408 to 1453 Theodosius II (reigned from the death of his father when he was 7, in 408, until 450), was the first
Byzantine emperor to restrict the rights of the city's Jews. He ordered their expulsion from the city proper, and assigned them a quarter on the other side of the
Golden Horn, called the Stanum (modern
Beyoğlu). Until then, the Jewish community had occupied a special quarter known as the "copper market" in the city itself, where they had a synagogue, which was later converted into the Church of the Holy Mother. According to
Ibn Verga in his
Scepter of Judah, the expulsion from the city was a measure of clemency to force the Jews to embrace Christianity. This claim is disputed by historians, as is the historicity of the entire text. Emperor
Justinian I (r527–565) was the first to intervene directly in the religious affairs of the Jews, when he forbade them from celebrating
Passover before the Christian Easter. Emperor
Heraclius I (610–641)
massacred thousands of Jews in Palestine during the
Byzantine–Sasanian War, and ordered the baptism of all remaining Jews in his kingdom. However, although there are no documents about the fate of the Jews in Constantinople at the time, it appears that they received the protection of Heraclius' wide, Martina, and her son, Heraclonus (who later became Emperor
Heraclius Constantine).) or the Jewish ghetto
, illustration by Cesare Biseo for the book Constantinople'' (1878) by
Edmondo de AmicisDuring the Byzantine
Iconoclasm, Jews were heavily persecuted. During the reign of Emperor
Leo IV the Khazar (775–780), and later during the reign of
Basil I (867 - 886), the community was completely destroyed. However, since it was the Byzantine capital and the biggest economical center of the period, the community recovered after
Leo VI (886–911) restored religious freedom to the Jews.
Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Constantinople in 1176, reported that the Jews lived outside the city limits. The community numbered two thousand Rabbanite Jews and five hundred
Karaites. Some were engaged in silk production, others were merchants, and some were extremely wealthy. Rabbi Solomon of Egypt even served as the king's physician, and the Jews enjoyed his influence in the ranks of the government. Although, the general attitude towards them was still negative. According to a census conducted in 1478, approximately 7,000 or 8,000 Jews lived in the city. Until 1688, the
Romaniote community formed the majority in the city (55.6% of all Jews in 1608, 57% in 1623 and 27.8% in 1688). The fabric of the Ottoman Jewish society changed with waves of immigration of
Ashkenazi,
Sephardi, and
Italian Jews, who all built separate and autonomous congregations. In the 16th and 17th centuries, a significant number of congregations named "Seniora" was founded by the financial support of
Gracia Mendes Nasi for the
anusim from Portugal settling in Istanbul. In this period, there were many Jews who entered the
Ottoman court. For instance, Hekim Jacob first entered the Ottoman court as the personal physician to
Mehmed II and later became his financial adviser, translator, diplomat to Venice, treasurer, and vizier. Until the
Great Fire of 1660, the communities were divided according to the origin of each one, and separated between the different branches. Even though there were some trends of integration and transition between them, in general, separation was maintained. For hundreds of years,
Eminönü was the main location of the Jews in Istanbul. Ottoman documents from the end of the 16th century show that 60% of the Jews of Istanbul lived in Eminönü, most of them Romaniotes. In the 24th of July 1660 a fire broke out in a shop to the west of Eminönü, which spread to all directions and burned entire neighborhoods. Two thirds of Istanbul were destroyed in the fire, and 40 thousand people died in the 49 hours of the fire. The Ottoman authorities, headed by the
Valide sultan Hadice Turhan Sultan, used the fire as an opportunity to expel the Jews from Eminönü, and complete the construction of a mosque in the quarter. They also ordered the transfer of the lands of synagogues destroyed by the fire to the state treasury. Imperial decrees also required the sale of Jewish property in the area to Muslims, and prohibited the renting of residence to Jews. Most of the Jews moved to live on the other side of the Golden Horn, in
Hasköy, which had already been a center of Karaite Jews at the beginning of the 16h century. This transfer caused significant changes in the structure of the Jewish community. The old order of multiple independent communities was completely erased. This phenomenon was common mostly among the Romaniotes, who were the biggest victims of the fire and the official policy. In comparison of Ottoman documents from 1623 to those from 1688-1689, it seems as though the amount of Romaniote taxpayers remained the same, while the Sephardic population almost doubled. During this time, most of the Romaniote community integrated into the Sephardic, and many members even gave up their Greek language. According to different estimates, the number of Jews at the end of the 17th century was roughly 25 to 30 thousand, about a tenth of the city's inhabitants. Until the end of the 18th century, the population stayed relatively stable, or it could have increased a bit, up to 40 thousand Jews. In the 18th century, the Ottoman Jews of Istanbul suffered economic disadvantages because of growing economic competition with the European-backed Christians, who were able to compete unfairly through a series of special advantages granted to them through capitulations of the Ottoman Empire. For instance, the French settlers in the city had many additional economic rights, In the 1700s, using the printing press, books came to be published in Spanish and
Ladino.
1800 to 1923 and his grandson
Nissim de Camondo in Paris, c. 1868 , the Chief Rabbi (
Hakham Bashi) of Constantinople and of the Ottoman Empire, circa 1880 In the 19th century, there was a general atmosphere of tolerance between Jews and Turks. In 1835, the Ottoman leadership created the role of the
Hakham Bashi, which was in theory supposed to be the head of all the Jewish communities in the Ottoman empire and their representative to the authorities, but in practice was primarily the representative of the community in Istanbul and its surroundings. The official recognition of Jews as
Millet and the
Tanzimat reforms improved the situation of the Jews throughout all the empire. where a mob of Greeks and Armenians started attacking Jews and looting Jewish businesses. Around the end of the 19th century, the Jewish community in Istanbul numbered almost 100,000 Jews, among them the majority Sephardic community and thousands of Ashkenazi immigrants from
Eastern Europe. Active Jewish life took place in the city during the 19th and early 20th centuries. From the second half of the 19th century, a Jewish press began to develop in Istanbul. Dozens of Jewish newspapers and magazines were published in Ladino, French, Hebrew, and Turkish. Some of the greats of Ladino literature at that time were living in Istanbul, such as Rabbi
Yaakov Culi and Rabbi Avraham Ben Yitzhak Asa. Many Jewish community institutions operated in the city, and during the 19th century there was a transition from traditional to modern education. The first of the modern Jewish schools in the city was the Escola school, founded in 1854 by the
Camondo family. In 1887, the was founded in Istanbul by a number of local doctors and philanthropists, to serve as a charitable institution that would provide free treatment to poor Jews. In 1898, a modern rabbinical school was founded, headed by Rabbi
Abraham Danon, a Hebrew scholar, poet, and historian. In 1913, the
Maccabi S.K. club was established. Among other things, it included a basketball team that was the city champion several times.
1923 to 1949 With the establishment of the
Republic of Turkey, the community was prohibited from collecting membership fees and matters of personal status were subjected to civil law. Turkish was mandated as an educational language, replacing the French used by some Jewish schools. It was made illegal for Jews to belong to foreign organizations, such as the
World Zionist Organization and the
World Jewish Congress. This is in large part due to
emigration to Israel. == See also ==