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Ask Haviv Anything
Episode 41: The rise and fall of Ottoman Jewry with Dr. Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak
01:18:09
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- [00:05]
A
Hi everybody. Welcome to Ask Aviv Anything. I'm coming to you from Chicago and today we're going to try and do something kind of cool. We're going to take a deep dive into the Jews of the Ottoman Empire. Jews in the 20th and 21st centuries are surprisingly forgetful of history. And now they need that history to understand the dramatic and true traumatic things that are happening, changes that are happening. And so we're trying to do that. We're trying to say Jews. Hi, how you doing? Here's your history. And history, of course, is complicated. It's many layered. There are many different histories, many different experiences within the narrow confines of a not large Jewish community, you'll find radically different narratives, radically different experiences, none of them mistaken. You know, sometimes they're actually mistaken ones, but many times, many, many different sides are correct, accurate, and are saying something important. This podcast so far has dealt almost exclusively with Ashkenazi Jewish history. We dealt a little bit with, you know, really only in passing with the mass migrations to Israel of Mizrachi Jews, Jews from the various parts of the Muslim world. But really not as serious history, almost just to serve other issues, other questions, polemics. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first reason is that this is a podcast about telling the story of the Jews. Two Diaspora Jews, the vast majority of whom speak English, and the vast majority of the English speaking Jews are Ashkenazi Jews. The vast majority of French speaking Diaspora Jews are Mizrahi or Sephardi, by the way. The second reason is the Muslim world Jews. The Jews who came from the Muslim world made up about a million Jews at the end of the 19th century, at the founding of political Zionism, European Jews were more than ten times that many. And the great migration waves, the great destruction, the first generation of the founders of Israel and of Zionism. These are by and large Ashkenazi events. These are by and large things happening and driven by Ashkenazi Jewish discourses. Well, that changes today. Our Patreon subscribers have clamored for it. They've said, you got to tackle the Mizrachi Jewish experience. And today is going to be a first taste of what I hope will be many, I plan will be many, many serious dives into this incredibly rich, incredibly diverse world of Sephardi Jewry. Mizrahi Jewry, two terms that describe different things, they overlap, but those words, the terms change, the meanings change. An Iraqi Jew and a Yemeni Jew come from radically different cultures. Never mind a Turkish Jew, an Iranian Jew, a Moroccan Jew, so We're going to begin this dive into this enormously diverse, diverse world. And it is the story of half of Israel. Roughly half of Israel is Sephardi or Mizrachi. It's less than a third of the actual immigrants, the actual Jewish Olim over the last century. But they came early and they had more kids than the Ashkenazim. And many, many Israelis, or both are partly Mizrachi, partly Ashkenazi. And so to simplify the complexity, thinking of it as half and half is usually correct and useful. And here's one of the takeaways I want you to come away with. Understanding of how the Jewish world of today came to be. And one of the things that I will be asking, because this is how I think of the Mizrachi Sephardi Jewish experience of the 20th century. In episode one, literally the first episode of this podcast, we talked about the story of Theodore Herzl's journey to Zionism. How this founder of the political movement, there were Zionists before him, but none of them built the institutions that forged the shared language that could bring Russian socialists and American capitalists and English Jews and Italian Jews and everybody into the same room, religious and secular, liberal and conservative in the way that he could. And this man, this linchpin, this founder of the Zionist movement did not just wake up one day and say, hey, this is a good idea. And he wasn't in any simple sense a nationalist. He had an analysis of European modernity where he actually made a very profound argument. And this is what episode one is about. It wasn't that antisemitism suddenly made the Jews existence in Europe untenable. It was that liberalism had made antisemitism, had set antisemitism on a whole different path, making it demonic, making it an organizing principle of European politics. How did it do it? The breaking of the ghetto walls in emancipation, allowing Jews out of the ghetto, allowing Jews canceling all the anti Jewish legislation that lim limited the professions they could work in, where they could live. Emancipation itself. The great movement to bring Jews into the mainstream of European society, the liberalism of the late 19th century, or this really begins in the 18th century that robbed Christian society. Herzl believed almost of its sense of self. You always knew where you stood as a German Catholic, let's say, by knowing that the Jew was beneath you in the hierarchy, limited in profession, limited in place. When the Jew was no longer beneath you, you yourself didn't know you stood in society. Herzl concluded that antisemitism was unfixable without Jews leaving. And he concluded that because of this sociological analysis of modernization or psychological analysis of modernization, he was a liberal assimilationist who became deeply and traumatically disillusioned with assimilation and liberalism. And that's what turned into Zionism. Today we're going to be taking a deep dive into the history of the Ottoman empire. In the 19th century, the Jews of the Ottoman Empire. I would like to present to our guest that parallel and to pay attention to that parallel how the state of the Jews as well as other minorities, this empire would go on to commit genocides and to almost define its sense of self as it becomes modern Turkey against these paradigmatic minorities, Christians and the Jews, the Greeks, the Armenians and of course the Jews. So I think those parallels are fascinating. The traditional hierarchies are replaced. That's something that we will be talking about. I'll be joined today by Dr. Khay Eitan Cohen Yanarojak of Tel Aviv University. He was on in the past to talk about modern Turkey, Turkish