History of the Jews in Turkey
The history of the Jews in Turkey covers the 2400 years that Jews have lived in what is now Turkey.
There have been Jewish communities in Anatolia since at least the beginning of the common era. Anatolia's Jewish population before Ottoman times primarily consisted of Greek-speaking Romaniote Jews, with a handful of dispersed Karaite communities. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, many Sephardic Jews from Spain, Portugal and South Italy expelled by the Alhambra Decree found refuge across the Ottoman Empire, including in regions now part of Turkey. This influx played a pivotal role in shaping the predominant identity of Ottoman Jews.
By the end of the sixteenth century, the Jewish population in the Ottoman Empire was double that of Jews in Poland and Ukraine combined, far surpassing other Jewish communities to be the largest in the world. Turkey's Jewish community was large, diverse and vibrant, forming the core of Ottoman Jewry until World War I. Early signs of change included education reforms and the rise of Zionism. The community declined sharply after World War I, with many emigrating to Israel, France and the Americas. Turkish Jews in Israel became leaders of the Sephardic community, and their Ladino language was a prominent characteristic.
Today, the vast majority of Turkish Jews live in Israel, though Turkey itself still has a modest Jewish population, where the vast majority live in Istanbul, and the remainder in İzmir. Jews are one of the four ethnic minorities officially recognized in Turkey, together with Armenians, Greeks, and Bulgarians.
History
Roman and Byzantine rule
According to the Hebrew Bible, Noah's Ark landed on the top of Mount Ararat, a mountain in eastern Anatolia, in the Armenian Highlands, near the present-day borders of Turkey, Armenia, and Iran.In the 1st century AD, Jewish historian Josephus cited records confirming the presence of diaspora Jews in Lydia and Phrygia by the late 3rd century BC, a community established through the relocation of 2000 families by Seleucid king Antiochus III. Josephus notes Jewish origins for many of the cities in Anatolia, though much of his sourcing for these passages is traditional. Descendants in Sardis and other centers gained civic privileges by the Late Republican Rome.
The New Testament has many mentions of Jewish populations in Anatolia: Iconium is said to have a synagogue in Acts of the Apostles 14:1, and Ephesus is mentioned as having a synagogue in Acts 19:1 and in Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. The Epistle to the Galatians is likewise directed at Galatia, which once held an established Jewish population.
Based on physical evidence, there has been a Jewish community in Anatolia since the fourth century BCE, most notably in the city of Sardis. The subsequent Roman and Byzantine Empires included sizable Greek-speaking Jewish communities in their Anatolian domains which seem to have been relatively well-integrated and enjoyed certain legal immunities.
The size of the Jewish community was not greatly affected by the attempts of some Byzantine emperors to forcibly convert the Jews of Anatolia to Christianity, as these attempts met with very little success. The exact picture of the status of the Jews in Asia Minor under Byzantine rule is still being researched by historians. Although there is some evidence of occasional hostility by the Byzantine populations and authorities, no systematic persecution of the type endemic at that time in western Europe is believed to have occurred in Byzantium.
Jews arrived in Anatolia between the sixth century BCE and 133 BCE, when the Romans arrived. They were Romaniote Jews and first settled in Phrygia and Lydia. In 2020, a seventh-century synagogue was uncovered in Side.
Ottoman era
The first synagogue linked to Ottoman rule is "Tree of Life" in Bursa, which passed to Ottoman authority in 1324. The synagogue is still in use, although the modern Jewish population of Bursa has shrunk to about 140 people.The status of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire often hinged on the whims of the sultan. So, for example, while Murad III ordered that the attitude of all non-Muslims should be one of "humility and abjection" and that they should not "live near Mosques or tall buildings" or own slaves, others were more tolerant.
The first major event in Jewish history under Turkish rule took place after the Empire gained control over Constantinople. After Mehmed the Conqueror's conquest of Constantinople he found the city in a state of disarray. After suffering many sieges, the devastating sack of Constantinople by Crusaders in 1204 and the arrival of the Black Death pandemic in 1347, the city was a shadow of its former glory. Since Mehmed wanted the city as his new capital, he decreed its rebuilding.
In order to revivify Constantinople he ordered that Muslims, Christians and Jews from all over his empire be resettled in the new capital. Within months, most of the Empire's Romaniote Jews, from the Balkans and Anatolia, were concentrated in Constantinople, where they made up 10% of the city's population. At the same time, the forced resettlement, though not intended as an anti-Jewish measure, was perceived as an "expulsion" by the Jews. Despite this interpretation, Romaniotes would be the most influential community in the Empire for a few decades, until that position would be lost to a wave of Sephardi immigrants.
The number of Romaniotes was soon bolstered by small groups of Ashkenazi Jews that immigrated to the Ottoman Empire between 1421 and 1453. Among these immigrants was Rabbi Yitzhak Sarfati, a German-born Jew of French descent, who became Chief Rabbi of Edirne and wrote a letter inviting European Jewry to settle in the Ottoman Empire, in which he stated, "Turkey is a land wherein nothing is lacking," and asking, "Is it not better for you to live under Muslims than under Christians?"
