The Second Jewish Migration: From Europe to the Ottoman State

By Ali Arslan, PhD

Too often, when examining the history of Jews during the Ottoman period, schlars focus solely on the founding of Israel after World War II and the victimization of Palestinians. But its important to look at every dimension of Jewish life during this time.

Ali Arslan, Ph.D., takes a broad view of Jewish/Ottoman history in this academic work, beginning with how the Jews of Western Europe were forced to leave the Ibeian Peninsula and found the Ottomans waiting for them with welcoming arms.

The Ottomans saved them from oppression and paved the way for the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe to live more comfortable lives compared with those in Western countries. The Ottomans respected the Jewish way of life and allowed them to move freely within the empire.

Both the Ottomans and the Jews should be commended for their productive collaboration at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. Their spirit of cooperation should be seen as a beacon of hope and a roadmap of how people today can overcome differences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781491794647

Ali Arslan, PhD

Ali Arslan, Ph.D., is a professor of history and the chairman of history for the Republic of Turkey. He formerly worked as an educational consultant in the Republic of Turkey Prime Ministry-Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency. He was also the chair of the department of history at Istanbul University from 2011 to 2014.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-9463-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-9464-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016906248

iUniverse rev. date: 04/26/2016

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

I- The Situation of the Jews Before they Had Experienced Atrocities in Europe

II- Oppression in Western Europe and the Cleansing of Jews in Western Europe

III- The Ottomans' Role in the Gathering of Jews in Eastern Europe

IV- The Jews' Gaining Their Rights in Western Europe

France

England

Germany

PART ONE

THE EXACERBATION OF ANTI-SEMITISM IN EUROPE AND ITS SUBSEQUENT TRANSFORMATION INTO IMMIGRATION

I- The Emergence of Anti-Jewish Reactions in Europe

France

Germany

Austria-Hungary

Russia

II- The Emergence of the Idea of Zionism Among the Jews

III- The Nature of the Jewish Immigration

IV- Jewish Benefactors and their Charities

a- The Fund Founded For the Jews in Palestine: The Halukkas

b- Moses Montefiore and the Founding of the New Jewish Neighborhood in Jerusalem

c- Adolphe Cremieux's Assistance

d- Baron Maurice de Hirsch's Assistance

e- The Rothschilds' Assistance

f- The Universal Evangelical Alliance

g- The Alliance Israélite Universelle (The Universal Israelite Alliance)

h- The Lovers of Zion Movement

i- The Jewish Colonization Association

j- The Anglo-Jewish Association

k- Allgemeine Jüdische Kolonisations Organizastion (The General Jewish Colonizations Organization)

l- Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden (The Aid Association of German Jews)

m- The B'rith B'nai (Children of the Covenant)

n- Colonization of Palestine Organizations in the Bulgarian Princedom and the Hoveve Zion

o- The World Zionist Organization

p- The American Joint Distribution Committee

q- The Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and Women

V- The Relationships Between Jewish Organizations

VI- The Place of the Jews in Western Europe's Powerful States' Eastern Policies

England

France

Germany

Russia

The USA

PART TWO

THE OTTOMAN ADMINISTRATION'S DEMEANOUR ABOUT THE JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA AND EASTERN EUROPE

The Beginning of the First Immigrations

I- The Time of Abdülhamid the II

A- The Ottoman Administration's Demeanour Towards the First Immigrations

B- Jewish Immigrants in England's New Policy and the Formation of the Decision to Obstruct Jewish Immigrants in the Ottoman State from Settling in Palestine

C- The Jews' Gravitation Towards Migration In Response to the Bulgarian Princedom's Racist Practices, and the Ottoman Government's Intervention on Their Behalf

D- The Countries that the Jewish Refugees Arrived in, and their Methods of Arrival

E- The Concern that the Increasing Number of Jewish Migrants in Istanbul Could Pose a Danger

F- The Attempts to Block the Jewish Migrants' Arrival

G- The Planned Areas Where the Jewish Migrants were Settled

H- The Settled Immigrants' Travel Expenses Being Covered by the Ottoman Administration

I- The Ottoman Administration's Implementation of Additional Measures Concerning Palestine and its Vicinity

a- The Emergence of the Prohibition of the Settlement of Jewish Migrants in Palestine

b- The Ascertaining of Where Palestine Is

c- The Jews' Mintage of Currency in Palestine

d- The Jews' Restriction on Buying Land in Palestine

e- The activities to prevent Jewish Migration to Syria and Beirut upon the Migration heading towards areas adjacent to Palestine

f- The Tightening of the Bans in Palestine in Response to the Zionists Aims

J- The Decison to Forbid non-Muslim Refugees' Settlement in the Ottoman State

K- The Continuation of the Migration During the Period of Abdülhamid the II.