Israeli relations, where Erdogan is taking the country. It was a little bit mind blowing and you love that. Dear Patreon subscribers and regular listeners, but Professor Janarodak is actually a historian of Turkey and the Ottoman Empire and so we brought him back to take this deep dive. With him we're going to talk about the late empire, the fall of the empire, the story of the Jews of the empire, including in the context of Zionism and what it is to be a Jew in the late Ottoman Empire. Before we get into it, I want to tell you that this episode is sponsored by Jeff and Masha Gershman who asks that we share a story of Jewish bravery on or since October 7th so that we all might be reminded not just of our pain and anxiety, but also of our individual and collective strength. In consultation with the Gershmans, we chose to share the story of Nitai Maizels. Nitai is one of the friends that Rachel and I lost in Gaza. Master Sergeant in the reserves. Nitai Maizels, 30, was killed on December 24, 2023 by an anti tank missile fired at his tank in the Gaza Strip during a mission to locate hostages. Nitai was drafted to the unit and volunteered to be in the first tank and that was the tank that is the dangerous tank and the tank that that took the missile. I know a lot of friends, a lot of soldiers, a lot of young men who when they went into Gaza, they basically their attitude, what they would say again and again and again was if I'm not there, somebody else has to be there. That sense of service, that sense of devotion, I think that's the story of Israeli society writ large. And it is our strength. And Nitai very much is our strength. That mission for all. The tragic result did obtain intelligence on hostages and we remember. Nitay Nittai was born in Baltimore, Maryland, actually. When his family was visiting for the postdoctoral studies of his father before then returning to Rehovot in Israel. His parents, Eitan and Ayala, became very good friends in Baltimore with Rachel's parents. Rachel remembers Nitai's birth helping to set up for his breath. And when moved back to Israel in her teens, they were her foster family. They helped her through army service, established, you know, picking out and paying for her first apartment. They actually helped us look for a wedding hall when we were getting married in 2008, Nitai's family wrote a few words that we want to share. Our Ntai had the kindest eyes and the biggest heart. He was always the first to offer help to anyone who needed it. His friends from the army remembered how he greeted every person with a smile, even those he didn't know. When new soldiers joined the platoon, Itay was the one who would go up to them, start a conversation, make sure they felt welcome and part of the group. Helping others was part of who Nitai was. As a teenager, he began volunteering with Magenta VI the Dome. And even as an adult, he returned to continue that work. He cared deeply about inclusion and education. As a young man, he led a Scouts troops for children with special needs. And after his army service, he founded a new Scouts tribe in Nizziona, making sure that these children with special needs would always be part of the group. To this day, the Scouts, even those who never had the privilege of knowing him, keep his memory alive. Nitai loved this land. He loved to travel its length and breadth, always surrounded by close friends. Driving, driving in his Jeep, dusty from the off road, driving. He knew the trails of the Negev by heart. And every new place he discovered filled him with joy. He was essential part of the family. He never missed a family vacation or a shared Shabbat. He was a son who honored his parents, a devoted brother, an uncle adored by all his nieces and nephews. And he had a love of learning. He was endlessly curious about history, archaeology, politics, geography, the natural world and so much more, which is one reason we thought it was appropriate to attach remembering him to this episode. And he was always listening to podcasts, constantly seeking to broaden his horizons. He worked at Elbit Systems Advanced defense technologies. He was proud of his role and his contribution to Israel's defense and defense industry. That was Nitai. Generous, warm, full of life, knew how to make coffee out of just a handful of small gadgets on the road. He was full of love. His presence touched everyone around him and his memory continues to guide us and live on within us. Nithay is survived by his parents, Ayala and Daytan, his sisters Adi and Doria, his brother Aviad, and their spouses and children. This episode is also publishing close to Nitai's birthday, which is at Vav Tishrei. It falls this year on September 28. If Nitai had survived, he would be turning 32 this year. Folks, thank you. Thank you to the Gershmans for the sponsorship. Thank you. To thank you to Nitai, I invite you also to join the Patreon. That's where we talk about these episodes. We take ideas for what to talk about. Let's get into it. Hi, how are you?
- [12:36]
B
I'm great. How are you?
- [12:39]
A
Good. That was a long introduction. Thank you for your patience. The Ottoman Empire, it's one of the most foundational and important things to understand if you want to understand the modern Middle east, if you want to understand modern Israel, Zionism, if you want to understand everything that's happening. And yet people don't. We don't learn much about it. It isn't really taught all that well. And we have gotten tremendous numbers, I mean, dozens and dozens just to me, of questions about, you know, tell us about the Ottoman Empire. Tell us about the situation of the Jew Ottoman Empire, Zionism in the Ottoman Empire, how that all went down. So let's get started, but let's start really simple. Who are the Ottomans? What is an Ottoman and where did this empire come from?
- [13:24]
B
Sure. First of all, thank you very much for having me on your show once again. It is my pleasure and privilege. And regarding your question, the Ottomans are the successors of the Selchuk Empire. These people, their ancestors came all the way from Central Asia and through migration, they came to the outskirts of Anatolia. And by conquering, by entering through the gates of Anatolia. Starting from the battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Seljuks began to invade all of Anatolia from the Armenians and Byzantines.
- [14:13]
A
And then that's essentially modern day Turkey, right? Anatolia.
- [14:17]
B
That's indeed Anatolia.
- [14:18]
A
That's the same land, Turkey.
