A History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul

The Formative Years, 1453-1566

The Ottoman Empire

and its Heritage
Politics, Society and Economy
Edited by

Suraiya Faroqhi and Halil Inalcik

Advisory Board

ANTONIS ANASTASOPOULOS IDRIS BOSTAN

PALMIRA BRUMMETT AMNON COHEN JANE HATHAWAY KLAUS KREISER
HANS GEORG MAJER AHMET YAAR OCAK ABDELJELIL TEMIMI
FIKRET ADANIR

GILLES VEINSTEIN

VOLUME 26

A History of the Jewish

Community in Istanbul
The Formative Years, 1453-1566
By

Minna Rozen

LEIDEN BOSTON
2010

Cover image: Illustrated title page of the Torah, translated into Aramaic (Onkelos translation),
Arabic (Rabbi Sa'adyah Gaon) and Farsi ( Ya'aqov Taus), with Rashis commentary; printed
in Istanbul at the Soncino press 1546 (from the collections of the National Library of Israel).
This book is printed on acid-free paper.

ISSN 1380-6076
ISBN 978 90 04 18589 0
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Addenda ................................................................................ 419

Plate
Locations of Jewish settlements ca. 1453-1530............................. 416

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419

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA

ADDENDA
Since the book rst came out, three relevant publications have
appeared. The rst is a paper published while the book was already
in print written by the late S. Yerasimos, La fondation dIstanbul
ottomane, in Seven Centuries of Ottoman Architecture, edited by
Nur Akn, Afe Batur, and Seluk Batur (Istanbul: Yap Endstri
Merkezi Yaynlar, 2001) 195-212. The second is a review of the
present book, also by S. Yerasimos (Turcica 35 (2003): 341-346),
and the third is a Masters thesis submitted to Sabanci University,
Istanbul in 2003 by Akyaln Dilek, also supervised by S. Yerasimos
(digital.sabanciuniv.edu/tezler/tezler/ssbf/master/akyalcind/ana.pdf).
Below, I shall discuss issues raised by Dilek Akyaln and Yerasimos
as they relate to my book. Wherever the word chapter appears in
italics, it refers to a chapter of the present work. Wherever Yerasimos
work is referred to, unless specically written otherwise, the reference is to his review article in Turcica.
Chapter 1, pp. 6-10, cf. Yerasimos, pp. 341-342: Yerasimos
disregards the issue of the proliferation of the Jewish population in
Byzantine Constantinople, that may be inferred from the various
descriptions of the siege and conquest of Constantinople. Despite
these descriptions, he totally refutes the existence of a Jewish
settlement in the Vlanga neighborhood at that time. While questioning
Buondelmonetes siting of the Jewish Gate on his map, he ignores
the doubts I myself cast on this map. Furthermore, he fails to refer
to the Map I appended to the book in which the Gate is situated
in the correct place. Yerasimos fails to solve the question of what
Nicolo Barbaro meant, in his description of the Ottoman sailors
plan to plunder the Giudecca, by asserting that the Ottoman eet
disembarked outside the harbor, beyond the boom created by the
Byzantines. This may well have been at Vlanga, and not in front of
the Porta Iudea (see Map). See also Akyaln, pp. 2-6.

420

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA

Chapter 2, pp. 20-21, cf. Akyaln, p. 2: According to the Jewish

sources, usually only houses were considered private property. Land
belonged either to the Sultan, or to a vakf. Purchase and sale
transactions normally applied only to houses, not land. For further
substantiation, see M. Rozen, The Trust of Lady Khrisula of
Istanbul: Urban Reality and Dynastic Continuity, The Turkish
Studies Association Journal, 28.1-2 (2004): 29-79.
Chapter 3, p. 45, cf. Akyaln, p. 1: Akyaln states that most of the
Jewish deportees to Istanbul were Romaniots and Karaites. The
Jewish sources, however, do not allude to any other Jewish group
being deported to the city at that stage. The Romaniots and Karaites
were the only deportees.
Chapter 4, pp. 50-54, cf. Yerasimos, pp. 342-343: As the bibliography
indicates, I consulted all the defters from the Maliyeden Mudevver.
Information from defters referred to by other scholars was
appropriately accredited. Yerasimos long explanation (published
elsewhere) regarding the inated number of Jews (8070 households)
cited by .L. Barkan and corroborated by Halil nalck for the year
1535 is redundant in view of my own statement on page 52 casting
doubt on the validity of my whole discussion, precisely because the
source of this number is nowhere to be found. The Ottoman sources,
however, are not the only ones. The Hebrew sources of this period
place the number of Jews in Istanbul for the years 1500-1520 at
18,000. Yerasimos estimation that there were 3-3.5 members per
household is very low in view of the data from the Hebrew sources.
Although, as a rule, the same demographic factors applied to all
ethnic groups in Ottoman Istanbul, two factors were specic to the
Jews. The rst was that the members of the Judeo-Spanish diaspora
were under immense pressure to repair the demographic losses
created by the Expulsion. The fact that they themselves regarded
their efforts in this respect as inadequate does not invalidate the view
that their natural growth was higher than other ethnic groups, at least
in the rst generation after the Expulsion, as has been the case in
other post-catastrophic societies. All the same, there is no way of
substantiating the mean size of their families. The second, and more
important, factor is that Istanbul served as a way station for thousands
of refugees en route for other destinations in the Ottoman Empire,
especially Asia Minor and Arabistan, as documented in the refugees

