- Tamir Karkason (PhD, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2019) is a historian of Jews in the Muslim world, with an em... moreTamir Karkason (PhD, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2019) is a historian of Jews in the Muslim world, with an emphasis on the Ottoman and post-Ottoman Jews and their diasporas.
His monograph, “Home and Away: The Ottoman Jewish Enlightenment in the Nineteenth Century,” unveiled the almost-forgotten maskilic center that flourished in the nineteenth century in Anatolia and Southeastern Europe, and the Ottoman Middle East. The monograph is forthcoming in the Ben-Zvi Institute Press (Hebrew, 2024), and he is also working on an English version.
His current projects center on two primary themes: the migration of Jews from Turkey to Israel during the 1950s, and the Haskalah in Tunisia during the early colonial period (1881-1897).
Karkason is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the BMBF project “Beyond Conflict and Coexistence: An Intertwined History of Jewish-Arab Relations,” Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (2022-2026). Earlier, he was the “Olamot” Center Visiting Fellow at the Borns Jewish Studies Program, Indiana University (2018-2019); a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Jewish History, Ben-Gurion University (2019-2021); and a visiting scholar in the research group “Jews and Modern Legal Cultures” at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania (2022).edit
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Between 1948 and 1956, 36,302 Jews migrated from Turkey to Israel, forming the largest Turkish diaspora hub at that time. Drawing on the nine newspapers published by Turkish Jews in Israel in their vernacular, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), this... more
Between 1948 and 1956, 36,302 Jews migrated from Turkey to Israel, forming the largest Turkish diaspora hub at that time. Drawing on the nine newspapers published by Turkish Jews in Israel in their vernacular, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), this article sheds light on the complex nature of the migrants' transnational affinity to the Turkish Republic and on how it coexisted with their Jewish nationalism. In addition to situating this development within the broader context of post-WWII Turkish transnationalism, we also delineate their unique historic status as ethnic Jewish communities or millet. Examining the post-Ottoman era, we show how they leveraged their political, commercial and leisure-related ties with Turkey-deemed more developed in those terms than Israel-to empower themselves as an ethnic community and to facilitate their integration into the Jewish state. In so doing, this study bridges some of the gaps in the analyses of Muslim and non-Muslim migrations, and it suggests that we rethink the languages used to explore Turkish transnationalism as well as its geographical borders and underlying characteristics.
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This article analyses the character of Maskilic families in the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century. The Ottomans regarded the family as a cornerstone of society and a tool for maintaining social harmony and preventing disorder.... more
This article analyses the character of Maskilic families in the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century. The Ottomans regarded the family as a cornerstone of society and a tool for maintaining social harmony and preventing disorder. Accordingly, an analysis of the Maskilic family forms an important component in prosopographical research into the circle of Maskilim. The Ottoman Maskilim came from the heart of the ‘traditional’ rabbinical elite, and like other Muslim and non-Muslim reformers and intellectuals they underwent and generated processes of modernization with a relatively limited measure of secularization. Maskilic families continued to be essentially patriarchal, both in Maskilic thought and in everyday reality. At the same time, however, the Haskalah permitted the introduction of more modern patterns, such as the expansion of women’s agency and liberty. These processes occurred without challenging the structure of the family or the father’s supremacy.
