Ottoman Empire and Danubian Provinces

Abstract

This chapter explores how the Ottoman Empire comprised the fourth region of emancipation. Diverse Jews assembled in the Ottoman Empire as a result of conquest and migration: Romaniots, Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Arabic-speaking Jews of the Middle East. Living as a tolerated, inferior religious community, Ottoman Jewry became the largest and most prosperous in the world. After a period of economic decline in the eighteenth century, Ottoman Jews gained rights while retaining their religious community in the nineteenth century. Rights conjoined with the millet system comprised the Ottoman Empire's own version of emancipation. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the multireligious empire grappled with how to transform itself, especially in light of the loss of its European territories and Christian populations. The Young Turks opted for “Turkification” and the erection of a secular nation-state. Romania's approach to the Jews' citizenship was probably closest to Russia's. Indeed, Romania seemed to emulate Russia's policies: after a brief period of inclusion it engaged in a prolonged campaign of exclusion, discrimination, and outright persecution. Romania defied the intervention of the Great Powers and Jewish diplomacy through prevarication and deception.