A Question of Competition? How to Deal with Inner-Jewish Diversity in Cities of the Ottoman Empire at the Turn of the 16th Century

Abstract

The starting point of this essay lies in current discussions about Jewish diversity and unity. It focuses on the Jewish population in several cities of the Ottoman Empire around 1500. At that time, the local Greek Jewish (Romaniot) population saw itself confronted with thousands of Iberian Jewish (Sephardic) refugees. An understanding of the situation as one of competition for authority makes it possible to ask about the strategies the Romaniot rabbi Elijah Mizraḥi pursued as reflected in some of his legal opinions. I argue that it was in Mizraḥi’s interest to overcome competition within the heterogeneous Jewish population, through either cooperation, concession, integration, or marginalisation. An analysis of his writings thus provides an insight into context-specific contemporary constructions of Jewish unity.