History of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire
By the time the Ottoman Empire rose to power in the 14th and 15th centuries, there had been Jewish communities established throughout the region. The Ottoman Empire lasted from the early 12th century until the end of World War I and covered parts of Southeastern Europe, Anatolia, and much of the Middle East. The experience of Jews in the Ottoman Empire is particularly significant because the region "provided a principal place of refuge for Jews driven out of Western Europe by massacres and persecution."
Jews and Christians were considered dhimmi by the majority Muslim population of the Ottoman Empire. Muslims in the Ottoman Empire used the Qur'anic concept of dhimmi to place certain restrictions on Jews living in the region. For example, some of the restrictions placed on Jews in the Ottoman Empire were included, but not limited to, a special tax, a requirement to wear special clothing, and a ban on carrying guns, riding horses, building or repairing places of worship, and having public processions or public worship.
At the time of the Ottoman conquests, Anatolia had already been home to communities of Byzantine Jews. The Ottoman Empire became a safe haven for Jews from the Iberian Peninsula fleeing persecution. By the end of the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire had the largest Jewish population in the world, with 150,000 compared to Poland's and non-Ottoman Ukraine's combined figure of 75,000.
The First and Second Aliyah brought an increased Jewish presence to Ottoman Palestine. The Ottoman successor state of modern Turkey continues to be home to a small Jewish population today.
Overview
At the time of the Battle of Yarmuk, on 15–20 August 636, when the Levant passed into Muslim rule, thirty Jewish communities existed in Haifa, Sh’chem, Hebron, Ramleh, Gaza, Jerusalem, as well as many other cities. Safed became a spiritual centre for the Jews and the Shulchan Aruch was compiled there as well as many Kabbalistic texts.In addition to the already existent Jewish population in the lands the Ottomans conquered, many more Jews were given refuge after the expulsion of Jews from Spain under the reign of Beyezid II. Although the status of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire may have been exaggerated, it is undeniable that some tolerance was enjoyed. Under the millet system, non-Muslims were organized as autonomous communities on the basis of religion. In the framework of the millet, Jews had a considerable amount of administrative autonomy and were represented by the Hakham Bashi, the Turkish term for the Chief Rabbi. There were no restrictions in the professions Jews could practice, in contrast to the extensive restrictions common in Western Christian countries. There were restrictions, however, regarding the areas Jews could live in or work, which were similar to the restrictions placed on Ottoman subjects of other religions. Like all non-Muslims, Jews had to pay the haraç and faced other restrictions in clothing, horse riding, army service, slave ownership, etc. Although many of these restrictions were decreed, they were not always enforced. Jizya collected from Christian and Jewish communities was among the main sources of tax income of the Ottoman treasury.
Some Jews who reached high positions in the Ottoman court and administration include Mehmed II's minister of Finance Hekim Yakup Pasha, his Portuguese physician Moses Hamon, Murad II's physician Is'hak Pasha, and Abraham de Castro, who was the master of the mint in Egypt.
Classical Ottoman period (1300–1600)
The first Jewish synagogue linked to Ottoman rule is Etz ha-Hayyim 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.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 as diplomacy and other high offices. In the 16th century especially, the Jews rose to prominence under the millets, the apogee of Jewish influence could arguable be the appointment of Joseph Nasi to Sanjak-bey of the island of Naxos. Also in the first half of the 17th century the Jews were distinct in winning tax farms, Haim Gerber describes it as: "My impression is that no pressure existed, that it was merely performance that counted."
An additional problem was the lack of unity among the Jews themselves. 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 proclaimed himself 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 also converted to Islam. Their descendants are today known as Donmeh.
