Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Solidarity and Survival in an Ottoman Borderland: The Jews of Edirne, 1912–1918

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Turkish Jews and their Diasporas

Part of the book series: Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe ((MOMEIDSEE))

Abstract

In the late Ottoman Empire, Edirne Province—located in what is now northwestern Turkey—was home to large communities of Muslims, Christians, and Jews, for whom the nearby border was somewhat porous. But the violent period covering the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) and World War One (1914–1918) saw a series of ethnic cleansings that targeted local Muslims and then Christians, the result being a more homogenous province and, for many, new conceptions of the border. Local Jews, however, tended to resist this new way of interpreting the border, opting instead to strengthen ties with coreligionists on the Bulgarian side of the boundary line. What characterized the Jewish reaction to these horrific events was not a turn to territorial nationalism but rather interstate solidarity among Ladino-speakers.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Archives of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (henceforth AAIU), France XVI. F. 27, Mitrani, Aug. 6, 1913; Bulletin de l’Alliance Israélite Universelle, Troisième Série, No. 37 (1912): 99–128.

  2. 2.

    AAIU, Turquie VII. E., Guéron, Dec. 14, 1911, April 11, 1912.

  3. 3.

    Avigdor Levy, “The Siege of Edirne (1912–1913) as Seen by a Jewish Eyewitness: Social, Political, and Cultural Perspectives,” in Jews, Turks, Ottomans: A Shared History, Fifteenth through the Twentieth Century, ed. Levy (Syracuse, NY: 2002), 152–193.

  4. 4.

    AAIU, France XVI. F. 27, Mitrani, Aug. 15, 1908; AAIU, Turquie XI. E., Mitrani, March 4, 1909; Annuaire Oriental (Istanbul: 1913): 1797–1804; Aron Rodrigue, “Jewish Society and Schooling in a Thracian Town: The Alliance Israélite Universelle in Demotica, 1897–1924” in Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 45, No. 3/4 (Summer–Autumn 1983): 263–286.

  5. 5.

    AAIU, France XVI. F. 27, Mitrani, Jan. 1, 1920.

  6. 6.

    AAIU, Turquie XII. E., Mitrani, Jan. 8, 1914

  7. 7.

    Summary of Census of Ottoman Population, 1906/7, from Kemal Karpat, Ottoman Population 1830–1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics (Madison, WI: 1985) 162–169; A.A. Pallis, “Racial Migrations in the Balkans during the Years 1912–1924” in The Geographical Journal, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Oct., 1925): 315–331; Roy Arakelian, Edirne (Adrianupolis) ve Ermeni Toplumu (Istanbul: 2016), 68. Regarding Eastern Thrace: From Karpat I use the number of Greeks (292,000), Bulgarians (74,000), and Armenians (25,000) before the Balkan Wars; from Pallis I use the number of Bulgarians (1000) and Greeks (53,000) after 1915; from Arakelian I use the number of Armenians after 1918 (6000).

  8. 8.

    For a play-by-play, see Pallis.

  9. 9.

    Avigdor Levy, “The Siege of Edirne”; Rıfat Bali, “Edirne Muhasarası Sırasında Tutulmuş Bir Günlük—I ve II,” Tarih ve Toplum, 32/190–191 (Sept.–Nov. 1999).

  10. 10.

    Also, the Bulgarians did not conquer the Gallipoli peninsula.

  11. 11.

    The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars (Washington, D.C.: 1914): 126.

  12. 12.

    Karpat, Ottoman Population, 162–169; Bulletin de l’Alliance; Avraam Moshe Tadjer, Notas Istorikas Sovre los Djudyos de Bulgaria i la Komunita de Sofya (Sofia, 1932), 181. Text is in Amor Ayala, Los Sefardíes de Bulgaria: Estudio y edición crítica de la obra «Notas Istorikas » de Avraam Moshe Tadjer (Berlin: 2017), 301–465.

  13. 13.

    AAIU, Turquie II. C., Saul Cohen, Nov. 11, Nov. 23, Dec. 1, 1912.

  14. 14.

    AAIU, Turquie II. C., David Levy, Feb. 20, May 2, May 9, July 22, 1913; Bulletin de l’Alliance.