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*** A translation of: Tamir Karkason, “The Iberian Diasporas in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” in: Jewish Literatures in Spanish and Portuguese: A Comprehensive Handbook, eds. Ruth Fine and Susanne Zepp (Berlin: De Gruyter,... more
*** A translation of: Tamir Karkason, “The Iberian Diasporas in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” in: Jewish Literatures in Spanish and Portuguese: A Comprehensive Handbook, eds. Ruth Fine and Susanne Zepp (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022), 319-351
Bu bölüm, 18. ve 19. yüzyıllarda ağırlıklı olarak Ladino (Yahudi İspanyolcası) dilinde ama aynı zamanda İbranice yazılmış Sefarad edebiyatındaki temel eğilimleri panoramik bir bakış açısıyla sunarken, bu edebiyatın hedef kitlesinin bir profilini de sunmaktadır. Özellikle Ladino külliyatının kapsamının önemli ölçüde genişlediği 19. yüzyıl söz konusu olduğunda, Sefarad edebi yaratıcılığının tüm türleri tartışmama dahil edilemez. Bu bölüm daha ziyade, bu edebiyatın hem nicelik hem de nitelik açısından en öne çıkan türlerini belirlemeye çalışmaktadır. 18. ve hatta 19. yüzyıllarda, Sefarad edebiyatının büyük bir kısmı yüksek statülü dil İbranice yerine yerel Ladino dilinde yazılmıştır. Bu nedenle Ladino edebiyatı, İbranice okuryazarı olmayan geniş Sefarad kitleler için erişilebilirdi. 18. yüzyıldan itibaren Ladino edebiyatı hem yerel dilin kullanımının yaygınlaşması hem de edebi türlerin çeşitlenmesi ve popülerleşme eğilimlerinin güçlenmesi yoluyla daha önce hiç olmadığı kadar geniş bir kitleye hitap etmeye başladı.
Bu bölüm, 18. ve 19. yüzyıllarda ağırlıklı olarak Ladino (Yahudi İspanyolcası) dilinde ama aynı zamanda İbranice yazılmış Sefarad edebiyatındaki temel eğilimleri panoramik bir bakış açısıyla sunarken, bu edebiyatın hedef kitlesinin bir profilini de sunmaktadır. Özellikle Ladino külliyatının kapsamının önemli ölçüde genişlediği 19. yüzyıl söz konusu olduğunda, Sefarad edebi yaratıcılığının tüm türleri tartışmama dahil edilemez. Bu bölüm daha ziyade, bu edebiyatın hem nicelik hem de nitelik açısından en öne çıkan türlerini belirlemeye çalışmaktadır. 18. ve hatta 19. yüzyıllarda, Sefarad edebiyatının büyük bir kısmı yüksek statülü dil İbranice yerine yerel Ladino dilinde yazılmıştır. Bu nedenle Ladino edebiyatı, İbranice okuryazarı olmayan geniş Sefarad kitleler için erişilebilirdi. 18. yüzyıldan itibaren Ladino edebiyatı hem yerel dilin kullanımının yaygınlaşması hem de edebi türlerin çeşitlenmesi ve popülerleşme eğilimlerinin güçlenmesi yoluyla daha önce hiç olmadığı kadar geniş bir kitleye hitap etmeye başladı.
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The methods that communities exploit to cope with national hegemonies that dispossess and exclude them have attracted the interest of migration scholars who emphasize the development of transnational strategies as community-building... more
The methods that communities exploit to cope with national hegemonies that dispossess and exclude them have attracted the interest of migration scholars who emphasize the development of transnational strategies as community-building vehicles. Some scholars focus on migrant communities, whereas other studies analyze the “stayers”—those who remain in the countries of origin—in their analyses of the impacts of transnational trends on these groups. Yet how such transnational dynamics influence the “stayers” among ethnonational communities whose members rapidly “repatriate” en masse to their perceived nation-state, such as the migration of Middle Eastern Jews to Israel in the era of regional decolonization and nationalization, remain understudied. This article focuses on the community of “stayers” among Turkish Jews, whose leaders sought methods to cope with the effects of rising nationalism on their community structure and the intensity of an emigration crisis that engulfed them due to the vacuum they faced after losing 40 percent of their members in 1948–1949 to Israel. We analyze Şalom, the most important newspaper that Turkish Jewry continued to publish well after 1948. To escape marginalization and to re-establish their base in Turkey, one of Şalom’s main strategies, we find, is conveying to its readership in Turkey the advantage of connecting and twinning the two national centers that had become the focal points of most of the community by 1950—the Turkish Republic and the State of Israel.