L- Zionist Relations During the Period of Abdülhamid the II.

II- A Look at the Jewish Immigration During The II. Period of Constitutional Monarchy

A- Transition Period: From Proclamation of the Second Constitutional Monarchy to the Party of Union and Development and its Involment into the Government

B- The Period Encompassing the Party of Union and Development's Rise to Power to the Zenith of World War I.

a- The Continuation of the Bans in Palestine

b- The Enterprise to Settle the Migrant Jews in Macedonia

c- The Enterprise to Settle the Migrant Jews in Mesopotamia

C- The Peak of World War I., and England Swaying Arab nationalists To Its Side Via the Enterprise of the Muslim-Jewish Federation

D- The Period of World War I.

III- The Ottomans' View of the Jewish Migration

PART THREE

THE JEWS THAT SETTLED IN THE OTTOMAN STATE'S LAND

I- The Areas Where the Jews Settled and The Reasons Why They Did

A-Cities that the Ottoman State wanted to Settle the Migrants In

a- Istanbul

b- Izmir and Its Vicinity

c- Thessalonica and its Vicinity

d- The Reasons Why The Jews Were Settled in the Areas of Thessalonica and Izmir

B- The Area Where the Zionist immigrants Wanted to Settle: Palestine

a- The Period of Abdülhamid the II.

b- The Jews` Gathering as an Autonomous Organization in Palestine

c- The Jews' Settlement in Palestine During the II. Period of Constitutional Reform

II- The Migrant Jews' Relations with the Rabbinate

III- The Debates between the Jews

The Gabele Tax Debate

The Debate Concerning the Set Up and Management of Butcher Shops

IV- The Schools that were Founded for Immigrant Jews

The Founding of the Primary Schools

The Laemel School

The Evelyana de Rothschild School (later known as the Alliance Schools)

The Mikve Yisrael (The Israeli Dream)

The Galata Goldschmidt School

The Galata School for Girls

The Academy of the Hebrew Language

The Dorshei Leshon Zion School

The Agricultural Education Centre

The Or Yehuda (Jews' Light) School of Commerce

The Jewish School of Teacher's Education and Commerce

The Archeologic Institute of Research

The Endeavours to Found a Jewish University in Jerusalem

The Jewish School of Arts and Crafts

The Jaffa Technicum School

The Jewish School of Physical Education

The Istanbul Jewish High School

V- The Endeavours to Educate Immigrant Jews in Vocational Education and the Arts

Purchasing a Farm to Teach Immigrant Jews about Farming

Education in Apprenticeship for Immigrant Jews

VI- The Hospitals that were Founded for Immigrant Jews

VII- The New Places of Worship that were Constructed for Immigrant Jews

VIII- The Procurement of Cemeteries for Immigrant Jews

IX- Immigrant Jews and the Spread of New Languages

X- Immigrant Jews' Publishing Activities

XI- The Immigrant Jews' Standing in the Prostitution Sector and the Debates between the Jews

XII- The Turkish Influence on the Imigrants' Music of Klezmer

XIII- The Effect of Immigrant Jews in the Political Sphere

The Effects of the Entrance of Socialism in Turkey

XIV- The Alliance Israelite Universelle's Power in the Ottoman

XV- The Zionists Process of Organization within the Ottoman State

The Dorshei Leshdn Zion (Friends of the Zion Language) Organization

The Zionist Proletariats

The Anglo-Palestine Company

The Palestine Land Development Company

The Palestine Bureau

The Zionists Indirect Organization, and the Founding of the Anglo-Levantine Banking Company and the Zionist Communications Bureau in Istanbul

The Machabees Club

The Jewish Youths' Association

Agudat Cremieux

The Foundation of the Socialist Workers' Federation (FSO)

The Palestine Bureau

Immigrant Zionist Leaders that were Active in Turkey David Ben Gourion: Israel's Head of Founding

Izak Ben Zvi: Israil's Future President

XVI- A Look at the Jewish Migration During the Period of Colonization

XVII- The Zionist Jews During the Period of Colonization

XVIII- The Jews in Turkey after the Ottoman State

Conclusion

Bibliography

Foreword

In a time when Turkey tries to grow closer to the EU, and when its excuse that its record of upholding human rights is weak flood the agenda, my encounter with the poem that the Jews that fled from oppression in Europe in the XIX. and the beginning of the XX. century presented to the sultan of the country that they took refuge in while researching in the Ottoman Archives, and the heartfelt emotions that its stanzas reflected;

My Sultan, the Sultan of the abandoned.