The greatest influx of Jews into Anatolia Eyalet and the Ottoman Empire occurred during the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror's successor, Bayezid II, after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, the Kingdom of Portugal, the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of Sicily. The Sultan issued a formal invitation and refugees started arriving in the empire in great numbers. A key moment occurred in 1492, when more than 40,000 Spanish Jews fled the Spanish Inquisition. At that point in time, Constantinople's population was a mere 70,000 due to the various sieges of the city during the Crusades and the Black Death, so this historical event was also significant for repopulation of the city. These Sephardi Jews settled in Constantinople, as well as Thessaloniki.
The Jews satisfied various needs in the Ottoman Empire: the Muslim Turks were largely uninterested in business enterprises and accordingly left commercial occupations to members of minority religions. They also distrusted the Christian subjects whose countries had only recently been conquered by the Ottomans and therefore it was natural to prefer Jewish subjects to which this consideration did not apply.
The Sephardi Jews were allowed to settle in the wealthier cities of the empire, especially in Rumelia, western and northern Anatolia, but also in the Mediterranean coastal regions. İzmir was not settled by Spanish Jews until later.
The Jewish population in Jerusalem increased from 70 families in 1488 to 1500 at the beginning of the 16th century. That of Safed increased from 300 to 2000 families and almost surpassed Jerusalem in importance. Damascus had a Sephardic congregation of 500 families. Constantinople had a Jewish community of 30,000 individuals with 44 synagogues. Bayezid allowed the Jews to live on the banks of the Golden Horn. Egypt Eyalet, especially Cairo, received a large number of the exiles, who soon outnumbered Musta'arabi Jews. Gradually, the chief center of the Sephardi Jews became Thessaloniki, where the Spanish Jews soon outnumbered coreligionists of other nationalities and, at one time, the original native inhabitants.
Although the status of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire may have often been exaggerated, it is undeniable that they enjoyed tolerance. Under the millet system they were organized as a community on the basis of religion alongside the other millets. In the framework of the millet, they had a considerable amount of administrative autonomy and were represented by the Hakham Bashi, the Chief Rabbi. There were no restrictions in the professions Jews could practice analogous to those common in Western Christian countries. There were restrictions in the areas Jews could live or work, but such restrictions were imposed on Ottoman subjects of other religions as well.
Like all non-Muslims, Jews had to pay the haraç "head tax" and faced other restrictions in clothing, horse riding, army service etc., but they could occasionally be waived or circumvented. Jews who reached high positions in the Ottoman court and administration include Mehmed the Conqueror's Minister of Finance Hekim Yakup Paşa, his Portuguese physician Moses Hamon, Murad II's physician İshak Paşa and Abraham de Castro, master of the mint in Egypt.
During the Classical Ottoman period, the Jews, together with most other communities of the empire, enjoyed a certain level of prosperity. Compared with other Ottoman subjects, they were the predominant power in commerce and trade as well in diplomacy and other high offices. In the 16th century especially, the Jews were the most prominent under the millets, the apogee of Jewish influence could arguably be the appointment of Joseph Nasi to sanjak-bey of Naxos. Also in the first half of the 17th century the Jews were distinct in winning tax farms, Haim Gerber describes it: "My impression is that no pressure existed, that it was merely performance that counted."
Friction between Jews and Turks was less common than in the Arab territories. Some examples: During the reign of Murad IV, the Jews of Jerusalem were persecuted by an Arab who had purchased the governorship of that city from the governor of the province. Under Mehmed IV, the 1660 destruction of Safed occurred.
An additional problem was Jewish ethnic divisions. They had come to the Ottoman Empire from many lands, bringing with them their own customs and opinions, to which they clung tenaciously, and had founded separate congregations. Another tremendous upheaval was caused when Sabbatai Zevi claimed to be the Messiah. He was eventually caught by the Ottoman authorities and when given the choice between death and conversion, he opted for the latter. His remaining disciples converted to Islam too. Their descendants are today known as Dönmeh.
The history of the Jews in Turkey in the 18th and 19th century is principally a chronicle of decline in influence and power; they lost their influential positions in trade mainly to the Greeks, who were able to "capitalize on their religio-cultural ties with the West and their trading diaspora". An exception to this is Daniel de Fonseca, who was chief court physician and played a certain political role. He is mentioned by Voltaire, who speaks of him as an acquaintance whom he esteemed highly. Fonseca was involved in negotiations with Charles XII of Sweden.
Ottoman Jews held a variety of views on the role of Jews in the Ottoman Empire, from loyal Ottomanism to Zionism. Emmanuel Carasso, for example, was a founding member of the Young Turks, and believed that the Jews of the Empire should be Turks first, and Jews second.
As mentioned before, the overwhelming majority of the Ottoman Jews lived in Rumelia. As the Empire declined however, the Jews of these region found themselves under Christian rule. The Bosnian Jews for example came under Austro-Hungarian rule after the occupation of the region in 1878, the independence of Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia further lowered the number of Jews within the borders of the Ottoman Empire.