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This article discusses the activities of one of around twenty maskilic associations that flourished in the Ottoman Empire in the latter half of the nineteenth century: Śefat Emet (“Language of Truth”), which was founded in Salonica in... more
This article discusses the activities of one of around twenty maskilic associations that flourished in the Ottoman Empire in the latter half of the nineteenth century: Śefat Emet (“Language of Truth”), which was founded in Salonica in 1890 by a group of Salonican Maskilim. Śefat Emet provided a meeting place for members of a distinct circle among the growing Salonican Jewish bourgeoisie, while promoting a maskilic worldview epitomised by the concept of the “golden mean,” here referring to a combination of religious observance and affinity to the Jewish tradition on the one hand and an openness to Western culture and secular studies on the other. Our discussion of this association will contribute to the study of the Haskalah and the revival of Hebrew in the Ottoman Empire, offer a profile of patterns of change and continuity among the Ottoman maskilic circle, and provide an analysis of the social character of the association as a middle-class circle that effectively excluded those who were unable to pay its membership fees or devote time to the association’s activities.
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This chapter presents the key trends in the Sephardic literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries-primarily written in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), but also in Hebrew-from a panoramic perspective, while also offering a profile of the... more
This chapter presents the key trends in the Sephardic literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries-primarily written in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), but also in Hebrew-from a panoramic perspective, while also offering a profile of the intended audience of this literature. Not all genres of Sephardic literary creativity can be included in my discussion, particularly when it comes to the nineteenth century, when the scope of the Ladino corpus expanded significantly. Rather, this chapter attempts to identify the most prominent genres of this literature in terms of both quantity and quality. In the eighteenth and, even more so, in the nineteenth centuries, the bulk of Sephardic literature was written in the local Ladino vernacular rather than in the high-status language Hebrew. Therefore, Ladino literature was accessible to broad Sephardic audiences who were not literate in Hebrew. Starting in the eighteenth century, Ladino literature began to appeal to a broader audience than ever before, both through the expansion of the use of the vernacular and through the diversification of literary genres along with the strengthening of their popularizing tendencies.
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The article discusses the opening up of educational possibilities for Ottoman Jewish girls, focusing on a case study of the activities of Barukh Mitrani in this sphere in the 1860s and 1870s. I argue that these activities should be seen... more
The article discusses the opening up of educational possibilities for Ottoman Jewish girls, focusing on a case study of the activities of Barukh Mitrani in this sphere in the 1860s and 1870s. I argue that these activities should be seen against the background of developments in the field of female education among Ottoman Muslims and Christians. I also analyze an essay written by Bulisa de Toledo (1872), a student of Mitrani.
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Barukh Mitrani was an Ottoman maskil who wandered between the Balkans, Istanbul and Palestine. While living in Edirne, Mitrani established his first periodical, Carmi (Pressburg 1881). Carmi's issues were an ongoing maskilic sermon,... more
Barukh Mitrani was an Ottoman maskil who wandered between the Balkans, Istanbul and Palestine. While living in Edirne, Mitrani established his first periodical, Carmi (Pressburg 1881). Carmi's issues were an ongoing maskilic sermon, drawing on a deep acquaintance with the Jewish bookshelf. This paper examines selections from the fifth article in Carmi, 'Our Nationhood.' Influenced by the moderate Haskalah, Mitrani idealized a 'Golden Mean,' which sought to balance the agendas of 'the two poles': insular Ultra-Orthodox Jews on the one hand, and secularized 'Westernizers' on the other. Mitrani also espoused a Jewish nationalism which had affinities with the Hebrew 'republic of letters' and the national resurgence in the Balkans. He perceived every Jew as part of three circles: the individual, the family, and the nation. Yet his nationalism was not separatist; he obliged Jews to remain loyal Ottoman citizens and promote the Sultanate while also settling in Palestine.
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The article analyzes the development of spatial sensitivities in the Israeli historiography of the Mizrahi Jews. The goal of the article is to examine and illustrate the impact of this sensitivity among different generations of historians... more
The article analyzes the development of spatial sensitivities in the Israeli historiography of the Mizrahi Jews. The goal of the article is to examine and illustrate the impact of this sensitivity among different generations of historians who focus on distinct subjects and geographical regions.
The article first examines the contribution made by scholars from the 1940s through the 1960s along the spatial dimension. It then considers studies written by scholars born from the 1970s onward while focusing on the contribution of this sensitivity to the study of the role of Mizrahi Jews in pan-Jewish cultural, ideological, and social movements, namely the Kabbalah, the Haskalah, and Hebrew culture. I find that the growing sensitivity to spatial issues is associated with the “long history” (longue durée) approach to the study of Mizrahi Jews in Israel. Thus, for example, several of the scholars discussed in the article helped to eliminate the artificial boundary between the pre- and post-1948 periods. Sensitivity to the spatial dimension also helps to link the discussion of the Mizrahim in Israel to the “long history” of solidarity between Jews from the “East” and the “West.”
