Reorganization of Jews in the Ottoman Empire

The context in which the reorganization of the Jews under the authority of the Ottoman Empire took place was the decisive expulsion of Jews from Christian Spain in 1492. The fusion of church and state from the time of Constantine's conversion, through the Middle Ages, and well into the Renaissance entailed declaration of Christian faith as requirement of full citizenship. The organization had its origins as much in what the Jew historically had not been, or had been perceived as not being, which was European or indeed in some respects even human, but certainly not entirely integrated with the dominant culture. Partly by Jewish and partly by non-Jewish choice, Jews had been very much set apart from the rest of the communities in which their culture was not dominant. A concept of Jewish self-government, independence, close community ties, and self-sufficiency emerged in Western Europe as a consequence of this isolation, but in its pernicious form it manifest as the Judengasse, or walled ghetto (Sachar 3). From the point of view of Christians ruling the communities, ghettoes were meant less to allow autonomous Jewish

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d during the waxing imperial period begin to coalesce into a unitary structure. Shaw describes several different divisions within Ottoman Jewry that have rough equivalence to ethnic divisions. Romaniotes or Griegos were Greek Jews that had remained in the former Byzantine empire region through the centuries. Arabized or Musta'rab Jews of the Middle East, the eastern Mizrahiyyim from the region of Iraq and the western Ma'raviyyim from the region of Egypt and Syria, comprised another group. European Jews were divided between the Ashkenazi from Western, Central, and Northern Europe, and the Sephardic from the Iberian peninsula (Shaw 44-5). Within these divisions were further divisions that can be broadly interpreted as ethnic and tribalistic in character: Each of these groups was proud of its own origin and past, though they often divided into sub-groups according to place and province of origin. Each was jealous of its traditions, customs and prejudices, and attributed sacred value to its own liturgy while disdaining those of the others. Each maintained its sovereignty, rejecting all encroachments. All, however, adhered to the generally-accepted Rabbanite form of Judaism based on the Torah, except for the Karaites, who, denying talm
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Ottoman Jewry, Golden Age, Ottoman Empire, Jews Shaw, Western Europe, International Jewish, Campbell Jewish, Christianity Islam, Sephardic Iberian, Ottoman Jews, ottoman empire, jewish communities, ottoman authority, jews ottoman empire, ottoman power, western europe, ottoman jewry, social economic, ottoman jews, jewish community, expulsion jews, dialog file 39, formal expulsion jews, limit competition jews, file 39 item,
Approximate Word count = 2990
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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