The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic

Shaw, Stanford J. The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic. Washington Square, New York, NY: New York University Press, 1991. First edition. xiii, (1), 380pp. Plus (8)pp. of photographs. Index and bibliography. Photographic dust jacket with green spine lettered in white, over black cloth, gilt. Some shelf wear at bottom edge of boards, otherwise a fine copy.

In the modern period, Turkey was the only country in Europe and the Middle East which was favorable to the Jews. The first chapter relates the persecution of Jews in areas which later comprised the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish conquest of Byzantium and the Balkans marked the end of centuries of persecution of Jews in those regions. Pp. 187-206, “The Effects of Christian Nationalism on Ottoman Jewry, ” relate that in the Ottoman Empire of the 19th century it was the Christians, and not Turkish Muslims, who attacked Jews. Every Greek or Slav revolt against the Ottomans was accompanied by pogroms. During the Nazi period the Turkish republic accepted many Jewish refugees from the Reich and resisted German pressure to turn Jews over to the Nazis. (OCLC)

Contents: Ingathering of the Jews — The Golden Age of Ottoman Jewry — Decline of Ottoman Jewry in the Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — The revival of Ottoman Jewry in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries — The Jews of the Turkish Republic since 1923.

Shaw (1930-2006) was Professor of Turkish and Near History at UCLA, President of the Turkish Studies Association of North America, and founder of the International Journal of Middle East Studies. (51552) $65