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Bursa, Turkey
The city of Bursa, Turkey, was home to a substantial Jewish population for over seven centuries. The community established three synagogues and a cemetery within the city. [1]
Description
The city of Bursa, located in modern-day Turkey and formerly a part of the Byzantine Empire (5th Century CE - 1453), was captured by the Ottoman Empire (1299 - 1922) in 1326, eventually becoming its capital in 1335.[2] Upon its capture by the Ottomans, Bursa was already home to a small Romaniote Jewish community,[3] which was eventually eclipsed by Sephardic refugees who arrived in the city after the Alhambra Decree expelled Jews from Spain in 1492.[4] Shortly after their arrival, the Sephardic Jews became the dominant Jewish group in the region, with Ladino (or Judeo-Spanish) rapidly becoming the primary language of Bursa’s Jews,[5] overtaking the Judeo-Greek language spoken by the Romaniote Jews.[6]
In 1546, Bursa had 250 Jewish families, and in 1571, there were 683 families. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, the population had dropped to 141 families.[7]
The city’s Jewish quarter, Kuruçeşme, had three synagogues: Es Hayyim (Tree of Life), the Gerush (Expulsion) Synagogue and the Mayor Synagogue. Of the three, the Gerush and the Mayor Synagogues were established by the Sephardic community in the sixteenth century, while the Es Hayyim was originally established by the Romaniote community in the mid-fourteenth century[8] and was destroyed by a fire in 1851.[9] Both the Gerush and the Mayor Synagogues are still standing in Bursa today, though the Gerush Synagogue is the only one currently in operation.[10] The Mayor synagogue serves only as a site intended for washing the bodies of the dead.[11]
The Jews of Bursa were primarily engaged in the production and distribution of textiles, as well as the collection of taxes on the behalf of the Ottoman government.[12] As was common among Jews across the Ottoman Empire, the Jews of Bursa held a prominent position both in tax farming and in the trade networks that connected the Empire to Europe.[13] In Bursa, Ottoman officials allowed Bursa’s Jews to take on a majority of the tax farming for Persian silk and wine.[14] In particular, Jews had a monopoly over wine taxes because of Islamic prohibitions on the consumption of alcohol,[15] including engaging in its trade. By the nineteenth century, however, according to an 1886 report, this relative economic prosperity had declined, leading most of the city’s Jews into poverty.[16]
Antisemitic sentiments manifested themselves in Bursa through blood libels. In 1592, a man from Bursa accused eight Jews of kidnapping him, tying him to a tree, and taking blood from his leg to bake matzah for Passover. The accused Jews were sent to exile on the Island of Rhodes by order of the Ottoman authorities.[17] In 1865, just before Passover, Jews in Bursa were once again accused of blood libel,[18] mirroring the larger trend of blood libel accusations increasing around the holiday.[19]
In 1883, there were 2,179 Jews in Bursa, and by the 1910s, there were 3,500 Jewish residents in the city.[20] From 1886 to 1923, there were two Alliance Israelite Universelle schools in Bursa, both of which were eventually shut down due to the secular education policies instituted by Atatürk in 1923, following the Ottoman Empire’s collapse.[21]
Beginning in the 1920s, the Jews of Bursa began to emigrate following the chaos of the First World War and global economic unrest. The first wave headed to South America, and subsequent groups emigrated to Israel and other nations. By the early twenty-first century, there were less than 150 Jews remaining in the city.[22]
Bursa, Turkey
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Sources
[1]Bornstein-Makovetsky, L. (2010). Bursa (Prousa). In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_COM_0004710
[2] Kuran, Aptullah. “A Spatial Study of Three Ottoman Capitals: Bursa, Edirne, and Istanbul.” Muqarnas 13 (1996): 114. https://doi.org/10.2307/1523255.
[3] The Romaniote Jewish community, a community characterized by its former residency in the Byzantine Empire, (particularly in Greece) prior to its collapse, established itself in Bursa prior to its capture by the Ottoman Empire in 1326. Romaniote Jews primarily spoke Judeo-Greek, also known as Yevanic, a language that contained elements of both the Greek and Hebrew languages.
[4] "GERBER, JANE S. “RECONSTRUCTING SEPHARAD IN ISTANBUL AND SALONICA 1492–1600.” In Cities of Splendour in the Shaping of Sephardi History, 179. Liverpool University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1228hnt.11.
[5] Bornstein-Makovetsky, L. (2010). Bursa (Prousa). In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_COM_0004710
[6] Krivoruchko, Julia. “Judeo-Greek.” Jewish Languages. https://www.jewishlanguages.org/judeo-greek.
[7] Bornstein-Makovetsky, L. (2010). Bursa (Prousa). In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_COM_0004710
[8] Erbahar, A. (2010). Etz Ahayim Synagogue, Bursa. In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_SIM_0007450
[9] Bornstein-Makovetsky, L. (2010). Bursa (Prousa). In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_COM_0004710
[10] Erbahar, Aksel. "Gerush Synagogue, Bursa". In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World Online, (Brill, 2010) doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_SIM_0008410
[11] Ibid.
[12] Bornstein-Makovetsky, L. (2010). Bursa (Prousa). In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_COM_0004710
[13] Inalcik, Halil. “Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire.” The Journal of Economic History 29, no. 1 (1969): 121. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2115500.
[14] Bornstein-Makovetsky, L. (2010). Bursa (Prousa). In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_COM_0004710
[15] Neumann, Christoph K. “Rakı Consumption and Production in Istanbul in the Nineteenth Century and Today.” In From Kebab to Ćevapčići: Foodways in (Post-)Ottoman Europe, edited by Arkadiusz Blaszczyk and Stefan Rohdewald, 1st ed., 229. Harrassowitz Verlag, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvcm4ftx.15.
[16] Bornstein-Makovetsky, L. (2010). Bursa (Prousa). In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_COM_0004710
[17] Karateke, Hakan T. “An Ottoman Anti-Judaism.” In Disliking Others: Loathing, Hostility, and Distrust in Premodern Ottoman Lands, edited by Hakan T. Karateke, H. Erdem Çipa, and Helga Anetshofer, 121. Academic Studies Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv209xmps.10.
[18] Bornstein-Makovetsky, L. (2010). Bursa (Prousa). In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_COM_0004710
[19] Weinberg, Robert. “The Blood Libel in Eastern Europe.” Jewish History 26, no. 3/4 (2012): 276. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23352438.
[20] Bornstein-Makovetsky, L. (2010). Bursa (Prousa). In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_COM_0004710.
[21] Yeğenoğlu, Meyda. “Clash of Secularity and Religiosity: the Staging of Secularism and Islam through the Icons of Atatürk and the Veil in Turkey.” In Religion and the State: A Comparative Sociology, edited by Jack Barbalet, Adam Possamai, and Bryan S. Turner, 226. Anthem Press, 2011. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1wn0r14.16.
[22] Bornstein-Makovetsky, L. (2010). Bursa (Prousa). In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_COM_0004710.