The article first examines the contribution made by scholars from the 1940s through the 1960s along the spatial dimension. It then considers studies written by scholars born from the 1970s onward while focusing on the contribution of this sensitivity to the study of the role of Mizrahi Jews in pan-Jewish cultural, ideological, and social movements, namely the Kabbalah, the Haskalah, and Hebrew culture. I find that the growing sensitivity to spatial issues is associated with the “long history” (longue durée) approach to the study of Mizrahi Jews in Israel. Thus, for example, several of the scholars discussed in the article helped to eliminate the artificial boundary between the pre- and post-1948 periods. Sensitivity to the spatial dimension also helps to link the discussion of the Mizrahim in Israel to the “long history” of solidarity between Jews from the “East” and the “West.”
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This paper explores the relations between Ottoman maskilim (Jewish enlighteners) and their Austro-Hungarian counterparts during the second half of the nineteenth century. I shall illustrate this issue by means of a case study of the... more
This paper explores the relations between Ottoman maskilim (Jewish enlighteners) and their Austro-Hungarian counterparts during the second half of the nineteenth century. I shall illustrate this issue by means of a case study of the relationship between an Ottoman maskil, Judah Nehama of Salonica, and his Austro-Hungarian counterpart, Chaim David Lippe, who was born in Galicia but lived in Vienna. Based on the conceptualizations proposed by scholars such as Matthias Lehmann and Yaron Tsur, the paper analyzes the emergence, during the second half of the nineteenth century, of a "pan-Jewish" maskilic space. This space facilitated the strengthening of the "integrative pole" over the "reluctant pole" in the relations between Jews from "East" and "West," thereby also weakening the "internal Orientalism" that was prevalent in the Jewish world of the time. Thus the paper highlights the contribution of the Haskalah movement to consolidating the affinities between Jews from across the Diaspora during this period.
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This article discusses the activities of the Maskilic association Dorshei Ha-Haskalah to revive Hebrew-alphabet printing in Edirne in the 1880s. The article analyzes this development against the background of the changes in Ottoman Jewry... more
This article discusses the activities of the Maskilic association Dorshei Ha-Haskalah to revive Hebrew-alphabet printing in Edirne in the 1880s. The article analyzes this development against the background of the changes in Ottoman Jewry during the Hamidian era (1876–1908). Dorshei Ha-Haskalah was founded in 1879 by a group of local maskilim headed by Abraham Danon and Mordechai Ben-Yossef. Its activities in the field of the revival of printing included two key stages: initial and repeatedly unsuccessful attempts in 1882–1883; and renewed efforts in 1887–1888 that were ultimately successfully. The latter stage led to several publications, most notably the periodical Yosef Da’at/El Progresso, which appeared in a bilingual format (Hebrew and Ladino) and was the first periodical devoted to the history of the Jews in the Muslim countries.
The article positions the decision by Danon and his colleagues to revive Hebrew-alphabet printing in Edirne as part of their membership of a maskilic association that sought to urge the Jews of the Ottoman Empire in general, and those in Edirne in particular, to take their fate into their hands and to promote modernization in their community through their own initiatives.
The article positions the decision by Danon and his colleagues to revive Hebrew-alphabet printing in Edirne as part of their membership of a maskilic association that sought to urge the Jews of the Ottoman Empire in general, and those in Edirne in particular, to take their fate into their hands and to promote modernization in their community through their own initiatives.
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During the 1970s occurred a shift in the historiographical writing about Jews from Islamic countries and their heritage. The article discusses Shlomo Haramati's work regarding three Ottoman Sephardi Maskilim who preceded Eliezer... more
During the 1970s occurred a shift in the historiographical writing about Jews from Islamic countries and their heritage. The article discusses Shlomo Haramati's work regarding three Ottoman Sephardi Maskilim who preceded Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. The article elucidates Haramati's use of these figures to empower these Jews in his time.