  15. 15.

    AAIU, Turquie II C., David Levy, Aug. 6, 1913; AAIU online database: http://www.archives-aiu.org/aiu/index.htm.

  16. 16.

    Avigdor Levy, “The Siege of Edirne”; FO 195/2454, No. 33, Samson, Aug. 12, 1913.

  17. 17.

    An exception to this was the case of Ottoman prisoners of war in Edirne, who were treated terribly: Report of the International Commission, 111–113.

  18. 18.

    Ibid., 117.

  19. 19.

    AAIU, Turquie, I. C. 3, Guéron: Entry dated March 27, 1913.

  20. 20.

    Circa 1910, Sofia’s population was 102,812 and “increasing rapidly,” while the next largest city in Bulgaria was Plovdiv, with a population of 47,981: The Geographical Section of the Naval Intelligence Division, Naval Staff, Admiralty [UK], A Handbook of Bulgaria, (London: 1920), 493–509. The population of urban Edirne on the eve of the Balkan Wars was approximately 111,000: Avigdor Levy, “The Siege of Edirne.”

  21. 21.

    Tadjer, 181–182. The team consisted of six Bulgarian-Jewish men, one Bulgarian-Jewish woman, and two nuns from Berlin.

  22. 22.

    “Por los Refujiados Djidios en Konstantinopla,” El Tiempo , April 18, 1913; “El Repatriamyento de los Refujiados Djudyos en Konstantinopla,” El Tiempo , May 14, 1913; “El Repatriamyento de los Refujiados Israelitas,” May 26, 1913.

  23. 23.

    “Israélites d’Orient,” Bulletin de l’Alliance, 57–62; “The Repatriation of Jewish War Refugees,” The Jewish Chronicle, May 30, 1913, 14.

  24. 24.

    Gabriel Arié, May 15, May 22, 1913, from A Sephardi Life in Southeastern Europe: The Autobiography and Journals of Gabriel Arié, 1863–1939, ed. Benbassa and Rodrigue (Seattle: 1998), 230, 235. Arié estimated that 30,000–35,000 Jews had been added to Bulgaria’s existing Jewish population of 40,000.

  25. 25.

    AAIU, France XVI. F. 27, Mitrani, Aug. 6, 1913.

  26. 26.

    AAIU, Turquie VII. E., Guéron, May 14, 1913.

  27. 27.

    Ben Israel [sic], “Journal du siège d’Adrianople,” Almanach national au profit de l’Hopital de Hirsch (Salonica : 1914), 199–200. I am grateful to Eyal Ginio for making me aware of this almanac. To my knowledge, I am the first person to posit that the author of this piece is Guéron.

  28. 28.

    Eyal Ginio, The Ottoman Culture of Defeat: The Balkan Wars and their Aftermath (London: 2016).

  29. 29.

    Bejerano would go on to become the first chief rabbi of the Republic of Turkey.

  30. 30.

    AAIU, Turquie XII. E., Mitrani, Feb. 7, 1915, Jan, 9, 1915; AAIU, Turquie Guéron, May 16, 1913, March 3, 1915.

  31. 31.

    AAIU, Turquie VII. E. 146, Guéron, Feb. 12, Feb. 22, 1919.

  32. 32.

    For an in-depth discussion of ethnic cleansing in Eastern Thrace, see Ryan Gingeras, “A Last Toehold in Europe: The Making of Turkish Thrace, 1912–1923” in War and Collapse: World War I and the Ottoman State, ed. Yavuz and Ahmad (Salt Lake City, UT: 2016) 371–404.

  33. 33.

    Report of the International Commission, 130–131; Stephen Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities: Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey (New York: 1932) 15–20; C.A. Macartney, National States and National Minorities (London: 1934), 430–435.

  34. 34.

    Karpat, Ottoman Population, 170–189; Pallis, 328. Pallis uses Greek statistics.

  35. 35.

    Zafer Toprak, Türkiye’de Ekonomi ve Toplum (1908–1950): Milli İktisat-Milli Burjuvazi (Istanbul: 1995), 107–11; Y. Doğan Çetinkaya, The Young Turks and the Boycott Movement: Nationalism, Protest and the Working Classes in the Formation of Modern Turkey (London: 2014), 161.

