When neighbors become aggressors: the local tensions behind the expulsion of Jews from Eastern Thrace in 1934

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the local context that led to the expulsion of Jews from Eastern Thrace in 1934. Going beyond the conventional state-centric narratives, it unearths the local socio-economic tensions that triggered the locals to target their Jewish neighbors. It highlights three major factors that fueled already-existing nationalist sentiments in the region: some Jewish merchants’ involvement in usury, Turkish–Muslim agricultural producers’ growing indebtedness due to the devastating impact of the Great Depression, and the government’s failure to support producers with appropriate credit policies. Faced with the danger of indebtedness and dispossession, the locals in this context deemed the small Jewish community as “the easy target,” scapegoating it for their ongoing problems amid Turkey’s nationalist political climate in the 1930s.