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In this Article, I will analyze the reasons behind the interest of Abraham Elmaleh (1885–1967), an accomplished Jerusalemite public figure, journalist, philologist and ethnographer, in Sabbateanism and the Sabbatean Ma'aminim in Salonica.... more
In this Article, I will analyze the reasons behind the interest of Abraham Elmaleh (1885–1967), an accomplished Jerusalemite public figure, journalist, philologist and ethnographer, in Sabbateanism and the Sabbatean Ma'aminim in Salonica. The discussion will focus on Elmaleh's most important study of Sabbateanism: his booklet Sabbetay Ṣevi, his Sects, and the Remnants of his Messianic Movement in These Times (Jerusalem 1926). I will also identify the scholars and the sources that influenced over Elmaleh's interest in these fields.
I found that Elmaleh considered the Ma'aminim to be an integral part – though peripheral – of the Sephardic sub-diaspora he constituted in his studies and enterprises, and therefore found them to be of great interest. In a dialectic process, relating to the Jewish interest in the "Remote Jews" (Nidhe Israel), Elmaleh considered the Ma'aminim to be a sort of "Sephardic Remote Jews". To prove his arguments, he used some of the writings of two Sephardic scholars, Abraham Danon and Joseph Néhama, published from 1887 to 1902, and assigned their findings to his needs.
It seems that for Elmaleh, the Ma'aminim could have been counted among the Sephardic sub-diaspora even if they were not necessarily part of the Jewish diaspora. This leads to a certain tension between the definition of the Sephardic sub-diaspora and the definition of its parent-diaspora, the Jewish one – a tension that accompanied Elmaleh's studies and figure for many years.
I found that Elmaleh considered the Ma'aminim to be an integral part – though peripheral – of the Sephardic sub-diaspora he constituted in his studies and enterprises, and therefore found them to be of great interest. In a dialectic process, relating to the Jewish interest in the "Remote Jews" (Nidhe Israel), Elmaleh considered the Ma'aminim to be a sort of "Sephardic Remote Jews". To prove his arguments, he used some of the writings of two Sephardic scholars, Abraham Danon and Joseph Néhama, published from 1887 to 1902, and assigned their findings to his needs.
It seems that for Elmaleh, the Ma'aminim could have been counted among the Sephardic sub-diaspora even if they were not necessarily part of the Jewish diaspora. This leads to a certain tension between the definition of the Sephardic sub-diaspora and the definition of its parent-diaspora, the Jewish one – a tension that accompanied Elmaleh's studies and figure for many years.
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Call for Papers: Muza Journal (Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem).
Deadline: February 12, 2017.
Deadline: February 12, 2017.
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Over the decades, the power dynamics between Jews and Muslims, Israelis and other MENA nations and societies, have shifted. However, within the global paradigm that distinguishes oppressors from the oppressed, certain Islamic... more
Over the decades, the power dynamics between Jews and Muslims, Israelis and other MENA nations and societies, have shifted. However, within the global paradigm that distinguishes oppressors from the oppressed, certain Islamic entities—like Iran and its global proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Yemeni Houthis—are frequently conceived and depicted as marginalized “Eastern” underdogs, starkly contrasting with the depiction of the sovereign Jewish state, which is perceived as a distinct “Western” entity. This portrayal undermines the independent agency of these “Eastern” actors in determining their aspirations and historical trajectory and implies limited responsibility for their actions and statements while they confront Western hegemonic powers. Instead, “Easterners” are predominantly portrayed as reactive elements navigating within hierarchical power structures imposed by the West, a dynamic that is seen primarily through the lens of resistance. Such terminologies and perpetuated analytical concepts, we argue, overlook significant aspects of the historical context that define the hierarchies between Jews and non-Jews within and outside of the contemporary context. To start, the founders of Israel, as Jews, were never categorized in racial terms as “White” (to say the least), but rather were perceived as a religious and ethnic subgroup, a distinct “other”—even considered “Oriental”—within the European context. But our essay goes well beyond that. We aim to highlight an even more substantial bias in the examination of the agency of MENA Jewish communities when viewed through such hierarchical lenses of a perceived East and West. This bias becomes most evident in the intersection of historical power dynamics between Muslims and Jews.