From Andalusian Orangeries to Anatolia

In 1492, Spain expelled up to two hundred thousand Jews and Maranos (Outwardly Christian Crypto-Jews). Thousands of fleeing Sephardim Jews, died while trying to reach a safe haven. The expulsion of Sephardim Jews was a cataclysmic event in European history that was really part of a chain of anti-Semitic events in Europe. It coincided with the age of navigation and discovery of the Americas that brought advances in our knowledge of our world.

The persecution of the Sephardim Jews engendered by the Inquisition had reached its zenith in the 16th century. Father Tomas de Torquemada, a profoundly and insanely religious priest behind the Inquisition pressured the King and Queen of Spain that the kingdom could afford to expend the Spanish Jewry. These included many of the most educated citizens of Spain. This inhumane decision emanated from the will to rid Spain of ‘enemies of the Christian faith’ following the Spanish Christian victory over the Moors.

Following the Edict of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Jews were forced to sell their homes and possessions at ridiculously low prices and then forced to pay extortionate fees to leave the country, leaving them with a fraction of their life savings. During this emotional time of leaving one’s home for good and entering a period of uncertainty, rumours were spread that the fleeing Jewish populace had swallowed their most precious Jewels, diamonds and gold. This led to the slaying of countless Jews by bandits, tearing human flesh for their insatiable avarice.

Spain expelled neither a certain class of Jews nor Jews from a certain region, but an entire community from all trades and walks of life.

The fortunate Jews and Maranos managed to get to the Imperial Ottoman Dominions, where Sultan Beyazit had offered them sanctuary. Sultan Beyazit II was not impelled by moral constraints to intervene, rather he saw the economic value of the Jews. The Sultan often asked: “How can Ferdinand of Aragon be a wise king? He impoverished his own realm and enriched ours.”

From life amid the Andalusian Orangeries and the carefully manicured gardens of Granada, left since Moorish times, the Sephardim relocated to the Ottoman Dominions, to Salonika, Safed, Istanbul and parts of the Balkans, which they made their new home.

The Sephardim Jews, the name alone derives from the Hebrew term for Iberia, ‘Sefarad’, found relative peace in the Ottoman Empire. They brought their language El Ladino, a mixture of Spanish, Arabic and Hebrew, and later Turkish.

 They even earned privileged positions and prominence in Ottoman civic society. Spain’s ‘rejects’ became the Ottoman Empire’s greatest sons. Sephardim, Salamon ben Nathan Eskenazi established the first Ottoman-British diplomatic ties. Many of the court physicians were Spanish Jews and the personal adviser to the Sultan in later years was a Portuguese Jew of the name Joseph Nasi.

The Sultan had awarded his closest Jewish allies with munificent gifts and grandiose titles. Aluaro Mandes was appointed Duke of Mytylene, while Joao Miques became Duke of Naxos.

Sephardim Jews had brought with them the forces of innovation; they brought printing press to the Ottoman Empire and Literature. Two Jews David and Samuel ibn Nahmias set up the first printing firm only four years after they were expelled. Judeo-Spanish literature also flourished in the Ottoman Empire and in the 19th century Abraham de Camondo established “La Escola” a Jewish school.

One could say the longevity of the Sephardim community in the Ottoman Empire depended not only upon the perseverance of the Jews to retain and nurture their way of life, but on the tolerance and humanity of both their Ottoman Muslims and Christians neighbours. Undoubtedly, it is not easy to forbear reflecting on the compassion demonstrated by Muslims towards Jews fleeing from Europe.

However, without painting an uncritical image of the Ottoman Empire, it is important to remember that it was never easy to live in a Muslim Empire where they were heavily taxed with few legal rights. Naturally there were challenges that tested coexistence. Economic decline in the Ottoman Empire in later centuries and spurts of religious intolerance affected Jews as it did other Dhimmis.

Indeed Jews faced many difficulties and for a few communities there were issues of children being brought to devshirme. Jews were also profitable targets for extortion by both authorities and bandits. Life was hardly easy, but in comparison to the treatment of Jews elsewhere, the Ottoman Empire was a sanctuary of coexistence for a long time.

Sadly, like life itself nothing is eternal, and with the eruption of nationalism following the French revolution and its effects on the Greek War of Independence, followed the perturbing events and sanguinary hatred that unleashed during the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Religious plurality and peaceful coexistence between peoples of three different faiths which had previously produced a one of the World’s first multi-cultural societies was over.

But as if going back in time, mankind fought to artificially create ethnically homogenous states, almost in imitation to Spain, which had succeeded in expelling its most educated citizens in order to the Christianisation and Hispanisation of its territory. It is an age old economic axiom that intolerance is not merely a failure to look at the wider picture but a failure to reach prosperity.

Later, Turkish Jews soon understood the tangible benefits of immigrating to Israel, and so many left behind Turkey to start a new life there. Today all that is left of the Sephardim community are about twenty-six Jews in Turkey, many of those in neighbouring countries perished at the hands of the Nazis, another tragedy.