- [14:20]
B
And of course, the Ottomans were considered as a kind of a principality within the Seljuk Empire. Let me say the Seljuk Empire collapsed Because of the Mongolian invasion and because of this new political situation, the founder of the Ottoman Empire, let me say like a tribal state, Osman I in Turkish Osmanbe, he founded his principality in 1299 in a very strategic location which is in the vicinity of today's, you know, northwestern Turkey, let me say at the outskirts of the city of Istanbul, if someone would like to Google it, in the vicinity of Suyut and Domanic area in Turkey. And they began to basically expand their territories. They began to engage in fighting jihad against the Byzantine Empire. And they literally began to expand their territories and they began to conquer new cities. For instance, in 1324, they conquered their first capital city, the city of Bursa. And there, since we are going to speak about the Jewish community of Ottoman Empire and Eastern Jews, and later also we also going to speak about the Sephardic Jews. The first ever Turkish Jewish encounters with was recorded in this context in the city of Bursa. When the Ottoman army marched into the city and basically conquered the city and they found there the local Jews of Byzantine Empire. These Jews were tagged as Romaniot Jews. It means that they are not Ashkenazi, they are not Sephardic, they are not Mizrachi, but they are the Jews of the Byzantine Empire. And of course, later in 1453, we all witnessed in history the conquest of Constantinople. Mehmed ii, or with his mostly common name in Turkish, Mehmet the Conqueror, he conquered the city of Constantinople. And obviously similar to the city of Bursa, within the city walls, of course there was a Jewish community. And upon conquering the city, Mehmed II summoned the chief rabbi of the Byzantine Empire, whose name was Moshe Kapsali. And of course, besides him, obviously the Greek patriarch was also in and he issued his one of the most important decrees, which is also known as the millet system, the word millet in the Turkish language, obviously we can translate it as a nation from his perspective, within his nation, there were a Muslim millet, a Jewish millet and a Christian millet. And each millet could be autonomous in its own affairs, meaning that they could have their own courts, they could collect their own taxes. But at the end, all of the heads of the millets, and in this case the head of the Jewish millet, was obviously the chief rabbi or the chief Rabbi of Constantinople, if not if he did not have the exact jurisdictional power on the other provinces. And of course we also had this Greek patriarch. And later also the Armenians received the same kind of a status. So we are seeing that the Ottomans have they put the religion at the very center of the Ottoman society. And by providing a religious, by providing the religious freedoms to their subjects, they made sure that they have efficiency in governance and, you know, they had no more or less security problems, rebellions and etc. And I would also like to mention here a very important, of course, fact that the Jews were granted some rights and they were declared as dhimmi. Dhimmi were enslaved Jews in accordance with the Islamic Sharia, Islamic law. It means that if a Jew is accepting the superiority of Islam, so Islam will provide him the right to worship. And obviously the Jew also, and the Christians, they had to pay a tax called the jizya tax. So in return of, you know, paying the tax to the state, you had a right to practice your own religion. And therefore we could see that under the Ottoman Empire, the Jews especially, they enjoyed a religious freedom. They did pay this jizya tax and of course it was in. It was very much compatible with the Medina constitution of Prophet Muhammad in the city of Medina. When Prophet Muhammad came from Mecca to Medina, so he there legislated this Medina constitution and he set the rules that the Jews and the Jews who were believing in one God and they were not polytheists, should be declared as People of the Book. Therefore, the Jews, the Greek Christians, the Armenian Christians were also declared as the People of the Book by Mehmed ii and they were given a status here. And since then we saw that the Jewish community began to foster. And I also would like to mention here and highlight here, unlike the Christian Europe, the history of the Ottoman Empire. You know, we did not see such atrocities in the history of Ottoman Empire. The Jews were largely, we can say that they were very well protected. And as I said before, their right to worship was secured by, by the state. And I also, if I may, would like to make another important contribution in 1492, it was a very important date for the jury of the Ottoman Empire, the history lovers, I assume that they know the story more or less, but in 1492, the Spanish monarchs, the Catholic Monarchs, Los Reyes Catholicos, as they say in Spain, Fernando, or with his other name, Ferdinand and Isabella, the kings of Castiglia and Aragon, they managed to finalize the Reconquista. They began to, they began to expel the Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula. And of course, they also signed a very important decree on Tisha Beav, which is a day of mourning in the Jewish calendar because of the destruction of the temple. And unfortunately, on Tisha B' av of the year 1492, the Jews were expelled from Spain. And in this regard, I would like to mention and emphasize that Sultan Bayazid ii, he sent his galleys to Spain and he rescued Jews from, you know, annihilation. So the Jews of Spain, in Hebrew, we say Sephard. Therefore, all of the Jews who were once, whose ancestors were once upon a time affiliated or were originated with Spain, they should be named as the Spanish Jews, the Sephardic Jews. And they were brought to various regions of empire. They were brought to Morocco. They were brought to today's Serbia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria, obviously to today's Turkey and to other regions in the Ottoman Empire. And when the Sephardic Jews reached these lands, the Romaniote Jews, of course, they, you know, the Jews are all brothers. So we hugged each other. And I don't think that we should say that it was an assimilation, but the Romaniot community was outnumbered and they were merged with the dominant Sephardic community. And they, you know, if you like, we can say that they were assimilated in terms of linguistics, meaning that in today's Turkish Jewish community, when we are looking, we cannot see any Jew who knows Greek from the Byzantine times. But we all know that the Jews of Turkey and Ottoman Empire, they were very fluent in the Ladino language, in the Judeo Espanol language. And therefore, if I may, in the introduction, when you introduced some of the very important concepts in the beginning, from time to time you tended to divide the terms Mizrahi and Sephardic. But from time to time, you also tended to use them as synonyms. So I would like to make a very, you know, a very clear distinction. The Sephardic Jews, as I said, they are the ones who came out from Spain or Iberian Peninsula, also from Portugal, and they came to Morocco, to Balkans, to today's Turkey, to today's, you know, Western Turkey, Istanbul and other regions in the Levant. But the Mizrahi Jews are like, you know, the Iraqi Jews and, you know, the lands of the Arabic land. And they obviously have no relationship with Ladino, with Judo Espanol and Spain and Iberic Peninsula.
- [26:33]
A
So the timeline, the Ottomans that you just laid out, the Ottomans Islamized in the 1200s, right?
- [26:40]
B
The Islamization of the Turks occurred when the Muslim armies reached the area of Transoxonia of today, which is like Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan of today, they forced the ancient Turks to convert it into Islam. Of course, there was a resistance, obviously, but later this resistance was broken. And therefore, some of the Turks, they migrated to the West. And those who passed from today's Iran, they turned into Shiites or Alevis, that you can see them in today's Turkey or the others that also there were some other communities like today, like the Ottomans, that they preserved, that they later turned into Muslims and they chose to be under the Sunni school of Muslims. They are from the Hanafi subschool of the Islamic religion of Sunnah, the Sunnah sect. So obviously we can say that when the Ottomans were formed as a young principality, one of the most important goals was to conquer new lands, not only to get richer, but also to bring the flag of Islam into Christian Europe against the Byzantine Empire.
- [28:30]
A
Okay, so this is wonderful, a wonderful beginning we're talking about. Osman I is already many, many generations Muslim and sees Islam as part of the purpose justification theory of his rule and of the empire he's building. The entry into Bursa, the first meeting between Turks and Jews is 1326. And then.
- [28:57]
B
1324. Apologies that I interrupted you.
- [29:01]
A
24, no, wonderful, perfect. And then Mehmet II conquers Constantinople, establishes the millet system. And that's really, yeah, in sort of the shorthand of historical, you know, textbooks. And that's, you know, the founding of the Ottoman Empire as we would understand it right today, in other words, the sort of replacement downfall of the Byzantines. And they encountered these Romanio Jews which spoke Yevonic, a Judeo Greek. Greek in Hebrew is Yavonit. And so this is a Judeo Greek. And what's really interesting about the entire narrative that you laid out was the extent to which we call Jews by, we essentially define Jewish communities by the surrounding cultures that they were dealing with, that they were living with. Ladino is Hebrew Spanish.
