This book studies the role of the Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey in providing refuge and prosperity for Jews fleeing from persecution in Europe and Byzantium in medieval times and from Russian pogroms and the Nazi holocaust in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It studies the religiously-based communities of Ottoman and Turkish Jews as well as their economic, cultural and religious lives and their relations with the Muslims and Christians among whom they lived.

This book introduces the reader to the past and present of Jewish life in Turkey and to Turkish Jewish diaspora communities in Israel, Europe, Latin America and the United States. It surveys the history of Jews in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, examining the survival of Jewish communities during the dissolution of the empire and their emigration to America, Europe, and Israel. In the cases discussed, members of these communities often sought and seek close connections with Turkey, even if those ‘ties that bind’ are rarely reciprocated by Turkish governments. Contributors also explore Turkish Jewishness today, as it is lived in Israel and Turkey, and as found in ‘places of memory’ in many cities in Turkey, where Jews no longer exist today.

This volume is a major contribution to Jewish as well as to Ottoman, Balkan, Middle Eastern, and North African history. These twenty-eight original essays grew out of an international conference at Brandeis University -- the first ever to be convened specifically on this subject ... The essays focus on many central topics: the structure of the Jewish communities, their organisation and institutions, the scope of their autonomy, and their place in Ottoman society. Other subjects include Sephardic folklore, Jewish-Muslim acculturation, Jewish contributions to Ottoman arts, demographic perspectives of the Jewish communities, problems of immigration and emigration, the modernisation of Ottoman Jewry, and Jewish participation in political life.

This book focuses on central topics, such as the structure of the Jewish community, its organization and institutions and its relations with the state; the place Jews occupied in the Ottoman economy and their interactions with the general society; Jewish scholarship and its contribution to Ottoman and Turkish culture, science, and medicine. Written by leading scholars from Israel, Turkey, Europe, and the United States, these pieces present an unusually broad historical canvas that brings together different perspectives and viewpoints. The book is a major, original contribution to Jewish history as well as to Turkish, Balkan, and Middle East studies.

In this book Walter Weiker explores the relationship between the Ottoman Empire and the Jews to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. That expulsion had the immediate consequence of enlarging the Jewish presence in the Ottoman Empire, particularly what is today Turkey and the adjacent areas of the Balkans. Weiker not only provides a full account of the Turkish Jews' intellectual and cultural contributions dating back to the Byzantine Empire and continuing through the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, its rise and decline, and its twentieth century transformation into the Turkish Republic, but he does so from a perspective of Jewish political history.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- PART I From Ottoman rule to modern times -- 1 Jews between Ottoman rule and the Turkish Republic: the Ottoman law and the Jews -- Tolerance and violence -- Jews and sultans -- Social status -- Greeks and Christians -- Communal administration and taxes -- Modern times -- The War of Liberation and onwards: the formative years -- Who is a Turk? The first years of the Republic -- Policy of the unified Turkish society -- 2 From the 1920s to the 1990s -- 1923-1933 -- 1933-1943 -- Varlık Vergisi -- Post-war to the late 1960s -- Late 1960s-1970s -- 1980s-1990s -- PART II Antisemitism under AK Party rule -- 3 The rise of the AK Party -- International politics: relations with Israel and Zionism -- Criticism of Israel -- Political approaches: Islamists -- Leftists -- Nationalists and ultranationalists -- The Kurdish issue -- 4 Israeli military operations and their impact on antisemitism -- Second Lebanon War 2006 -- Operation Cast Lead 2008-2009 -- Mavi Marmara 2010 and the aftermath -- Operation Protective Edge 2014 -- Hate speeches and their impact: Jews and other minorities -- 5 Antisemitism in the Turkish media -- Newspapers -- Books -- Entertainment -- Education -- Daily life -- The discourse of Erdoğan as reflected in the Turkish media -- Jews' responses -- Reflections of awareness -- Conclusions -- Bibliography -- Index