  36. 36.

    FO, 195/2456, No. 17, Samson, March 31, 1914. Also cited by Gingeras.

  37. 37.

    Taner Akçam, The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton, NJ: 2012), 87–89, 113.

  38. 38.

    Pallis, 328–329.

  39. 39.

    Karpat, Ottoman Population; Ladas, 15–16.

  40. 40.

    Strangely, Dündar claims that most Armenians in Edirne Province were not deported. See Crime of numbers: The Role of Statistics in the Armenian Question, 1878–1918 (New Brunswick, NJ: 2010) 150–151, and Modern Türkiye’nin Şifresi (Istanbul: 2008) 307–311. Citing Dündar, Ronald Grigor Suny repeats the claim: “They can live in the desert but nowhere else”: A History of the Armenian Genocide (Princeton, NJ: 2015), 323, 355.

  41. 41.

    Raymond Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History (London: 2011) 545–550; Arakelian, 65–69. The figures of 4800 and 13,600 are from Ottoman statistics published in 1919. See Karpat, Ottoman Population, 170–189.

  42. 42.

    Scholars such as Dündar connect ethnic cleansing in Edirne to the anxieties of CUP leaders who saw the province’s diversity as the source of its vulnerability in the Balkan Wars. See Modern Türkiye’nin Şifresi, 184. An alternative interpretation emphasizes the wealth transfer that took place. See İlkay Öz, Mülksüzleştirme ve Türkleştirme: Edirne Örneği (Istanbul: 2020).

  43. 43.

    AAIU, France XVI. F. 27, Mitrani, Jan. 1, 1920; La Boz de la Verdad, June 4, July 9, 1914.

  44. 44.

    But on November 6, 1915, the Bulgarian and Austrian consuls of Edirne wrote that the deportation of the Armenians “frightens not only the Jews and the other Christians living here, but also the overwhelming majority of the Muslim population.” Quoted in Kévorkian, The Armanian Genocide, 547–548.

  45. 45.

    “Albert Alfassa a la Frontyera,” La Boz de la Verdad, May 14, 1914; “El Konflicto Turko-Grego,” La Boz de la Verdad, May 18, 1914; “La Kestyon Alfasa,” La Boz de la Verdad, May 21, 1914; “Los Gregos de Trasa,” La Boz de la Verdad, May 25, 1914; “El Gran Ravno Bejerano onde Enver Pasha,” La Boz de la Verdad, June 29, 1914; “Albert Alfassa,” La Boz de la Verdad, July 9, 1914; “Albert Alfassa,” La Boz de la Verdad, July 27, 1914.

  46. 46.

    “1,200,000 Djudyos Ekspulsados,” La Boz de la Verdad, Aug. 4, 1915.

  47. 47.

    Also, as part of an Ottoman effort to relocate citizens of Entente states, some Jews in Tekirdağ with Italian citizenship were moved to the Anatolian interior: Dündar, Modern Türkiye’nin Şifresi, 386–388, 394. Dündar considers this part of a wider “expulsion and deportation of Jews” that occurred in the empire from 1914 through 1917, but this is an exaggeration.

  48. 48.

    AAIU, Turquie XII. E., Mitrani, Jan. 8, Jan. 30, 1914.

  49. 49.

    “Los Djudyos de Mustafa Pasha,” La Boz de la Verdad, March 30, 1914; “Las Familyas de Mustafa Pasha,” La Boz de la Verdad, April 6, 1914; “En Syudad: Rengrasyamyentos Publikos,” La Boz de la Verdad, April 20, 1914; “En Syudad,” La Boz de la Verdad, April 30, 1914.

  50. 50.

    “Novidades Lokales,” La Boz de la Verdad, June 25, 1914. Similar arrangements were being made for displaced Muslims and Bulgarians: Ladas, 18–20.

  51. 51.

    “Ultima Ora,” La Boz de la Verdad, June 29, 1914; “Albert Alfassa,” La Boz de la Verdad, July 9, 1914.

  52. 52.