- [29:50]
B
Right?
- [29:51]
A
It's a Judeo Spanish. And the Judeo Arabic of the Iraqis and all of these places where Jews adapted. So the Romaniotes, as you said, were very few. They were small community, but they were the classic ancient community of Jews in the Greek speaking Roman Empire. And by the way, to this day, Italian Jews have a different. They are not Ashkenazi Jews, not in their prayer book and not in their traditions and not in their history. They are Italian Jews. Italian Jews is a different thing. It's not sephardimizrachi, ashkenazi, etc. So you now have, you have brought us into the 16th century. In 1492, the sultan sends galleys to pick up the Jews who are fleeing Spain. And I just before we get into, you know, let's run through the 16th and 19th centuries in three minutes. But before we do that, why, why would a sultan send galleys to pick up the fleeing Jews. Incidentally, they drove a massive economic boom in the Ottoman Empire and were partly. They're leaving was part of the reason. This is. There's a lot of research on middleman communities and their usefulness in. In economic development. Spain was an empire that robbed every place it conquered. It robbed it blind and nevertheless collapsed in economic bankruptcy. It never became rich because unlike the English empire, for example, it never built out an industrial base and an economic system. It just literally robbed everything it found. The Jews leave a lot of that economic activity and a lot of that kind of capitalism leaves with them. Did he know that? Was that the reason? Why would you send galleys to pick up the Jews? Did he love Jews for some reason we wouldn't recognize from afar?
- [31:41]
B
I don't think that, you know, I don't think that he has love towards. He had a love towards Jews, but I think that, hey, it's possible.
- [31:49]
A
Okay, don't, don't knock it. Jews are not so terrible.
- [31:54]
B
Yeah. You know, he was a great humanitarian in retrospect, that's what I can say because thanks to him, now I'm standing, you know. You know, and I'm talking to you right now because all of my ancestors.
- [32:06]
A
I forgot to say this in the introduction. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Your story is. This story you come from. I'm sorry, you were saying this. I apologize. We're having an Israeli conversation. This counts. Your story is the Sephardi 1492 Jews arriving in Turkey. In modern day Turkey. Maybe there's some Romanio blood in you too. So you're talking literally about your own.
- [32:31]
B
Once upon a time I was blond, you know, so maybe, why not? Maybe I had a, you know, grand grand grandfather who was a Romaniotio. You never know, so. Or grandma. So regarding your question, why he did such a thing, I'm trying to enter to his, you know, shoes. And in this regard, I can say that obviously the Jews were talented peoples. They were skilled people. They could contribute to the Ottoman economy if they were allowed. They could also bring, of course, some of their belongings. But they had a huge network in Europe. And I think that was the most important issue. And besides that, the Jews knew some of the inventions that they did not come to the Ottoman Empire. Later we know that the first press in the Ottoman Empire was used by the Jews. But because of some objections of the Islamic clergy, after years, the Muslims began to use the Ottoman press under Ibrahim Muteferica. But if I'll get back to the Jews of Spain, I can definitely tell you that they also brought to Ottoman Empire intelligence, intelligence regarding what was going on in Europe. So today, you know, we are using a term called osint, Open source intelligence. Once upon a time, such a. Such a term did not exist. It was only human intelligence. There was no, you know, until the press and the, and the, you know, emergence of the newspapers, we cannot speak about open source intelligence. Right. So these people came to the Ottoman Empire with their expertise and with their, you know, with their intellectual property, with their. They had a huge input in the Ottoman Empire. And obviously Ottoman Empire was a very strong empire, but it became stronger thanks to the network of the Jews. And in this regard, maybe we can also remember and mention the names of Don Joseph Nacei, Don Gracia Nace. These were very important Jewish figures who came to Ottoman Empire who enjoyed from the protection of the Ottoman Empire. And thanks to Ottoman Empire, they also could save Jews from Inquisition in Italy, for instance. Okay, so it's famously.
- [35:26]
A
The Sultan famously had this line by Ezra II where he said, you call Ferdinand a wise king, but he has impoverished his country and enriched mine. And he's talking about the 150,000 Jews that the Ottoman Empire takes in from when Spain expels them. And presumably it doesn't hurt from the perspective of Jewish Muslim solidarity, let's call it, that the Spanish are kicking both.
- [35:53]
B
Out at once, the Jews and the Muslims. I would like to remind. Apologies that I interrupted you once again, but sorry for that. I just wanted to say that again.
- [36:05]
A
I can't emphasize enough how this is a conversation between two Israelis. The sooner the audience gets used to it, the better.
- [36:13]
B
I just want to tell you that the Jews and the Muslims were natural collaborators in the Andalus, in the Umayyads state of Andalus. We all know that once upon a time, the Muslims, they did capture and ruled the Iberian peninsula for years. So the Jews were considered as their natural allies. So when the Spanish did this reconquista under Isabella and Ferdinand, so they also decided to get rid of the Jews with the decree called Alhambra. And obviously it was declared in today's Alhambra palace, which is located in Granada.
- [37:04]
A
Okay, so we now have a huge community of Jews, you know, for the time, not 6 million American Jews, but maybe 200,000, something like that in the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan is delighted that he has a whole bunch of Jews in Istanbul or Constantinople, it was called then in Salonica or in various major cities of the Empire. Their trade networks, their skills. The Jews of Spain were Famously, as you said, craftsmen and doctors and finance people, truly famous throughout Europe and throughout the Mediterranean for those skills that they had developed. And now walk us through the next 300 years in three minutes. How do we find this Jewish community, which has already grown to probably a million, in the various lands of the Muslim world, not all of them controlled by the ottomans by the 19th century? How do we find this Jewish community under the Ottomans, let's say at the opening of the 19th century?
