Sephardic Culture in the Ottoman Empire

The Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain, on coming to the Ottoman Empire, settled for the most part in Istanbul, Edirne, İzmir, Salonika, Aleppo, Damascus (Sham), Baghdad, Cairo and Alexandria. Relations with the Jews of northern Italy and with the Sephardim of Holland, mostly of Amsterdam, were always very active. The Ottoman Empire considered its population according to whether it was Muslim or not. All were protected by the Sultan. But those who were not Muslims had to pay a tax, the 'cizye', and had certain restrictions meant to degrade them: restrictions such as clothing of a different colour; they could not ride on horseback or belong to the brotherhood institutions (Ahilik) or the guilds (lonca).

The culture of the Jews hardly changed until the 19th century, or until the beginning of the 20th, when modernism and the influence of the West began. The Jews, being very conservative, lived by the laws of the Halakha, and those who were not very observant formed a minority of no importance. Ottoman Sephardic Jewish society never reached the cultural level and learning of the Sephardim of Spain. The Sephardim of Istanbul, the Ottoman capital, became so attached to the culture of the city that a kind of rivalry arose between the Jews of Jerusalem, Safed and Salonika. The Sephardim formed congregations (kahal, kehila) on the model of the Spanish congregations (aljamas) from before the expulsion of 1492, basing themselves on the laws of Valladolid (in Spain) of the year 1432 (Gilles Veinstein).

The behaviour of the Sephardim towards the Romaniotes (the Jews left over from the Byzantine Empire) was at first not very friendly. With time the Romaniotes assimilated completely into the Sephardic majority. The behaviour towards the Ashkenazim was different. There were many waves of Ashkenazi immigration into Ottoman lands: an Ashkenazi immigration in the 15th century, before the great Sephardic wave of 1492, from countries such as Hungary and Moldavia; other waves of Ashkenazi immigration would come in the 16th century with the Ottoman conquest of Buda (Budapest) and other places. To move within the Ottoman Empire the Jews had to have a document, like the passport of our days, called 'yol hükmü', which protected them, or rather kept the holder under the grace, the 'aman', of the Sultan. In Muslim lands, one who did not have the 'yol hükmü' could be executed or enslaved.

The Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire excelled in the art of textiles, which they already knew from Spain. They brought the fiscal capital the Empire needed and supported the Sultan in diplomacy, thanks to their knowledge of foreign languages. The Sephardim organized themselves according to the city they came from. Those who came from Ohrid (North Macedonia) formed a kahal with its Kehila Ahrida; those from Kastoria (Greece) another kahal, with its Kehila Kastoria; those from Yambol (Bulgaria), with their Kehila Yambol. There was a social group identity depending on religion, belonging, family, place, social class and cultural formation. Belonging to the religion dictated the way of living, one's social rank and family relations. This Jewish identity, in the Muslim Ottoman environment, made them proud to be Jews, looking down on those who did not have this feeling and keeping away from them so as to live in closed groups.

Private and social life was based on the Jewish calendar, just as today we celebrate the Bar Mitzvah or the memorial services by the Jewish calendar. Even the celebrations of the days of victory of the Empire or of the Sultan or his family, and the Muslim festivals such as Ramadan or the sacrifice of the lamb, were recorded by the Jewish calendar. Contrary to what one might believe, the Jew in the Ottoman Empire was not very cultivated. The great majority barely knew the Hebrew letters to read the prayers, without needing to know how to write, even to sign their name. If we can speak of an elementary school, it was the Talmud Torah, where only the boys went. Until the 19th century the girls had no education at all and were almost all uncultivated. For this reason there was no literary work written by Jews in these centuries.

Speaking of culture, one can say there were two cultures: Spanish Jewish culture and Ottoman Jewish culture. The Spanish language was the key to unifying all the Jews of the Ottoman Empire and of the Sephardic Diaspora. Along with the language, the Halakha, the customs and Sephardic cooking helped to complete the unity. What is interesting is that the Sephardic Jews in the Ottoman Empire, with time, forgot the expulsion and never gave up their nostalgia for Spain, embracing the Spanish language as their mother tongue and keeping the culture they had, their way of organizing themselves and the Spanish way of cooking the dishes they prepared. They loved the tasty Spanish dishes and knew very well how to cook them. This nostalgia did not stop the Sephardic Jews from being well integrated in the big cities, in urban life, in contrast to rural life. Thus the Sephardic Jew did not feel a stranger when he met Muslims in the coffee-house or in the Turkish bath (hamam).

The economic activity of the Sephardic Jews was above all commerce; they were merchants. They traded in everything, according to the skill they had. An important trade was with the foreign countries of Europe. They engaged in production in small workshops, and the important product was textiles. Fiscal service with the authorities was important, because they could farm the collection of taxes, duties and customs. There were great bankers, and they gave diplomatic advice and knew foreign languages. The Jews were also very famous in medicine. They were known as players, acrobats and singers, contributed new makams to music, and had great skill in making puppets dance with strings, fingers and hands. Although Ottoman legislation wanted to see the minorities as inferior to the Muslims, in daily life this was not noticed, and the advantages the Muslims had meant that conversion to this religion accelerated in the 17th century, such as the conversion of Sabbatai Zevi and the families that imitated him. It must be admitted that these converts formed the intellectual population of Ottoman society. Many Jews converted to Christianity in Spain, the Marranos, returned to their own religion in the 17th century on coming to the Ottoman Empire, helping the prosperity of the Ottoman state.

What the Empire left us free is important: the language, the beliefs, the mentality, the religious practices. The language was Ladino, with certain Turkish words such as musafir, fostan, maale, balta… We said that the men, to be able to read the prayers, learned the Hebrew letters, but the scholars knew Hebrew, and correspondence between Jews of the world was generally in this language. Swearing (azer kifur) was in Turkish. From Ottoman folklore the Jews appropriated the figure of Djoha, or Nasreddin Hodja, certain sayings translated into Ladino, and the makams of Turkish music with the maftirim. Some makams were even composed by Jewish composers, such as Haham Algazi. The way of living was no different from that of the Ottoman nation. That is, men and women had their own circles for entertainment. Jewish women never went to the men's coffee-houses. They entertained themselves among neighbours or by gathering in the courtyards of the houses. The mentality was the same among Sephardic Jews, Christians and Muslims: an epidemic, a pandemic, a fire or a storm were the result of sins. In general the Jews adapted to the customs and the valid laws of the countries where they lived, and today they continue in the same way in the different countries of the world. Source of the article: Department of Jewish History of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, adapted from a study by Amnon Cohen. September 2020