    “En Demotika,” La Boz de la Verdad, March 12, 1914; “El Gran Ravno de Turkya i la Komunidad de Demotika,” La Boz de la Verdad, March 16, 1914; “En Demotika,” La Boz de la Verdad, March 19, 1914; “En Demotika,” La Boz de la Verdad, March 30, 1914. For another interpretation of these events, see Ginio, The Ottoman Culture of Defeat, 220–223.

  53. 53.

    FO, 195/2270, No. 65, Samson, Sept. 30, 1908; “Las Eleksyones i los Djudyos: Impresyones de Viaje en Bulgarya,” La Boz de la Verdad, Sept. 10, 1912.

  54. 54.

    For more on the notion of “royal alliance,” see Lois C. Dubin, “Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, the Royal Alliance, and Jewish Political Theory,” in Jewish History, Vol. 28, No. 1 (2014), 51–83.

  55. 55.

    For more on the notion of “civic” Ottomanism, see Michelle Campos, Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press).

  56. 56.

    Erik J. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History (London: 2017), 116.

  57. 57.

    Eyal Ginio, “Constructing a Symbol of Defeat and National Rejuvenation: Edirne (Adrianople) in Ottoman Propaganda and Writing during the Balkan Wars,” in Cities into Battlefields: Metropolitan Scenarios, Experiences and Commemorations of Total War, ed. Goebel and Keene (London: 2011), 83–99.

  58. 58.

    Eyal Ginio, “Paving the Way for Ethnic Cleansing: Eastern Thrace during the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) and their Aftermath,” in Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands, ed. Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz (Bloomington, IN: 2013), 295.

  59. 59.

    “Seremonya Funebre a la Okazyon de la Aniversaryo de la Kayida de Edirne en Poder de los Bulgaros” La Boz de la Verdad, March 30, 1914.

  60. 60.

    Julia Phillips Cohen, Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era (Oxford: 2014), 15–16.

  61. 61.

    For a theoretical discussion of cultural and political community, see Bernard Yack, “The Myth of the Civic Nation,” in Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Spring, 1996): 193–211.

  62. 62.

    “En la Kapitala: El Medjlis Djismani,” La Boz de la Verdad, Sept. 11, 1911.

  63. 63.

    Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: 1983), 1.

  64. 64.

    “Notas de Viaje: Ksanti,” La Boz de la Verdad, Sept. 7, 1911; “En la Kapitala: El Mejlis Jismani,” Sept 11, 1911; “Dede Ach,” La Boz de la Verdad, Nov. 30, 1911.

  65. 65.

    “Avizo de la Makabi,” La Boz de la Verdad, Nov. 6, 1911; “La Makabi en Konstantinopla i la Lengua Ebreyiko,” La Boz de la Verdad, March 16, 1914; “La Fiesta de la Makabi,” La Boz de la Verdad, June 11, 1914; “Teodor Herzl: Aniversaryo,” La Boz de la Verdad, July 16, 1914.

  66. 66.

    AAIU, Turquie XII. E., Mitrani, July 17, Dec. 20, 1921.

  67. 67.

    “En Syudad: Despozorios,” La Boz de la Verdad, March 5, 1914; “En Syudad: Kazamyentos,” La Boz de la Verdad, May 21, 1914; “Kazamyento,” La Boz de la Verdad, June 11, 1914; “Shumla: Anunsyo,” La Boz de la Verdad, June 25, 1914; “Kazamyento,” La Boz de la Verdad, June 29, 1914.

  68. 68.

    However, the newspaper warned parents against this practice by telling the cautionary tale of a 14-year-old Jewish girl from Edirne who was raped by two Jewish men in Pazardzhik while working there as a domestic: “Una Ninya Djudya Edirneliya de 14 Anyos Violada por Dos Mansevos en Tatar-Bazardjik,” La Boz de la Verdad, July 9, 1914.

  69. 69.

    “Novedades Lokales,” La Boz de la Verdad, June 21, 1915.

  70. 70.

    AAIU, Turquie XI. E., Mitrani, March 4, 1908.

  71. 71.

    Bulletin de la Grande Loge de district XI et de la Loge de Constantinople N. 678, I.O.B.B (Février 1913-Décembre 1921) 40–43.

  72. 72.