My king, owner of the crown, who shows kindness to the hopeless.

Your kindness that you benevolently perform has greatly satisfied and gladdened all.

May the eternal and all-powerful Allah (God) grant you a long life.

played an important role in my being directed towards examining this subject. After I had amassed a certain amount of knowledge on the subject, I presented an article entitled The Ottoman administration's Demeanour Towards the Jewish Immigration from Russia and Eastern Europe at the Turkish History Congress arranged by the TTK in Ankara on September 9-13, 2002. However, it was not possible to examine it in the scholarly field because the congress's informational articles were left in the printing house and, in one way or another, were never published.

During the XIX. century, when nationalistic movements became active and even transformed into racism, a time full of pain and anguish would begin for the Jews in Europe with the changing attitude towards them. Christian-Jewish enmity, which is foremostly religious, would gain a biological component in the second half of the XIX. century. This Jewish enmity (Anti-Semitism) would of course be backed by previously existing biases. On this note, in the East, which is not considered European and wants to be subdivided by the West via imperialist thoughts, the subject of how the Jews were approached gains a seperate and personal importance, especially in the Ottoman State. Likewise, this answer will also undoubtedly constitute a fundamental part of the solution to various problems of bygone days that continue today.

Working in this context, I aimed to question the Ottomans' attitude towards the racist idea that emerged n certain countries, as well as the Anti-Semitic practices that emerged shortly afterwards in the XIX. and the beginning of the XX. century. Of course, I aimed to find the answer to the question of whether the political and social precautions that were developed due to Zionists wanting Palestine emerged due to Jewish enmity, or if they were directed towards obtaining the country. Undoubtedly, I also did not neglect to mention whether Turkish administrators were successful in the aforementioned subject of being able to differentiate this important difference.

It is easily possible to say that Turkish works that concern the subject of Jews generally speak of Palestine, or have the author writting with Palestine in mind. In addition to knowing that it it impossible to gloss over the subject of Palestine when speaking of Jews in the last period of the Ottoman State and having thus mentioned it in my work, I believe that all of the research about Jews should not be confined within the problem of Palestine. Likewise, despite the local population's reaction to the Jews' flow into Palestine after World War I., it will not be possible to fully comprehend the Jewish problem in the Ottoman Period by only thinking of the founding of Israel after World War II. and the victimization of the Palestinians. As such, I am of the opinion that, on the condition of staying within the time period of the subject, it is essential to analyze every aspect of it, and not just its political dimension.

In this work, I attempted to shy away from the mistake of the view that assesses the time of the Jews' immigration only as Zionist activities, or the other mistake of not including the activities of the colonizing states into the equation, and thus attributing all of the events that occurred on old Ottoman geography to the Zionists. Because of this, I formed the draft of my book by taking into account all of the factors that affected the immigration, as well as its actors, to the best of my ability. As such, I tried to examine; the Jews' situation in Europe, the Ottoman's role in freeing the Jews from their victimization, -in particular- the emergence of the Jews' dream of Palestine due to their political and economic revival in Western Europe, the beginning of the immigration being due to the effects of Jewish enmity among other reasons and the Jewish organizations that were ready to help at this stage, the importance that influential powers gave to the Jews in their policies and strategies directed at the Ottoman State, the demeanour that the Ottoman administrators displayed towards the immigration and the care that they took to separate the humane and political aspects of the it, and the educational, cultural, political, social and religious activities of the Jews that settled on Ottoman soil.

In the hope that no one is insulted as a result of their religion, nationality, views and affiliations, that terms of equality go from being words to a reality that transfers from thoughts to hearts and consciences and rules therein, and possibly the most important, that those that see themselves as superior due to their egocentricity will free themselves of it and want for everybody else the equality, and even gains, that they want, and that all people will gain the internalization of the virtue of wanting for others ...

Ali Arslan, PhD

Istanbul University

Faculty of Literature

Professor of History Department

Introduction

I- THE SITUATION OF THE JEWS BEFORE THEY HAD EXPERIENCED ATROCITIES IN EUROPE

Brought to the country of Assyria after they had escaped from Egypt with their lives and subsequently given permssion to return to Jerusalem, a new period had begun in the lives of the Jews with the Romans' colonization of the area. The attitude of the Jews, who refused to worship Roman emperors, was perceived as objection of Rome's sanctified rules and cited the anger of the Romans. This situation had become the harbinger of a bad period for Jews, and they were scattered to the four corners of the world in 74 BC when their holy places of worship were torn down by the Romans. The collective view that Jews were guilty of Jesus Christ being hung on the cross emerged, and this had further increased the oppression faced by Jews. With Roman Emperor Constantine's acceptance of Christianity as the religion of Rome in 325, the period of crushing the Jews, seen as the 'other', had begun.

