يهود الدولة العثمانية والجمهورية التركية

New Perspectives on Jewish Studies

by Stanford J. Shaw, الصفصافي أحمد القطوري (Translator)

Shaw's excellent treatise is a must for anyone researching roots in Turkey or the Ottoman Empire . . . well organized. . . . [and] impressively researched.
—Dorot

Shaw points out many interesting facts of the symbiosis between Jews and Muslims as he traces the relationship of more than 600 years.
—Choice

Especially recommended for college-level students of Jewish history and culture.
—The Bookwatch

Over the course of the last 600 years, the existence of the Jews of western Europe was continually threatened. While many took refuge in the Eastern regions of Europe, particularly in Poland and Lithuania, many more found shelter in the dominions of the Ottoman empire and in the Middle East, where their reception was far more congenial.

This remarkable history, written by one of the world's foremost scholars of Turkish history, is the definitive account of Jewish life and history in this region. It is the story of the ideological and religious differences, and the hazardous but often successful cohabitation that characterized the life of the Jews of the Ottoman empire and, later, of Turkey.

Examining the economic, cultural, and religious contributions of the Ottoman Jewish community, Stanford J. Shaw, a master of Turkish history, here documents the role of Ottoman Jews in the early Zionist movement, in World War I, and in the Turkish War for Independence. His analysis of the structures of different Jewish communities, the relations between them, and the relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims in this unique circumstance is engaging and incisive. As Shaw sifts through the centuries, it becomes apparent that the fortunes of the Ottoman Jews directly paralleled those of the Ottoman empire.

Shaw's extensive research in Ottoman, British, and French archives, as well as sources in Hebrew and Ladino, is supplemented by personal interviews with such major players as Haim Nahum Efendi, the last Grand Rabbi of the Ottoman empire, Rabbi David Asseo, Chief Rabbi of Turkey, and a number of prominent Turkish-Jewish scholars and businessmen.

Genres: History, Politics

Hardcover

First published October 1, 1991

About the author

American historian, best known for his works on the late Ottoman Empire, Turkish Jews, and the early Turkish Republic.

Shaw and his Turkish wife Ezel Kural deny that there was an genocide of Armenians, and claim that the Armenians just were removed from the war zone along the Russian border.

Shaw worked at the private Bilkent University in Turkey. Died at 2006

Reviews

[Bob Newman · Rating 2 out of 5]

brown-nosing on the Bosphorus

Over the centuries, Ottoman Turkey saved countless Jews who came from Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Balkans, Central Europe and Russia. It’s true that they welcomed them and it’s also true that the Jews were thankful for that welcome. The Ottomans arrived in the 1300s, took the city from the Byzantines in 1453, renamed it Istanbul, and almost immediately began to attract Jews seeking refuge from Christian persecution. When the waves of emigration from the Iberian Peninsula fleeing the Inquisition and forced conversions began around 1492, the Sultan welcomed the Jewish refugees. It’s a good story for once.
But this volume bends over backwards to show Turkish/Muslim-Jewish brotherhood, blaming “the Christians” for everything, showing how the Ottoman Empire was the light of the Jewish world for centuries. It’s a classic case of a whitewash. The author, married to a Turkish woman, curried favor with the modern Turkish authorities like crazy and received numerous awards from them, but at the cost of honesty or accuracy. According to him the Turks never did a single thing wrong, or if they did, it was a mistake. True, there was a golden age just after the immigration of the Iberians. True, if you were Jewish, it was a better deal to live in Turkey than in most of Europe, at least till the time of the French Revolution. There was no need to go overboard.
By the 1600s, with the slow decline of the Ottomans, the Jews themselves had sunk into poverty, ignorance, and blind zealotry. Only in the 19th century did they begin to emerge. The author traces the history of the Jews in the Balkans, in Istanbul, and in the communities of the Middle East, filling it with lists of rabbis, community numbers, names of authors, newspapers, and synagogues. There is a lot of possibly useful information presented in a rather catalogue-ish style. But given the overall tone, I had a hard time figuring out what to believe. I persisted reading to the end, by the time that European Jews had settled in Palestine and the senior rabbi of the Ottoman Empire opposed it, correctly saying that it would ultimately be a cause of friction between Jews and Muslims.
I am hardly an expert on the subject, but I found a number of contradictions in the author’s own writing, there are a vast number of typos, and examples of careless organization. He has the curious habit of labeling Palestine “Eretz Israel” in many places. “Eretz Israel” means “the land of Israel” in Hebrew, but it was not (and really still is not) a common choice of words for historians in English. There was no “Eretz Israel” in Ottoman times, so no matter what your political feeling now, it’s a very anachronistic term to use. In one place, Shaw wrote of a “Muslim mosque”, which is equal in style to “Jewish rabbi”. I mean, come on! Shaw constantly uses the term “Muslim brothers” and criticizes the Greeks, Armenians and Balkan Christian subjects, blaming them for all the massacres and looting over the centuries. It seems that the Balkan Christian nationalities were unreasonable for wanting independence, after all, they’d enjoyed Ottoman rule for hundreds of years. How ungrateful!
When I read the following, on page 238, I almost threw the book in my wastebasket (but I got it on inter-library loan, so whoa, Bob!) It was about the WW I period. “Adding even more to the misery was an Ottoman policy of deporting entire populations, Muslims, Christians and Jews alike, from the war zones of Eastern Anatolia, Thrace, Gallipoli, and later Palestine….[which] resulted in great suffering and heavy casualties.” And so he covered the Armenian genocide when possibly a million people died. Damn! A Jewish genocide-ignorer if not a denier. Sorry, I’m really pissed off about this book, which should have been a very interesting one. If you want to read some other, pretty negative stuff, check out the Wikipedia entry on the author. I’m out of here.

[Kareman Mohammad]

سرد دقيق جدا لإعداد اليهود المهاجرين من أوروبا لتركيا والدول العربية.
الغريب ان الاوربيين اللي اتخلصوا من اليهود كانوا أكثر ذكاء مننا. واليهودي رد الجميل للدولة العثمانية في إنه هدمها او ساعد في سرعة هدمها وزوالها
مقدرتش اكمل الكتاب، الكاتب متحيز لليهود جدا

[ريمة · Rating 4 out of 5]

الكتاب إحصائي توثيقي بامتياز. زالجهد فيه واضح، نشكر المؤلف على ماقدم من مادة مهمة.

[Yoyo · Rating 5 out of 5]

وجدت الكتاب صوتيا مجانا على تطبيق منطوق للكتب الصوتية

[İrfan Ertan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shaw hoca Osmanlı'daki Yahudilerin tarihini güzel anlatmış, fakat Yahudilere ve Osmanlı'ya toz kondurmamaya çalışmış. Sanki her şey Hristiyanların başının altından çıkmış gibi bir izlenim uyandırmaya çalışmış

[بلال · Rating 3 out of 5]

مجهود الترجمة يُحترم و التعقيبات بعد كُل فصل .. فُرصة لرؤية التاريخ من وجهة النظر الجانب الآخر من باب المعرفة و قشور عن جذور بداية قيام الكيان الصهيوني.

الكتاب في الأساس ليس موجّه لكاتب التاريخ الهاوي أو المُبتدئ