- [38:09]
B
In 19th century. Well, we can say that as I said in the beginning of our conversation, they enjoyed a kind of a very free environment under millet system. But also the westernization and liberal ideas began to penetrate into the Ottoman Empire starting with the French Revolution. Obviously 1789 when the French Revolution occurred, you know, the winds of change also came to the Ottoman Empire. And the Sultan Selim iii, he was very much aware that some reforms had to be done. So under the first reforms that took place in Ottoman Empire, they were all focused on military because the Ottomans began to understand that the European military, you know, the European militaries began to act in a more superior way against themselves. So they came to the conclusion that their first homework of course was the military. But later, beginning with the reign of Mahmud II, which is 1808, the Ottomans began to form translation departments in various European states to understand what was going on in Europe. And they wanted to receive some reports. And later, I mean these translators Hoover educated in French language, in English language, in German language, they were dispatched to many different European capitals, they could observe the European lifestyle. And when they came back to Istanbul, they also began to bring all of these interactions to the capital city. And they. And under Mahmud II's reign we began to see the penetration of the Western music, theater and even the first ever newspaper published under his reign. So obviously all of these developments influenced the Jewish people and they also began to westernize. And when we are looking at the Ottoman history at large, we can say that their conditions began to be improved again by top down reforms, which is the Tanzimat reform that was declared in 1839. It is also known with its famous name which is known as the Decree of the Gulhane, the Rose Garden. The Decree of the Rose Garden. This decree underlined the importance of safety of life and property, the rule of love and of the arbitrary practices and fair trials, fair taxation and fair recruitment to the army right to obtain property. And it obviously paved the way for a new constitution. This reform, this waves of Reform continued. In 1856 we had another important reform called Slahat, which abolished the regime of of Jizya, the Jizya texts. In the beginning of our conversation I highlighted this concept that according to Constitution of Medina that was introduced by Prophet Muhammad, the people of the Book, the Jews and the Christians had to pay Gizya tax to practice their religion. So thanks to the penetration of Westernization and the ideas of equality, this Jizya tax was abolished in 1856. And also the humiliation of the Jews and the Christians because of their religion was also outlawed. Okay. And you know, in a gradual way, this westernization attempts began to give in 1861. This time we were under Abdul Aziz reign, Abdulaziz's reign. And he was the first ever Ottoman Sultan who visited Europe for non combat purposes, for a peaceful visit.
- [43:19]
A
For non combat purposes. That's an interesting way to put it.
- [43:22]
B
Definitely. Because until then all of the Ottoman sultans only visited Europe, you know, to.
- [43:29]
A
Try to conquer it. Yeah, only right up until the famous Battle of Vienna.
- [43:33]
B
Yes, definitely. But he was the first ever Sultan who came to Europe only to visit and to understand the European culture. And he also wanted to show that the Ottoman people were civilized, civilized people. And he also wanted to engage in politics against Russia, etc. It's such a long story, but if I may, I would like to add one more thing. After this visit to Europe, the mass schooling was introduced to the Ottoman Empire. And of course, when there's mass schooling, it means that the empire recognized its responsibility to provide education to the masses. Okay. This is very important because it definitely began to increase the rates of literacy in the Empire. And also the Jews began to be influenced by that.
- [44:38]
A
So what do we have first of all, over the course of those centuries when the Jews were highly celebrated and welcomed and protected, as you say, in very much as second class citizens instituted in law, the Dimitude Law. But better than they had in Europe, right?
- [44:58]
B
Of course, better than to be slaughtered.
- [45:00]
A
The best situation available to them. The kinds of mass slaughters of Jews we saw in the Crusades were either very rare, very local, or not at all happening in Muslim lands in that period. And then when the economy would turn, when the economy would go bad, then in many cases in the Ottoman Empire, really from the beginning of the sort of large Ottoman Jewish community, meaning the Sephardi, after the Sephardi entry in the 15th century, already by the 16th century, you have Muslims, Muslim religious leaders saying the economy has now taken a bad turn because we are not doing God's will and not enforcing the Dimitude laws. And then there would be a crackdown on Jews. So you would see the sort of roots of this sense that nevertheless, even though Jews situation was better, it was really fundamental and important to the Ottoman political order and to the Ottoman religious order that Jews were at the bottom and the Muslims were at the top and others, in other words, Christianity.
- [46:05]
B
It was very clear.
- [46:06]
A
It was clear and it was important and it was definitional and society didn't make sense without it. And then you get to the 19th century as you've described. The encounter of European success and power and competence and advancement and the desperate desire the Ottoman emperor leaving Constantinople, heading off to Europe to a. You put it in a way that's really fascinating to me. Show that the Ottomans are civilized. My, how the tables have turned. Right. The idea that the Muslim sultan would have to show that the Muslims are civilized to a bunch of Europeans 500 years earlier would have been the opposite. And here we are where it is very clear that Islam is backward. There is massive pressure by ambassador empires. The Russians and ottomans fight what, four wars in the 19th century. Every single war ends with Russia taking some more territory. What we call today Ukraine is Ottoman territory, a great part of it. In the 18th century. In the 17th century, once upon a.
- [47:06]
B
Time was a Turkish lake.
- [47:08]
A
A Turkish lake completely. And the Russian Empire slowly, over time, war after war, after war, advances. And what, what the Sultan wants is to play European power politics to protect the Ottoman Empire against the Russians, because he can't. And so he needs the British and the French and he needs to give them things to make them his allies. And what does he give them? One of the things he gives them is protection. They demand it for Christians, not for Jews. But the system of protecting Christians becomes also a system that protects Jews. Now what do we mean by protect equality, as you said, abolishing the Jizya tax, the various layers of Tanzimat reforms and other reforms. And that's when we suddenly get to, let's call it the Zionist period, or even just before the Zionist period, the 19th century, the late 19th century, the conditions of Jews on paper is much improved. Is it much improved in real life or is it similar to what we saw in Europe where emancipation suddenly destabilizes everything and drives politics haywire?
- [48:15]
B
Well, the Jews of Ottoman Empire, they did not turn into Zionists in a day. Okay, first of all, I would like to, you know, highlight an evolution here and you know, starting with the Ottoman intellectuals who were known as the new Ottomans. In 1865, the, the winds of constitutional monarchy began to be felt in Istanbul. And at last, after years of protests and struggle, in 1876, the constitutional monarchy was declared. And upon the declaration of this new regime, a new bicameral parliament was formed. And for the first time ever, the Jews and the Christians were given a seat to represent their peoples. Of course, when we are speaking about representation, we cannot speak about, you know, women suffrage. Unfortunately, during those years we cannot speak about the inclusion of the women in the decision making process. But we can say that the Jews and the Christians were admitted. However, the constitutional monarchy period was pretty short. The first one, because of the Russian Turkish War, as you mentioned, the Turks lost almost all of Balkans, Bulgaria and other areas were lost ultimately. And of course this created, you know, a new atmosphere in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman intellectuals, not only Jews, Christians, etc. They began to think in a way that they had to answer the question, how can we save our empire? Our empire? As the Europeans tagged the Ottoman Empire, it was the sick men of Europe, so how we gonna kill our empire? So during these years some new ideas began to emerge. For instance, the idea of Ottomanism, which means that let's have a new identity called Ottomanism. It would be our upper identity. So the Jews and the Christians who made things to divorce from the empire, you know, with the separatist ideals of French Revolution, so they may stay in our empire. So the sub identity would be Muslim, Christian, Jewish and the upper identity would be protected by the constitution. However, we saw that this, you know, bankrupted. And in the Balkans we saw the Bulgarians and the Greeks and the Serbians, later Albanians, later they all declare independence. So it bankrupts. During these years we began to see the emergence of Islamism under Abdul Hamid ii. He said all of these peoples, the Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbians, they were all Christians. So that's why they betrayed us. If we're going to use the religion as the glue of our empire, so we can strengthen it. So this Islamism stills, obviously it was introduced by Abdul Hamid ii. The idea of pan Islamism, Ittihad Islam, the unity of all Muslim subjects is very important that it is still playing a huge role in today's Turkey. But just like we had Islamism, we also had Westernization, which was the exact antidote of it. And here I would like to mention a very important article that was penned by Kulichzade Hakubay. He wrote a very important article called A Very Awake Sleep. Okay? And he basically wrote a very detailed article. He advocated why should the Ottomans had to adopt Western ideas and they had to go through a Very radical Westernization. In retrospect, we can say that the founders of modern Turkey, including the founder, father Mustafa Kemal Atatur, I assume that he was very much influenced by these ideas. If we have to give some examples, the evolution of the Islamic Sharia and the introduction of the, you know, civil, a secular civil law, the evolution of the Arabic Alphabet and in favor of Latin Alphabet. These were all mentioned in this very important article. And last but not the least, also some of the Turks, I mean, some of the Muslims who began to give importance to Turkishness, they began to, you know, they began to unite not, you know, around the flag of Islam, but around the flag of Turkish. And here we began to see the emergence of Pan Turkism. Later, it was minimized in the Turkish nationalism within the borders of today's Turkey. So this very important period, this period is very important, that paved the way, you know, the ideological foundations, even of today's Turkey. When you are looking at today's Turkey, there are three important pillars that were introduced by Ziyage Kalp, who was a great intellectual, and he is considered as the ideological father of Turkish nationalism. He summarized it in three pillars. These are Turkification, Islamization and. And modernization. It means that the Turks, first of all, they should internalize that they are Turks. Then they are Muslims, but they are different Muslims, not like Arabs or Persians. And the last but not the least, they should also internalize that they are a part of Europe. Okay? They are a part of the European civilization. So the Jews, obviously, they were very much influenced by all of these ideas. And later, with the establishment of the new secular, modern Turkey, they also were exposed to secularism. So if you're gonna go to today's Turkey's Jews, you're gonna see more or less the vast majority of the Turkish Jews are very secular people, but they are traditionalists. They keep the tradition, but not necessarily very religious you describe.
- [55:53]
A
So listeners to this podcast will know a great deal at this point about the Muslim world, Arab world, Egyptian mostly. Encounter with European success and the profound crisis of faith, theology, politics that that triggered in the Arab Muslim world and in Turkey, that would have to have been just psychologically on overdrive because Turkey is that empire. That was the failure of Islam at that moment. That was the thing that encountered European power. When the British take Egypt In, I think, 1860, it took Egypt from the Ottomans. When the Europeans In World War I dismember the Ottoman Empire, take everything from modern day Israel to Iraq and Syria and Lebanon, and they're taking it from the Ottoman Empire the conversation that was being had by Arabs, by Muslim theologians about what it means for Islam to be weak and Europe to be strong theologically, politically, in many different ways, was a conversation happening within the Ottoman Empire. And the Ottoman Empire knew that it was collapsing. Abdulhamid ii, who you mentioned, tries to build out a very similar kind of Muslim answer to European modernity. And in Islam we find the solutions. And this battle in modern Turkey between secularism, Western sort of a Western facing consciousness, and in Muslim consciousness, the battle between the Ataturk people and Erdogan, basically, as someone who has more Muslim brothers, more in that world that says no, all the answers to modernity and to Muslim weakness we find back in Islam that tears Turkey apart. Now what I want to ask you is what happens to the Jews and how does that affect the encounter between the Ottoman Empire and for example, the Zionist movement? We have talked on this podcast about Herzl trying to get in to meet the Ottoman Sultan and sending his agent, his assistant, who ends up, who is friends with some Ottoman officials and he ends up being accepted to an audience with Abdul Hamid. And Abdul Hamid says to him, and then he reports to Herzl who records it in his diary. So it's third hand, but probably fairly accurate. He says to Herzl, you cannot have Palestine. You may. How does he put it? He knows his empire is dying. He says to Herzl, you may have all of Palestine once my empire is dead, but I won't submit a vivisection of the empire. In other words, it's about holding together the empire and, and it's about Muslim dignity. He talks about the Ottoman soldiers who died in the defense of pieces of Bulgaria against the Russians in the war that had happened in 1878, I think. And so this awareness of collapse, this awareness of weakness, this obsession with weakness into this and an Islamist framing of it. Because the problem, the deep crisis, is also a theological problem, crisis for Islam. And we know how Christians fared. There are genocides against Armenians, against Christians. And how do the Jews fare in this period?
- [59:24]
B
The Jews were always loyal to the Ottoman Empire. And if you're going to look at the history of also the state of Israel, you'll see that State of Israel was formed after the British mandate. It means that the British who captured and occupied the land of Israel, the Jewish nationalism, Zionism, was not designed against Turkishness, against the Turkish nationalism. When we are looking at the land of Israel, the land of Israel was taken by the British and it was not a fight between the Turks and the Jews, for instance. Of course I'm aware that there was Jewish underground organizations also under the Ottoman Empire. But the bottom line is we cannot speak about a fight between the Jews and the Turks. However, when you're looking at the Greeks and Armenians, their nationalisms are very much focused on the same territory that today's Turkey is, you know, is located. We cannot, we should see that the Greek nationalism, especially during the 1920s, they wanted to, you know, recapture Constantinople and to turn Hagia Sophia back from a mosque into a church. And we also should make a reference to the Armenian question, what is known today as the Armenian Genocide. According to Armenian historians and many historians, not only to Armenian historians, but a million and a half Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Empire. From the Ottoman perspective, these people were collaborators with the Russian Empire and that's why they had to be exiled. Of course they tried to justify this genocide, but. But nevertheless, when we are looking also the Armenian nationalism was focused on Eastern Anatolia. In today's Turkey, the city of Ani, which is considered as the historical capital of Armenia, is still under Turkish control today, under Turkish sovereignty today. But in historical point of view, this was a historical Armenian territory.
- [62:23]
A
The Jews are different in that regard.
- [62:25]
B
The Jewish nationalism was not designed against the Ottomans. Therefore, the remaining Jews in the Ottoman Empire were not automatically tagged as collaborators of Greece, Russia, United Kingdom and the French. Which countries that these countries occupied the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of the First World War, which paved the way for the Turkish War of Independence. So the Turkish War of Independence was mostly fought against the Greeks and the French was there, the British was there. Because of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Russians withdrew. Such a long story, long story short, the Jews remained under Turkish rule. And I also would like to mention here about the fate of the Jews in the Balkans. For centuries, especially for independence, instance in Greece, Salonica, the Jews had a very prosperous communities, right? So they had no interest to live under Christian Greek sovereignty. Their most important interest was preserving the status quo. So when some of the Jews, of course now not all of them, some of the Jews migrated to the Turkish controlled territories after the fall of Salonika in the Ottoman ice. Okay, so also when we are looking at the time of the First World War and the Turkish War of Independence, the Jews were not tagged as traitors. There were many Jews who were recruited in the Ottoman and later in the Turkish army. Also during the First World War and also during the Turkish War of Independence and after the Proclamation of the Republic, the Jews were considered as on paper, equal citizens. I'm saying on paper because they could not become a president or prime minister or a minister because they were Jewish. Why? Because they were not defined in the framework of Ziag Kalb's three pillars, Turkification, Islamization, modernization. So they were not compatible with the second pillar, Islam, but they were admitted as citizens on paper, equals. But in reality they were protected. But we can say that, you know, they were not very equal because if you wanted to become a very, you know, in a key position in the States as a Jew, you could never occupy such a position. Obviously later we also witnessed some unpleasant incidents like the trace pogroms of 1934 and the wealth tax of 1942, which, you know, paved the way for the Zionist movement to penetrate into the Turkish Jewry as well and pushed a very important segment of the society to make aliya to Israel, to make a migration to the state of Israel. So that's why the number of the Turkish Jews today remains more or less roughly speaking, like 13,000, 14,000. And yes, they are still considered as equal citizens who obviously will never be able to be in any key positions.
- [66:42]
A
You're, you know, Islam uses the word protected. It's a protected status from, from Islam essentially. I mean, it's this, you know, to look at it as. It's weird to be a 21st century Israeli Jew and you know, look at this story of how much we protected Islam and Jews and how much we, you know, defended and all those words are euphemisms for defining Jews as beneath the Muslims. But that's just an emotional gut response of an Israeli. One of the interesting points in early Zionism, and I want to bring this up to the modern day, and we're going to end with this. One of the interesting points of Zionism's encounter with the Ottomans was the extent to which Ottoman was weakness really was fundamental to Zionist success. To the point, in other words, in several ways. One, just the loss of the land to the British in World War I. The British saw Zionism as very useful to its imperial policy and advanced Zionism for a couple of decades until it turned on Zionism. But those are an important couple of decades for Z's development. But in the early days from 1881, with the beginning of Zionist aliyah, of politically motivated clarity, about a purposeful Jewish nationalist immigration, the Ottomans were the ones in charge and they were the ones responding. And you had this area called Palestine or Palestine in Arabic, which was basically the corridor from Jerusalem to Jaffa, right? The Galilee belonged to Damascus or to Beirut after a certain reform. Different pieces of the territory where the sense of what the land is, the Jewish sense, the current Arab idea, Muslim idea of Palestine is the Jewish Palestine mediated through basically Christian Arab nationalists. But the original Muslim view is not that the Jund falasteen of the early Muslim conquest is Jerusalem, Jaffa. And the Ottoman provincial sense of what this land is, is Jerusalem, Jaffa. And in this area. And I say all that because it's extremely important to know that as these Zionist organizations are trying to raise money from Jews abroad to buy lands in the Jerusalem area, in the mountains and the coastal plain, in the Galilee, those are different provinces. And one of the interesting experiences, and I've seen letters, you know, angry letters by, by the Arab elites of Jaffa, of Jerusalem, of Beirut, complaining to the Ottomans that they are sending a range of incompetent and deeply corrupt officials, Muta sharifs is. That's what they called the. The governors. How do you pronounce it?
- [69:32]
B
Mutasarif.