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA

421

itineraries (contrary to Avigdor Levis opinion in The Sephardim in

the Ottoman Empire, [Princeton NJ: The Darwin Press, 1992], p. 4,
and corroborated by Akyaln, p .4). Thus, in the years following
the Expulsion from Spain and the large-scale emigration from
Portugal (1492-1540), the actual number of Jews in Istanbul was far
higher than the gures brought by the Ottoman sources. Consequently,
Yerasimos estimation that there were only 4,000 Jews in Istanbul
in 1535 is a gross underestimation. Indeed, in the sixteenth century
these were the years in which the Jewish population of Istanbul was
probably the highest (cf. Rozen, Chapter 4, p. 51, note 14). Akyaln
(pp. 14-15) agrees with Yerasimos concerning the number of Jews
in Istanbul, adding that only 900 families from Spain and Portugal
settled in the capital following the Expulsion. Although she cites
higher estimates by scholars who referred to sources other than the
Ottoman ones, she makes no attempt to resolve the discrepancy
between them. She raises the interesting question (pp. 57-58) of how
the overall number of Istanbul Jews did not decline toward the end
of the sixteenth century, while the number of Romaniot Jews did.
She solves this conundrum by stating that the Sephardi immigration
offset the decline in local Jews. However, this is not by any means
the whole picture. The Sephardim outnumbered the Romaniots in
the 1688 survey only (Rozen, Chapter 4, p. 51).
It was not only the result of the Judeo-Spanish immigration, but
also of the assimilation of the Romaniot Jews. This assimilation was
a consequence of the disintegration of old neighborhoods due to
recurring res, the Romaniots higher cultural level, Judeo-Spanish
culture simply superseded Romaniot culture and with the passage of
time, this tendency became even more marked. Mixed marriages
between the Romaniots and Spanish Jews, were not a major factor,
since until the end of the seventeenth century these were not frequent
(see my new article Jews in Constantinople [Modern period]),
Chart 1: Inter-ethnic Marriages among the Jews of Istanbul, p. 30,
published in the Encyclopedia of Hellenism [Athens: The Foundation
of the Hellenic World] ,
URL: <http://www.ehw.gr/l.aspx?id=10832>).
Last but not least, I believe that the high percentage of endogamous
marriages among the Romaniots was a major factor in their demographic deterioration. Whereas the Sephardim intermarried with Jews
from Sicily, southern Italy, southern France, and Ashkenazi Jews,
until end of the seventeenth century, the Romaniots married almost

422

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA

only among themselves, probably because of their srgn status that

affected anyone who intermarried with them. The great res eliminated the administrative difference between the srgn and kendi
gelen as far as their legal status was concerned, as attested by the
Ottoman survey of 1691 conducted already only according to neighborhoods shows (TCBA Maliyeden Mudevver 3661).
Chapter 4, p. 53, ref. 6: Neither Akyaln, nor Yerasimos refer to
the fact that the last names were erased in the 1603 and 1623 registers, casting serious doubt on the reality they reected.
Chapter 5, pp. 55-56, cf. Yerasimos, p. 344: Yerasimos argues that
the fact per se that the vakf registers of Mehmet II do not refer to
landed property belonging to the Jews of Galata does not imply that
there were no Jews in Galata until the second half of the sixteenth
century. The Jewish sources ascertain that there were no Jews in
Galata until around 1550, when a few Jews settled there (cf. Chapter
5, p. 60). See also Minna Rozen and Benjamin Arbel, Great Fire
in the Metropolis: The Case of the Istanbul Conagration of 1569
and its Description by Marcantonio Barbaro, in Mamluk and Ottoman Societies: Studies in Honour of Michael Winter, edited by David
Wasserstein and Ami Ayalon (New York: Routledge, 2005) p.157.
Chapter 5, p. 57, cf. Yerasimos, pp. 344-345: Yerasimos disagrees
with my identication of the re cited in Selaniki Mustafa Efendis
History as the 1569 re, and claims it was the 1588 one. However,
a careful reading of Selaniki shows that his History was based on
papers and notes he amassed during his bureaucratic career, some
of which were carelessly organized, and some of which ascribed
details of one event to another, as was the case here (cf. Minna
Rozen and Benjamin Arbel, Great Fire in the Metropolis: The Case
of the Istanbul Conagration of 1569 and its Description by Marcantonio Barbaro in Mamluk and Ottoman Societies: Studies in
Honour of Michael Winter, edited by David Wasserstein and Ami
Ayalon (New York: Routledge, 2005) pp. 138-139. Moreover, Yerasimos dating of the re which I allegedly confused with the 1569
re to 19 April 1588 is erroneous. The re actually erupted on
Friday 7 April, 1589 (21,cumdaell sene 997).