    Tadjer, 140–141

  73. 73.

    Bulletin de la Grande Loge, 134–147, 233–238.

  74. 74.

    “Southeastern Front,” Air Service Journal, Sept. 13, 1917, 316; AAIU, Turquie XII. E., Mitrani, Jan. 9, 1919; AAIU, France XVI. F. 27, Mitrani, July 6, 1921.

  75. 75.

    Zürcher, “The Ottoman Conscription System, 1844–1914” in International Review of Social History, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Dec. 1998): 437–449.

  76. 76.

    AAIU, Turquie XII. E., Mitrani, Jan. 9, 1919; Bulletin de la Grande Loge, 134–147; Devi Mays, “Recounting the Past, Shaping the Future: Ladino Literary Representations of World War I” in World War I and the Jews: Conflict and Transformation in Europe, the Middle East, and America, ed. Rozenblit and Karp (New York: 2017) 201–221.

  77. 77.

    AAIU, France XVI. F. 27, Mitrani, Jan. 1, 1920; Dündar, Modern Türkiye’nin Şifresi, 387–388; Aron Rodrigue, French Jews, Turkish Jews: The Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Politics of Jewish Schooling in Turkey, 1860–1925 (Bloomington, IN: 1990) 155.

  78. 78.

    NA/RG59/867.00/786, No. 166, Charles E. Allen, March 5, 1916; AAIU, Turquie XII. E., Mitrani, Jan. 9, 1919.

  79. 79.

    “Novedades Lokales,” La Boz de la Verdad, June 21, 1915; Bulletin de la Grande Loge, 139.

  80. 80.

    Tadjer, 196–197; Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e Hilal-i Ahmer İcraat Raporları, ed. Uluğtekin and Uluğtekin (Ankara: 2013), 62–63.

  81. 81.

    Kemal Karpat, “Jewish Population Movements in the Ottoman Empire, 1862–1914” in The Jews of the Ottoman Empire, ed. Levy (Princeton, NJ: 1994) 403–404; Elias Canetti, The Tongue Set Free (London: 2011) 5, 104.

  82. 82.

    Tadjer, 196–197.

  83. 83.

    AAIU, France XVI. F. 27, Mitrani, Jan. 1, 1920.

  84. 84.

    “Adrianople: Deputation in London,” Daily Telegraph, Aug. 19, 1913, 9.

  85. 85.

    AAIU, Bulgarie XXXV. E., Barishac (in Gumuldjina), April 14, 1904; For one of many instances in which Barishac summarized articles from Ottoman-Turkish newspapers, see “Los Djudyos,” La Boz de la Verdad, Dec. 4, 1911.

  86. 86.

    BOA. HR. SYS., 2267/87, April 12, 1918; BOA. HR. SYS., 2267/90, June 5, 1918.

  87. 87.

    BOA. HR. SFR.(04), 925/22, Nov. 28, 1918.

  88. 88.

    BOA. HR. SFR.(04), 644/36. Reportedly, gold was also smuggled into Karaağaç by kavasses who worked in Edirne’s Austro-Hungarian consulate.

  89. 89.

    AAIU, Turquie XII. E., Mitrani, Jan. 9, 1919.

  90. 90.

    Barishac was born in 1867: AAIU, Bulgarie XXXV. E., Barishac (in Gumuldjina), April 14, 1904.

  91. 91.

    Ironically, it also evokes the “international” nature of nationalist movements such as Zionism, another example of how nationalism and “internationalism” are often two aspects of the same paradigm. Arguably, my own use of the term “international Jewish organizations” is anachronistic, but here I find it awkward to use “interstate.”

  92. 92.

    Manlio Graziano, What is a Border? (Stanford, CA: 2018), 33.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Jacob Daniels

Authors
  1. Jacob Daniels
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jacob Daniels .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy

    Kerem Öktem

  2. Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Ipek Kocaömer Yosmaoğlu

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Daniels, J. (2022). Solidarity and Survival in an Ottoman Borderland: The Jews of Edirne, 1912–1918. In: Öktem, K., Yosmaoğlu, I.K. (eds) Turkish Jews and their Diasporas. Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87798-9_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87798-9_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-87797-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-87798-9

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation