen, Iraq, etc were all added then. The Sultans applied the normal Moslem code against the Jews but not strictly, so Joseph Nasi and Solomon Ashkenazi were able to exercise great influence in the state.
It was in the Byzantine Period that the Jewish community suffered continuous persecution here. The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. In 1165 of the West's Dark Ages, there were 2,000 Jews living here and 500 Karaites.
The Turks captured this city in 1453, and Jews came from various Ottoman provinces and the arrival of Spanish exiles of the 1492 Spanish inquisition. Ashkenazim were the small minority along with 44 distinct congregations divided into Greek, Spanish and Italian and of course, the Karaites. They did have a chief rabbi (bakham bashi) resident in the city and the Hebrew printing presses of Constantinople were noted from the end of the 15th century.
Jews developed the city's commerce, while others were distinguished as physicians and in court circles. By the 19th century, there was a economic and cultural decline of the community that was weakened by political reforms and the establishment of modern schools.
The Jewish population exceeded 90,000 in 1919 (end of WWI) but was reduced to 20,000 by 1990.
The the Balkan Wars, World War I and the Greco-Turkish War wiped out the remains of the Ottoman Empire. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne formally established the Republic of Turkey, which moved its capital to Ankara. Old Constantinople, long known informally as Istanbul, officially adopted the name in 1930. Their loss was due to joining the German side in WWI and they lost all their empire but was able to keep Turkey. Why? It's said that it was In exchange for money and future control over Russian territory, the Ottoman Government abandoned a neutral position and sided with Germany.
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