44 · Julia Phillips Cohen
with local Muslims, both goals which the Ottoman Jewish press had ad-
vocated vociferously throughout the conflict, seemed to have slipped just
beyond the control—and even the comprehension—of the Jewish jour-
nalists who had perhaps done the most of anyone in their communities
to advance these campaigns.
Conclusions
Overall, we can conclude that Jews in Salonica and Izmir largely took
the occasion of the brief Greco-Ottoman War of 1897 as an opportunity
to find a new and extraordinary means of displaying their attachment to
the empire. The positive elements of this identification often translated
into acts of solidarity with local Muslims on the ground, such as when
Jews volunteered to fight alongside soldiers on the front or lent their sup-
port to Muslim refugees from Crete or to the projects of the recently (re)
organized Red Crescent Society.
In both cities, Jewish acts of patriotism predominantly fit the posi-
tive vision put forth by the Jewish elites and journalists who intention-
ally sought to influence their local Jewish community with an eye on
safeguarding its public image and security. The press encouraged and
lauded strong Jewish identification with the Ottoman Empire and its pri-
marily Muslim subjects and soldiers. Its abstract calls for solidarity with
the Muslims quickly transformed into concrete acts of sympathy for the
Muslim war-wounded or refugees in particular.
Yet the increased period of tension occasioned by the conflict also
had the potential to spark more violent, spontaneous shows of solidar-
ity with the empire and with local Muslims, as was the case of the train
depot incident in Salonica. Here, we begin to see what we might call the
ugly underbelly of Ottoman Jewish patriotism: the Jews’ strong sense of
alignment with the Ottoman Empire could in fact entail highly negative
elements as well, such as when identification with the Ottoman side of
the conflict and feelings of camaraderie with local Muslims were accom-
panied by the recognition of the foil of a Greek “enemy” in their midst.
The Alliance official who had warned of this process a few months
after war had erupted seemed to understand that excessive “zeal and
noise,” even if directed positively toward the majority population, or
one’s government, was a formula for trouble. In the city where he was