Along with reprimanding the Jews that did not believe in Allah's final messenger Muhammed and the Kuran that was sent to humanity through him as is in Islam, they and other non-Muslims were viewed with tolerance under Islamic administration. The Islamic layout recognized the right of Jews to live and keep alive their own religion and culture, on the condition that this not harm Muslims; Jews had even held positions of government administration in Muslim countries. The custom of Jews wearing different clothes in order to be exempted from several rules that Muslims had to follow and to be directed according to the essentials that resulted from their religion had been adopted. Because the Jews did not perform military service, an extra tax known as Jizya was taken from them. It is possible to say that this tax was the means by which the Jews were saved from oppression--apart from several bigotries that arose as a result of various reasons- by countries with an Islamic consciousness.

The Jews had jointly shared the development, especially that of the X.--XII. centuries, of the Muslim world with the Muslims".¹ The Muslims protected humanity's historical inheritance, and their works had their place in affecting the Jews at the same time that they were affecting Europe. In fact, the Hebrew translation of İbni Sina's work was read in the XIV. century by Milanian doctors. The Salerno School and the Montpellier Faculty had become the pioneers in this field as a result of the medical knowledge that Muslims and Jews represented.² Kurtuba University, constructed by Abdurrahman the III. (912-961) in his capital, was an important medical centre. Students from Europe were also accepted there, and Christian and Muslim students learned side-by-side. The first university in Christian Spain was founded by the Spaniard King Alfonso VIII. of Castilla (1158-1214) in Valencia. This university's student body consisted of Muslims and Jews.³

The Islamic world going to pieces with the leadership of the Abbasids and the emergence of internal confusion and conflicts; this coincided with a period where Europeans started understanding that they had fallen behind, and their desire to work towards propsperity and riches had been awakened. In this context, the West's inclination towards the East had been set in motion within a short time. Jews, in addition to Muslims, suffered great losses during the period of the Crusades, which did not contain any religious properties except for the discourse that was used to rouse the the people and their values.

II- OPPRESSION IN WESTERN EUROPE AND THE CLEANSING OF JEWS IN WESTERN EUROPE

Before the Crusade that were started by Pierre L'Ermit (Pierre the Hermit) in 1096 in Köln, Jews were massacred in Germany and this was repeated in many places.⁴ In addition, the requirement that Jews wear a small yellow ring was put into effect after the Laterano Council of 1215 and the Albilians' Crusade.

Even though the Jews that came to England as of 1066 lived a comfortable life until the coronation of Lion-Hearted Richard, this did not continue. After a painful period that lasted up to a hundred years, they were expelled from England in 1290. Thus, the first country in Europe that forbade Jews to live there became England.

France's first Jewish expulsion decree was published in 1182. The Jews that had been expelled from Brittany in 1240 and Gaskonya in 1288, both in the west of France, were taken out of France in stages in the XIV. century. Thus, France became the second country closed to Jews as of 1394.

In parallel to the Muslims' regression in the Iberian Peninsula, Jews that did not want to abandon their country were forced to choose between converting or death in 1391 in Spain and in 1492 in Portugal. However, this execution of forced conversion was not enough to save the Jews, and they were now charged with spreading Jewish propaganda. Because of this, they were punished in various ways, including being burned at stake. The punishment of Christians with Jewish roots continued in Spain until the end of the XVIII. century, and the inquisition could only be removed by 1834.

The Reform Movement that occurred in the XVI. century had at first incited the hope of many Jews; however, this resulted in Martin Luther's calming demeanour towards the Jews later becoming one of merciless enmity and Protestant administrators expelling Jews from their countries. Objectors of the Reform such as the Papacy, as did the Reformists, had also increased the harshness of their anti-Jewish practices. Pope Pavlus the IV. began the practice of Roman Jews living in the ghettos in 1556; the complete eradication of this situation occurred during 1870, with the end of the Papacy's nature as an earthly state. Pope Pius the VI. Developed new forms of constraint directed towards Jews in 1775, which forbade Jews from riding cars and erecting gravestones for their loved ones that were in cemeteries. In short, even if Jews were not expelled from Italy, they were imprisoned in the ghetto.

The Jews that