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA

423

Chapter 5, pp. 55-61: For a detailed description of the Jewish settlement in the city based on the Ottoman registers, see Akyaln,
pp. 70-71.
Chapter 6, pp. 62-63, cf. Akyaln, p. 2: Akyalns query as to what
the Ottomans meant by a Jewish quarter is explained here. See,
also, Rozen, p. 130, ref.121, and ibid, Chapter 9, pp. 214-15, as well
as the document on p. 321.
Chapter 6, pp. 64-65: For the list of Romaniot congregations in 1540
and 1544, see S. Yerasimos, La fondation dIstanbul ottomane, in
Seven Centuries of Ottoman Architecture, edited by N. Akn, A.
Batur, and S. Batur (Istanbul: Yap Endstri Merkezi Yaynlar,
2001), p. 207 (based on the Tapu ve Tahrir registers, # 210 and 240).
On the sequence of their transfer to Istanbul, see Yerasimos, op. cit.,
p. 212.
Chapter 10: For information on the status of Jewish ownership of
real estate, and on the occupational breakdown of the Jewish community according to the Ottoman sources, surprisingly drab, see
Akyaln, pp. 64-81.
Map: A larger version can be downloaded from the Brill website
see: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=18&pid=41403
CORRIGENDA
1. P. 61, ref. 27, line 6: the words (doc. 12 below) should be
erased.
2. Pp. 1-5, 14, and 378: The name of the Greek chronicler Kritovoulos the Islander was misspelled throughout the book (but
miraculously not in the index) as Kristovolous, and should be
amended accordingly.
3. P. 280 paragraph 2 line 2, instead of bitten should be beaten.

424

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA

The Ottoman Empire

and Its Heritage
Politics, Society and Economy

1. slamoglu-nan, H. State and Peasant in the Ottoman Empire. Agrarian Power

Relations and Regional Economic Development in Ottoman Anatolia during the
Sixteenth Century. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10028 8
2. Leeuwen, R. van. Notables and Clergy in Mount Lebanon. The Khzin Sheikhs
and the Maronite Church (1736-1840). 1994. ISBN 90 04 09978 6
3. Aksan, V.H. An Ottoman Statesman in War and Peace. Ahmed Resmi Efendi
(1700-1783). 1995. ISBN 90 04 10116 0
4. Har-El, S. Struggle for Dominiation. The Ottoman-Mamluk War, 1485-91. 1995.
ISBN 90 04 10180 2
5. Abu Shouk, A.I. & A. Bjrkelo (eds. & trs.). The Public Treasury of the Mus-lims.
Monthly Budgets of the Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1897. 1996.
ISBN 90 04 10358 9
6. Darling, L.T. Revenue Raising and Legitimacy. Tax Collection and Finance
Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560-1660. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10289 2
7. Krml, H. National Movements and National Identity Among the Crimean Tatars
(1905-1916). 1996. ISBN 90 04 10509 3
8. izaka, M. A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnerships. The Islamic World
and Europe, with Specific Reference to the Ottoman Archives. 1996.
ISBN 90 04 10601 4
9. Veinstein, G. (ed.). Les Ottomans et la mort. Permanences et mutations. 1996.
ISBN 90 04 10505 0
10. Zilfi, M.C. (ed.). Women in the Ottoman Empire. Middle Eastern Women in the
Early Modern Era. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10804 1
11. Anastassiadou, M. Salonique, 1830-1912. Une ville ottomane lge des Rformes. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10798 3
12. zcan, A. Pan-Islamism. Indian Muslims, the Ottomans and Britain (18771924). 1997. ISBN 90 04 10632 4
13. Hickok, M.R. Ottoman Military Administration in Eighteenth-Century Bosnia.
1997. ISBN 90 04 10689 8
14. Barlas, D. Etatism and Diplomacy in Turkey. Economic and Foreign Policy
Strategies in an Uncertain World, 1929-1939. 1998. ISBN 90 04 10855 6
15. Togan, . Flexibility and Limitation in Steppe Formations. The Kerait Khanate and
Chinggis Khan. 1998. ISBN 90 04 10802 5
16. Yazbak, M. Haifa in the Late Ottoman Period, 1864-1914. A Muslim Town in
Transition. 1998. ISBN 90 04 11051 8

