Jewish Exodus From Spain Led To Formation Of Ottoman-Turkish Jewry

Just a day before Christopher Columbus departed from the port of Palos de la Frontera in southern Spain to embark on an expedition that would change world history, the last ship carrying Jews left Spain on Aug. 2, 1492.

The tragic ending of the Jewish presence in Spain, tracing back to Biblical times, paved the way for the opening of a new chapter in Turkish-Jewish relations which had profound impacts on the history of these two nations but also the Near East and Europe.

Of the expelled Spanish Jews, also known as Sephardic Jews, many at the invitation of Sultan Bayezid II, who sent a fleet to evacuate them and offered them Ottoman citizenship and complete religious liberty, settled in the Ottoman domain. In fact, long before 1492, European Jewry was aware of the favorable conditions that existed for Jews in the Ottoman realm.

As such, Romaniote, Rabbanite, and Karaite Jewish communities grew, prospered, and were joined by Jews from non-Ottoman territories from the Near East between the late 14th and the mid-15th century.

It was against this background, Chief Rabbi of Jewish Community of Edirne Yitzhak Sarfati, a German Jew migrated to the Ottoman Empire, who urged his brethren across Europe by stating: "I proclaim to you that Turkey is a land wherein nothing is lacking, and where, if you will, all shall yet be well with you. The way to the Holy Land lies open to you through Turkey. Is it not better for you to live under Moselems than under Christians?" [1]

The urge to re-make Istanbul a populated and wealthy world city after its conquest in 1453 gave a new impetus to Ottoman efforts of attracting more Jews, who were at the time were increasingly being subjected to pogroms and forceful conversion campaigns across different parts of Europe. However, the fact that Jewish immigration continued to the Ottoman realm after Istanbul became a vivid and prosperous world capital by the mid-16th century, and they were able to settle in various parts of the empire, including Salonica, Valona, Kavala, Bursa, Ankara, and Palestine provinces that Ottoman policy toward Jews was not only based on pragmatical considerations.

As an Islamic state, Ottoman Empire was under the religious obligation of providing the same protection for its non-Muslim constituents, including Jews, as for Muslims, in return for a poll tax, jizya. Furthermore, Halil Inalcik highlights that Ottoman state tradition practiced Islamic law concerning non-Muslims in its most liberal interpretation, particularly towards Jews who provided a significant amount of wealth, skills, and information to the state without pursuing conspiring against the state.[2]

In the times, Jews were being persecuted in Europe basically only for being Jew, Ottomans allowed them to maintain their traditional communal organization, autonomy in their internal affairs, and take part in prominent positions in the economy and state apparatus. What is more, they took measures to protect them against fraud and oppression.

Therefore, Jewish communities across the vast Ottoman domain, from the Balkans to Asia Minor and the Levant, flourished thanks to the protection offered by Ottoman state law, Islamic law, and supervision of state bureaucracy as confirmed by contemporary Jewish, Ottoman, and European accounts.

In return, Jews profoundly contributed to the Ottoman economy, finances and urban development, industrialization. At least equally important, most Jews did not forget this noble policy of the Ottomans, so much so that, hundreds of years after their immigration into the Ottoman Empire, in April 1892, the regional committee of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, the Paris-based international organization aiming to safeguard the rights of world Jewry, as an expression of sincere gratitude, thanked Sultan Abdulhamid II for the protection which the Jews enjoyed in the Ottoman domain.[3]

Presently, Turkish Jews, as equal citizens of the country and members of the nation, continue to present essential contributions to Turkey in many domains, including culture, science, manufacturing, and finance. Despite occasional political disputes between Turkey and Israel, bonds between Turkish and Jewish nations remain strong.

[1] Elli Kohen, History of the Turkish Jews and Sephardim: Memories of a Past Golden Age (Lanham: University Press of America, 2007), 155.

[2] Halil Inalcik, "Foundations of Ottoman-Jewish Cooperation," in Jews, Turks, Ottomans: A Shared History, Fifteenth Through Twentieth Century, ed. Avigdor Levy ( New York: Syracuse University Press, 2002), 6-7

[3] Paul Dumont, "Jewish communities in Turkey During the Last Decades of the 19th Century in the Light of the Archives of the Alliance Israelite Universelle," in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: Functioning of a Plural Society, eds. Bernard Lewis and Benjamin Braude (New York: Holmes & Meier,1982),225. -