The Divergence of Judaism and Islam. Interdependence, Modernity, and Political Turmoil

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20 · Avigdor Levy


pluralism brought the Ottoman government to reassess the status of the
Jewish community, whose usefulness became immediately apparent. In
contrast to the numerically strong Christian communities, which in many
areas constituted sizeable majorities, the Jews were practically every-
where throughout the Ottoman domains a small minority, which could
not possibly entertain separatist ambitions. Moreover, the Serb and Greek
uprisings, in the course of which many Jewish and Muslim communities
were attacked by the rebels, underscored the mutuality of interests that
the two groups shared. These events demonstrated that the Jews, like the
Muslims and the Ottoman government, had everything to fear from the
rise of national states in the Balkans and much to gain from the continued
survival of the Ottoman Empire. Thus it became a matter of state inter-
est to advance the position of the Jewish community and grant it greater
prominence in political and public life. The government took great care
to ensure that Jewish representatives were appointed to the newly insti-
tuted municipal, district, provincial, and state councils.^13 In some cases
the Jews were overrepresented, as they constituted only slightly more
than 1 percent of the population. For example, in the Şura-yı Devlet
(Council of State) established in 1868 as a central legislative body to rep-
resent all Ottoman communities and interests, there were 2 Jews out of a
total number of 38. In the first Ottoman parliament of 1877–78, where the
government determined the number of representatives for each religious
community, the Jews had 4 deputies out of 119 in the first session and 6
deputies out of 113 in the second session. Devereux calculated that in the
second session the Jews were represented by 1 deputy for every 12,500
males, whereas the Christians had 1 deputy for every 110,058 males and
the Muslims had 1 for every 147,953 males.^14 The Ottoman government
was also interested in Jewish participation in government service and the
civil bureaucracy. Since few Jews were competent to hold such positions,
as of the 1840s the authorities exerted particular pressure on the Jewish
community to send suitable students to state educational institutions.^15
In the history of Ottoman educational reform in the nineteenth cen-
tury, it is possible to distinguish two distinct phases. In the first, begin-
ning in 1826 with the suppression of the Janissaries and the foundation of
a modern army, the main goal was to provide the state, and particularly
the military, with technical schools. These included an officers’ school,
military engineering schools (one for the army and another for the navy),
a music school to train regimental bands, and a medical school to provide

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