Podcast Summary: New Books Network – Jacob Daniels on The Jews of Edirne: The End of Ottoman Europe and the Arrival of Borders

Original Air Date: December 3, 2025
Host: McKenna Mezistrano
Guest: Jacob Daniels, Assistant Professor of Instruction and Assistant Director at the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies, University of Texas at Austin

Overview

This episode features a rich and detailed interview with historian Jacob Daniels about his new book, The Jews of Edirne: The End of Ottoman Europe and the Arrival of Borders (Stanford University Press, 2025). Daniels and host McKenna Mezistrano delve into the distinctive Jewish experience in Edirne (Adirne), focusing on the community's political, social, and economic evolution from the late Ottoman period (1908) to the aftermath of the 1934 Thrace events. The discussion examines how Jews in this border region navigated changing national identities, shifting political regimes, communal dynamics, and the complex significance of borders in 20th-century southeastern Europe.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Jacob Daniels’ Path to Edirne Jewish History

• Daniels began his PhD at Stanford in pursuit of working with Aron Rodriguez, initially drawn to the anomalous 1934 Thrace events—“the only case of mob violence, sort of Muslim neighbors attacking their Jewish neighbors in the history of the Turkish Republic” [03:08].
• Other inspirations: discovery of the Ladino newspaper La Voz de la Verdad (1910–); broader historical questions about the meaning and power of borders, both in Ottoman Europe and contemporary discourse.

  “I just felt like borders were and continue to be an important topic. And at Dirnay, being a city and province that becomes a border town, that story attracted me.” [04:30]

2. Setting the Scene: Edirne & its Distinctiveness [06:33–13:08]

• Geography & Demography:
  • Edirne Province (not just the city) was a network of towns, notable for Jews living across small towns—unusually compared to Ottoman port cities.
  • Major ethnic groups: Jews, Muslim Turks, Greeks (Rum), Bulgarians, Armenians.

  “Compared to, say, Izmir or Salonica, you see Jews more spread out in Edirne province, living throughout the southeast corner of Europe... a pattern that seemed to start somewhere in the 19th century.” [06:38]

• Economic Roles:
  • Jews acted as agricultural middlemen, army provisioners; deeply integrated in Ottoman economic and military life.
  • Edirne, not a major port, was less influenced by Western merchants, more embedded in Ottoman systems.
• Cultural Fluidity:
  • Although termed “provincial,” Edirne’s diversity rivaled port cities.
  • Political and cultural orientation oscillated between Istanbul and Salonica.

3. Phase I (1908–1912): Political Experimentation [14:24–24:12]

• Key Figures:
  • Joseph Baris Kaq (Barisak): Newspaper editor, leading voice for a dual Jewish-Ottoman identity—resisted both assimilationist and separatist extremes.

    “He wants to be...the Jewish nation and the Ottoman people—that Jews should be Jewish and Ottoman at the same time...” [15:41]

  • Competing Ideologies:
    • Ottoman integrationists (Turkish-speaking, law school educated)
    • Alliance Israélite Universelle alumni (French-language assimilation with Ottoman civic pride)
    • Early Zionists (youth, Maccabi sports club, limited traction pre-1920s)
• Illustrative Incident:
  • 1910 shootout between Jews and police over a demolished home/bar shows lively (and sometimes risky) public political engagement; followed by communal leaders favoring quiet mediation despite some criticism for passivity [26:05].

4. Phase II (1912–1918): Balkan Wars and Cautious Political Retreat [25:23–37:47]

• Impact of Balkan Wars (1912):
  • Yugely destabilizing—refugee flows, ethnic cleansing across all groups except Jews, loss of surrounding territories (Salonica, parts of Bulgaria and Greece).

    “Jews are in the eye of the storm...not almost never victims of ethnic cleansing...but in the middle of this swirl of violence.” [27:43]

  • Jews shift from experimentation to “active but cautious” politics: withdrawing into traditional strategies of royal alliance, seeking protection from high authorities (especially Talaat Pasha, himself from Edirne).

    “...combined with the old Jewish political strategy of royal alliance... aligning Jewish community...with the highest authority in the land.” [29:12]

  • Refraining from public support for Christian neighbors, toning down public complaints—reflecting acute awareness of minority vulnerability.

5. Women’s Leadership: Angela Gueron & Julie Beja [37:47–54:56]

• Angela Gueron:
  • Director of the Alliance Girl’s School; emerges as a powerful communal leader by organizing relief during wartime and holding authority over significant educational and financial resources.

    “...running an alliance school put one in a very powerful position in control of resources... the budget that an Allianz school had is... a lot of money.” [38:36]

  • Frequent conflicts with male communal leaders over accountability and female authority.
  • Her letters, journals (especially during the 1912–13 siege), provide rare insight into women’s roles and intra-communal tensions.
• Julie Beja:
  • Successor to Gueron; her tenure marked by further clashes, this time with new political undertones—especially accusations of Zionist sympathies and tensions with other Alliance leadership.
  • Both women ultimately removed, but their leadership illustrates dynamic, contested gender and political roles within Edirne’s Jewish community.