- [69:34]
A
Mutasarif. Okay. That you would have in Jerusalem, you would have a Mutasarif and you would. Which was the governor, and you would have to Beirut and they would send one from Constantinople. And the Ottomans were worried about this influx of Jewish immigrants. They were not worried about Jews in the empire. They were worried about nationalism. For the reasons that you've already mentioned. In the Balkans, Bulgarian nationalism revolted against all these Christian nationalisms, revolted against, against the Ottomans and by the way, in the service of the Russian army's advance, in other words, the Russian army's advancing into Bulgaria, then the Bulgarian nationalists launch a bunch of attacks, then the Russians much more easily enter a destabilized Bulgaria where the Ottoman army in Bulgaria has to worry about being surrounded on all sides by Bulgarian nationalists. And so the great enemy of the empire was seen as nationalism itself. And that's why lining up in the 1890s, lining up at the Ottoman Consulate in Odessa to get visas to go to the Ottoman Empire, to go to the land of Israel, there's a sign put out outside the consulate to these Jews lining up to go to the land of Israel, that said, Jews may enter the Ottoman Empire as subjects of the empire and live anywhere they want in the empire except Palestine. Jews can go anywhere they want. They cannot go to Palestine. Now. Why? Because Jews can be Ottomans. That's fine. What Jews cannot be is a nationalism. And nationalism is the great enemy. And so they come into the land, the Ottoman governors in the land keep trying to stop the immigration, limit the immigration. And basically they're just so corrupt that the Zionists, who have this money from British Jews and other Jews, they just buy them off. And so they buy land in Jerusalem. The Arabs are angry in Jerusalem, in the Jerusalem area. And the Arabs send letters to Constantinople. They crack down, they change the governor, whatever it is, there's a crackdown. Jews can't buy land in that area anymore. So what do the Jews do throughout the 1890s, throughout the 1910s, all the way into the 1910s, what do the Jews do? They stop buying lands in the areas where they're not allowed. But then they start buying lands in Tiberias, which is under Beirut. And so it's a different governor. And then there's an uproar and that governor is replaced or that governor is told to crack down. And by then there's a new governor back in Jerusalem. And so they go back. The Arab experience, the Palestinian Arab story of this period, and these Jewish stories, Zionist story of this period, all circle around Ottoman weakness, the decline of governance, the collapse of any real conflict, capacity to actually govern and rule these areas. The sick man of Europe could barely manage their affairs internally. And when World War I came around, the European armies cut through them like a knife through butter. There was nothing left of the Ottoman Empire. It was an empty shell. And so that weakness, that weakness was arguably essential in the Jews ability to establish a homeland in the land of Israel once again. Is that fair? Were the Ottomans ever pro Zionist? Did I miss any part of the story?
- [72:51]
B
No, no, no.
- [72:51]
A
It was established against.
- [72:53]
B
I think it's very accurate what you said. And I can still say that, you know, especially in today's Turkey, you know, in their eyes, there are two kinds of Jews, you know, a dominated, subordinate Jew who is a citizen and, you know, he knows his limits, so that's a good Jew. But if a Jew is a Zionist Jew and he wants to be a sovereign in his fatherlands, you know, in his homeland, in the land of Israel, so that Jew is not considered a good Jew. So you can see this especially in the Turkish school textbooks and also in the rhetoric of the Turkish press and everywhere. So they try to differentiate these two Jews from each other and they try to say that, no, we are not anti Semites, we have no problem with the Jews, we have a problem with the, the Zionists. So this is more or less, you know, they have no problem with the.
- [74:08]
A
Jews more sentences in the militant dhimmy system, in other words, knowing their place.
- [74:12]
B
And I can also say that, for instance, my PhD was about the Turkish school textbooks. You can definitely see the Problematic narration about the Jews until the Khaybar, maybe. Our audience, they know about this Jewish principality in the Arabian Peninsula that was conquered by Prophet Muhammad. There was a Jewish sovereign principality there. So that principality was narrated in a very negative manner. But once the Jews were conquered and they turned into, you know, into subjects who were ruled and who also, you know, recognized the superiority of Islam and who turned into dhimi or in Ottoman Turkish, the me. So the Jews were fine, they were wonderful subjects.
- [75:11]
A
Why isn't this similar to the European story? It's obviously radically different context. It's about weakness, it's about Islam. It's a whole modernity that also drove reforms that upset the old hierarchy of the Jew on the bottom. And by knowing that you're not the Jew on the bottom, you know who you are at the top. These kinds of psychologies, of cultures, of social orders. Isn't this similar to Zionism of Herzl? In the end, the Arab world Jews, the Ottoman Empire Jews, the, the Turkish Jews, they all make aliyah or by the way, I've met Jews in Turkey, they're quiet, they're nervous. They know that their condition under Erdogan is you know your place or you don't have a place. And many of them have family in America, family in Israel that is prepared to absorb them should the need arise. This is not a healthy community, okay? This is not American Jewry living out a happy, excited, thrilled life, fighting for America and debating on all sides of American politics and feeling profoundly at home. That's not what's happening here. It is the same story as Ashkenazi Jews. It didn't reach a Holocaust. It didn't have to. There was an Israel by the time they all fled, it didn't reach, you know, there's so many differences, but the fundamental mechanic, the modernity, the, the upsetting of identity, the search of the majority population for this UNO identity, the Jews not fitting into it unless they're willing to be something very, very small. The Zionist said the Jews have to leave Europe or there will be a catastrophe. Modern European identities, modern European nationalisms, the collapse of multi ethnic empires, the way liberal reforms upset the social order, all these things made life in Europe untenable. And if the Jews don't leave, there will be Herzl's word, a catastrophe. Basically, at the end of the day, it's the same structure in the Ottoman Empire. And with this I will let you go. Is that a reasonable thesis?
- [77:17]
B
I think it's a reasonable thesis. And I may not be a very objective person who sees himself as a Zionist and who moved from Istanbul to Tel Aviv. So I did that. I think from my perspective, my personal perspective, it makes sense. And I think, again, I can tell you that it was very accurate.
- [77:41]
A
Thank you so much. It's really fun when it ends with somebody telling me I'm right. That's the best kind of episode. Professor Yanavojak, thank you so much.
- [77:49]
B
Your wife should tell you that you're right.
- [77:51]
A
This is the me.
- [77:53]
B
I'm not important.
- [77:55]
A
It's important to have aspirations in life. Thank you so much for joining me.
- [77:58]
B
Thank you very much for having me.