17. Criss, N.B. Istanbul under Allied Occupation, 1918-1923. 1999.

ISBN 90 04 11259 6
18. Koodziejczyk, D. Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations (15th-18th Century). An
Annotated Edition of Adhnames and Other Documents. 1999.
ISBN 90 04 11280 4
19. Eldem, E. French Trade in Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century. 1999.
ISBN 90 04 11353 3
20. Dvid G. & P. Fodor (eds.). Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central
Europe. The Military Confines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest. 2000.
ISBN 90 04 11907 8
21. Cohen, A. The Guilds of Ottoman Jerusalem. 2001. ISBN 90 04 11918 3
22. Somel, S.A. The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire 18391908. Islamization, Autocracy and Discipline. 2001. ISBN 90 04 11903 5
23. Peri, O. Christianity under Islam in Jerusalem. The Question of the Holy Sites in
Early Ottoman times. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12042 4
24. Stavrides, T. The Sultan of Vezirs. The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand
Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angelovic (1453-1474). 2001. ISBN 90 04 12106 4
25. Adanr, F. & S. Faroqhi (eds.). The Ottomans and the Balkans. A Discussion of
Historiography. 2002. ISBN 90 04 11902 7
26. Rozen, M. A History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul the Formative Years,
1453-1566. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12530 2
27. Yi, E. Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul. 2004.
ISBN 90 04 12944 8
28. Salzmann, A. Tocqueville in the Ottoman Empire: Rival Paths to the Modern State.
2004. ISBN 90 04 10887 3
29. Panzac, D. Barbary Corsairs. The End of a Legend 1800-1820. 2005.
ISBN 90 04 12594 9
30. Minkov, A. Conversion to Islam in the Balkans. Kisve Bahas Petitions and Ottoman Social Life, 1670-1730. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13576 6
31. Dankoff, R. An Ottoman Mentality. The World of Evliya elebi. 2004.
ISBN 90 04 13715 7
32. Rood, J. Mendelsohn. Sacred Law in the Holy City. The Khedival Challenge to the
Ottomans as seen from Jerusalem, 1829-1841. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13810 2
33. Watenpaugh, H.Z. The Image of an Ottoman City. Imperial Architecture and
Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries. 2004.
ISBN 90 04 12454 3
34. Karateke, H.T. & M. Reinkowski (eds.). Legitimizing the Order. The Ottoman
Rhetoric of State Power. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14422 6
35. Moaanin, N. Town and Country on the Middle Danube, 1526-1690. 2006.
ISBN 90 04 14758 6

36. Canbakal, H. Society and Politics in an Ottoman Town. Ayntb in the 17th
Century. 2007. ISBN-13: 978-90-04-15456-8, ISBN-10: 90-04-15456-6
37. Dvid, G. & P. Fodor (eds.). Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders. (Early
Fifteenth - Early Eighteenth Centuries). 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15704
38. Kastritsis, D.J. The Sons of Bayezid. Empire Building and Representation in the
Ottoman Civil War of 1402-13. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15836 8
39. Costantini, V. & M. Koller (eds.). Living in the Ottoman Ecumenical Community.
Essays in Honour of Suraiya Faroqhi. 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16575 5
40. Harris, G.S. & N.B. Criss (eds.). Studies in Atatrks Turkey. The American
Dimension. 2009. ISBN 978 90 04 17434 4
41. Wilkins, C. Forging Urban Solidarities. Ottoman Aleppo 1640-1700. 2010.
ISBN 978 90 04 16907 4
42. Yldz, S.N. Mongol Rule in Seljuk Anatolia. The Politics of Conquest and HistoryWriting 1243-1282. 2010. ISBN 978 90 04 17433 7
43. Sluglett, P. with S. Weber (eds.). Syria and Bilad al-Sham under Ottoman Rule.
Essays in Honour of Abdul Karim Rafeq. 2010. ISBN 978 90 04 18193 9
44. Badem, C. The Ottoman Crimean War (1853-1856). 2010.
ISBN 978 90 04 18205 9