38 · Julia Phillips Cohen
young man who early one morning awakened his neighbors with alarm-
ing cries. As they soon realized, he was drowning near the docks and
calling for help. “It was early in the morning,” the paper recounted,
“most people were still asleep, some were already in the synagogue re-
citing their prayers.” (The event occurred in the neighborhood of Karataş,
where many Jews lived.) “All those around responded rapidly and ran
out... everyone yelled to the man to approach, but as he tried he lost all
his remaining strength and began to sink. If it had not been for a Jewish
boy... who tied a rope around his body.. .”^38
The story, as we can surmise, ends happily and with a Jewish hero. For
the time being, however, the helpless drowning man remains unidenti-
fied. “No one knew to which religion this man belonged, or how he had
fallen into the sea,” but this did not stop them from saving him, the no-
tice furthered. As it turned out, the man was Greek. The paper proudly
pointed to this fact in order to demonstrate the level of intercommunal
respect and support present in the city: the denizens of Izmir risk their
lives for the sake of their fellow man, readers learned, without taking
note of or inquiring after his religion.
A variant of this ideal vision of interethnic “blinders” was echoed in
the columns of El Meseret on 19 February, in a piece which reminded its
audience that “our magnanimous sultan protects all of his citizens with-
out distinction of race or religion.” This time, the article described the
regular weekend promenades that residents of Izmir were known to take
in and around the city. Thankfully, the article explained, the sultan took
good care of all Ottomans: “the surveillance of the police is not wanting,
there is no reason to be afraid, and we all find safety and peace” during
the excursions.
Yet the same article which had begun with discussions of the sultan,
safety, and peace continued with a warning. Despite these near-perfect
conditions, it explained, “we Jews take our outings in such a strange
manner that we invite malicious gossip. And so it is that every year the
non-Jewish journals of our city relate at least one or two unpleasant inci-
dents... which, even if they do not shame our entire nation, clearly do
not bring us any honor. And why is this? It is because... we go walking a
la europea (in European fashion), men and women together, hand in hand,
with drinks and food. These good people believe themselves to be acting
like Europeans without understanding the European way. They go just to