Between Greek Thessaloníki and Ottoman Istanbul, 1912–1923 or senile. He has forgotten to button one of the buttons on his shirt, and
his bow tie is crooked.
This photo contrasts starkly with one taken when Mehmet Kapancı was
at the height of his powers in Ottoman Salonika. The sepia photo shows
a proud man looking over the left shoulder of the photographer. Meh-
met Kapancı has dark thick hair beneath his fez and a perfectly waxed,
dark, thick handlebar mustache. He has a large, broad head. His features
were sharpened by whoever prepared him for the portrait—his cheeks are
rouged, and his eyes are outlined with kohl. He is a good-looking man
and wears a stunning black jacket with an ornate, floral motif gold filial in
the center and two sultanic medallions pinned above his heart.
As symbolized by the aging Mehmet Kapancı, the situation for Dönme
remaining in Greek Thessaloníki was challenging at best. Some continued
to play an important political and economic role in the city, while others
faced a loss of wealth and property and power. Osman Said was again
mayor in the few years ( 1920 – 22 ) preceding the population exchange with
the new Republic of Turkey in 1923 , which signified the end of the Ot-
toman cultural milieu.^47 All Muslims were expelled from the city, and
Orthodox Christian Greek expellees arrived from Asia Minor to replace
them, marking the end of the long period of interreligious exchange in
the city that produced such syncretistic groups as the Dönme.
Ottoman Istanbul: Beginning of a New Life
Once Salonika fell to Greece, many Dönme quickly packed their bags
and moved to Istanbul. Şemsi Efendi left Salonika for Istanbul between 1912
and the end of World War I. The Yakubi Dönme Faik Nüzhet (d. 1945 ), a
Freemason, had been a tax inspector, descended from a long line of doc-
tors, lawyers, and pharmacists in Salonika, where he remained at least as
late as the 1908 Constitutional Revolution, but by World War I, he had
also moved with his family to Istanbul, where between 1920 and 1923 , he
served as the last Ottoman finance minister.^48 Kapancı Ahmet Tevfik Ehat,
whose father had been a co-founder of the Terakki school, and who was
one of the eight bankers (the others were Jews) who was a member of the
Masonic lodge Véritas in 1906 , according to its records,^49 evidently brought
his entire family from Salonika to Istanbul in 1912.^50
Şemsi Efendi, Faik Nüzhet, and Ahmet Tevfik Ehat were not alone. Up
to 20 , 000 of the city’s 50 , 000 Muslims and Dönme soon departed the