Resettlement of the Romaniotes
The first major event in Jewish history under Ottoman rule took place after the Empire gained control over Constantinople. After Sultan Mehmed II's conquest of Constantinople, he found the city in a state of disarray. After suffering many sieges, a devastating conquest by Catholic Crusaders in 1204, and the outbreak of the Black Death in 1347, the city was a shadow of its former glory. As Mehmed wanted the city as his new capital, he decreed the rebuilding of the city. And 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. But 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 however, the Romaniotes would be the most influential community in the Empire for several decades, until that position would be lost to a wave of new Jewish arrivals.Influx of Sephardic Jews from Iberia
The number of native Jews was soon bolstered by small groups of Ashkenazi Jews that immigrated to the Ottoman Empire between 1421 and 1453. Among these new Ashkenazi immigrants was Rabbi Yitzhak Sarfati, a German-born Jew whose family had lived in France. He became the Chief Rabbi of Edirne and wrote a letter inviting the European Jewry to settle in the Ottoman Empire, in which he stated "Turkey is a land wherein nothing is lacking" and asked "Is it not better for you to live under Muslims than under Christians?" Many had taken the Rabbi up on his offer, including the Jews who were expelled from the German Duchy of Bavaria by Louis IX, Duke of Bavaria in 1470. Even before then, as the Ottomans conquered Anatolia and Greece, they encouraged Jewish immigration from the European lands from which they were expelled. The Ashkenazi Jews mixed with the already large Romaniot Jewish communities that had become part of the Ottoman Empire as they had conquered lands from the Byzantine Empire.File:Göke the flagship of Kemal Reis.jpg|thumb|left|Sultan Bayezid II sent Kemal Reis to save the Sephardic Jews of Spain from the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 and granted them permission to settle in the Ottoman Empire.
An influx of Jews into Asia Minor and the Ottoman Empire, occurred during the reign of Mehmed the Conquerors's successor, Beyazid II, after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal. The expulsion came about as a result of the Alhambra Decree in 1492, declared by the Spanish King and Queen Ferdinand II and Isabelle I as part of a larger trend of antisemitism resurging throughout Europe that the Ottomans would exploit. The Sephardic Jews were allowed to settle in the wealthier cities of the empire, especially in the European provinces, Western and Northern Anatolia but also in the Mediterranean coastal regions. İzmir was not settled by Spanish Jews until later. The Jewish population at Jerusalem increased from 70 families in 1488 to 1,500 at the beginning of the 16th century, and that of Safed increased from 300 to 2,000 families. Damascus had a Sephardic congregation of 500 families. Istanbul 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, especially Cairo, received a large number of the exiles, who soon outnumbered the pre-existing Musta'arabi Jews. Gradually, the chief centre of the Sephardic Jews became Salonica, where they soon outnumbered the pre-existing Romaniote Jewish community. In fact, the Sephardic Jews eclipsed and absorbed the Romaniot Jews and changed the culture and the structure of Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire. In the centuries that followed, the Ottomans reaped the benefits of the Jewish communities that they adopted. In exchange for Jews contributing their talents for the benefit of the empire, they would be rewarded well. Compared to European laws, which restricted life for all Jews, that was a significant opportunity, which drew Jews from across the Mediterranean.
File:Jewottoman.jpg|thumb|150px|Painting of a Jewish man from the Ottoman Empire, 1779.
The Jews satisfied various needs in the Ottoman Empire. The Muslim population of the Empire was largely uninterested in business enterprises and accordingly left commercial occupations to members of minority religions. Additionally, since the Ottoman Empire was engaged in a military conflict with the Christian nations at the time, Jews were trusted and regarded "as potential allies, diplomats, and spies". There were also Jews that possessed special skills in a wide range of fields that the Ottomans took advantage of, including David and Samuel ibn Nahmias, who established a printing press in 1493. That was then a new technology and accelerated production of literature and documents, which was especially important for religious texts and bureaucratic documents. Other Jewish specialists employed by the empire included physicians and diplomats that emigrated from their homelands. Some of them were granted landed titles for their work, including Joseph Nasi, who was named Duke of Naxos.
Although the Ottomans did not treat Jews differently from other minorities in the country, the policies seemed to align well with Jewish traditions, which allowed communities to flourish. The Jewish people were allowed to establish their own autonomous communities, which included their own schools and courts. Those rights were extremely controversial in other regions in Muslim North Africa and absolutely unrealistic in Western Europe. The communities would prove to be centers of education and trade because of the large array of connections to other Jewish communities across the Mediterranean.