248 Mediated Publics
drawn from others. For example, readers in Jaffa and Jerusalem turned
their attention to the other provincial capitals in the empire, demanding a
local health council [majlis al-sih.h.a] “like in other cities.” Thus the unfa-
miliar was rendered familiar and possible, and knowledge of precedent
elsewhere empowered locals.
t was this sense of empowerment—of the press, at least, if not I
always of its actual readers—that lay at the heart of the citizenship project
in late Ottoman Palestine. One of the most important tools that the press
used to “practice citizenship” was the “Open Letter” [kitāb maftūh., Arabic;
mikhtav patuah., Hebrew] as a device of “speaking to” local officials^36 as
well as to one’s compatriots.^37 These open letters appealed to their readers’
sense of reform and critique, and in this way became important political
actors in their own right.^38 The Jerusalem City Council, in particular, bore
the brunt of a great deal of press scrutiny, criticism, and recommenda-
tions.^39 Furthermore, its elections and proceedings were for the first time
made fairly transparent to the public eye.^40
The press as a barometer of the limits of Ottomanism
This function of the press as the “eyes and ears” as well as interlocutor of
various government bodies and officials had not been possible before 1908
and the advent of a relatively free and vibrant public sphere. However
these same values of unity, transparency, advocacy, and active citizenship
that were central to “making Ottomans” would also be central in high-
lighting the divisions between them. Newspapers translated reports and
editorials from other languages as a way of monitoring the goings-on of
other groups and communities, promoting and contesting a particular
vision of Ottomanness, and legitimately policing those boundaries.
ly weeks after the revolution, the Ladino- and Hebrew-language On
journalist Avraham Elmaliach published an homage to the revolution
while at the same time indicating that the new freedom of the press would
serve as a yardstick to measure the renaissance of the Ottoman Empire. As
he wrote in “Rebirth of Our Empire”:
Our homeland has returned to rebirth ... Freedom is the dear-
est thing to mankind, and therefore our brothers ‘am Israel [the