6. Phase III: The 1934 Thrace Events – Violence & Exodus [54:56–69:45]

• Background:
  • By 1934, Christians had been largely expelled; a diminished but still significant Jewish community remained.
  • Efforts to promote a “Muslim bourgeoisie” faltered—Jews occupied crucial economic spaces (agricultural middlemen, small merchants).
  • Intensified local resentment; state authorities suspicious of minorities in border regions.
• Events:
  • Triggered by a government inspector’s strongly antisemitic report, violence erupted in towns across Edirne: looting, attacks, intimidation.

    “He writes like a very classic, all these anti-Semitic tropes about the Jews of this region... the economy is in their hands... exploiting the Turkish peasant.” [58:40]

  • No deaths, but a quarter of Jews flee immediately, mostly to Istanbul; permanent decline and dispersal follows.

    “This is the beginning of the end...the community loses its critical mass and it really becomes provincial. ...There’s no more violence like that. But...it just doesn’t feel like the kind of place that Jews like to live...” [65:38]

7. Epilogue: ‘Bordering the Holocaust’ [69:45–78:44]

• World War II and the Border’s Double-Edged Role:
  • The Edirne border “saves” the remaining Jews during the Holocaust: Nazis occupy only the Greek side; Turkish Edirne Jews are not deported, though subjected to persecution like the punishing ‘wealth tax.’
  • Yet, Jews from Bulgaria were caught in a deadly border-limbo—states forcing them back and forth, suffering starvation and violence until Turkish authorities allowed many to settle.

    “...the story, much of this book is about local Jews, like, resisting the logic of the border... that resistance only lasts so long.” [72:01]

  • Daniels argues that, while Jews long resisted defining themselves by state borders, the logic of the modern border—deciding life, death, expulsion—eventually became unavoidable, fundamentally changing the fate of local Jewish identity.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the unique pattern of Jewish settlement:
  “Jews from the city of Adirne, sort of colonizing...moving out to these smaller towns, probably for economic reasons... [They were] heavily integrated with the Ottoman state, especially in the form of the army.”
  —Jacob Daniels [06:45]

• On the period of political experimentation:
  “An interesting case...there’s now after 1908 there’s a parliament...his vision of the future of the Ottoman Empire is...decentralized. A system where Armenians, Jews, Greeks, Bulgarians have...some degree of autonomy and act politically as Jews, Greeks, Bulgarians...”
  —Jacob Daniels [18:42]

• On the seismic shift post-Balkan Wars:
  “All this goes away because during and after the Balkan wars there’s a sense of fear, there’s a sense of like, you know, we don’t want to be next.”
  —Jacob Daniels [32:05]

• On women’s communal leadership:
  “...the directors, especially the women who ran these schools [Alliance] will...become some of the most powerful leaders in the community...”
  —Jacob Daniels [38:11]

• On the paradox of Jewish economic “dominance”:
  “...Jews are becoming more and more prominent in...occupations over the course of the 20s and early 30s. It does seem to be the case that these plans to create like a Muslim bourgeoisie were frustrated in the sense that Jews filled a lot of the positions left by departing Christians.”
  —Jacob Daniels [57:39]

• On the defining violence of 1934:
  “...in like literally every single town that he [the inspector] visited where he spoke to the notables, anti-Jewish violence breaks out. I think it’s fair to say pogroms...They have a lot of the hallmarks of pogroms...”
  —Jacob Daniels [61:30]

• On the ironic protection of Turkish borders in WWII:
  “The border saves the Jewish community of Adiranite...Jews in Demotico will be almost entirely deported to Auschwitz just across the border. Adirne Jews will not be touched by the Holocaust in the sense that Turkey stays out of the war...”
  —Jacob Daniels [70:13]

Timestamps for Major Segments

• Jacob Daniels’ background and entry into Edirne studies — [02:27–05:49]
• Describing Edirne’s unique demographics and economy — [06:33–13:30]
• Political experimentation among Jews, 1908–1912 (Barisak, Alliance, integrationist clubs) — [14:24–25:23]
• Shift to caution after the Balkan Wars — [25:23–37:47]
• Women’s leadership: Angela Gueron & Julie Beja — [37:47–54:56]
• 1934 Thrace events: violence and exodus — [54:56–69:45]
• Epilogue: WWII, the Holocaust, and the new iron meaning of borders — [69:45–78:44]

Conclusion

Jacob Daniels paints a portrait of the Jews of Edirne as deeply intertwined with the shifting fortunes and anxieties of the late Ottoman and early republican eras. The community’s experiments with integration, autonomy, and communal leadership were shaped and ultimately curtailed by war, state-building, and the hardening of borders. Edirne's trajectory encapsulates broader European and Ottoman-Jewish dilemmas about identity, safety, and the power—and peril—of lines on a map. Daniels’ work, as discussed here, is vital for anyone interested in rethinking the meanings of borders and minority experience in 20th-century Europe.

For further details and personal stories, listeners are encouraged to read the book “The Jews of Edirne: The End of Ottoman Europe and the Arrival of Borders.”