286 r Efrat E. Aviv
now limited to religious use and was being replaced by French and later
Turkish.^6 Yet the general public remained loyal to traditional values and
to the rabbis. This led to increasingly pronounced financial, intellectual,
and social divergence within the Jewish community.
This social and religious polarization influenced by the non-Jewish
population manifested itself mainly in theater and music. From exist-
ing literature on Jewish-Sephardic theater, it appears that even before
the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, their rich culture provided
Spanish Muslims with many themes for the theater. After the Expulsion,
Sephardic Jews owned theater companies and performed as entertainers,
dancers, actors, and puppeteers.^7 For instance, there is testimony by an
eighteenth-century French author who notes that Jews were the ones ac-
tivating the marionettes and the shadow theater figures, which were very
popular with the Turks.^8
Muslim literature and historiography prior to the Expulsion from
Spain in 1492 mention the Jews as a theatrical theme. After the Expul-
sion, the Sephardic Jews are mentioned as dance troupe owners, comedi-
ans, puppeteers, and actors.^9 There were two main influences in the world
of theater. One is found in the culture of the Ottoman Empire and the
other among descendants of the expellees themselves, who fled to Egypt
and the Maghreb. The latter, who settled in the Ottoman Empire, brought
Spanish influences with them. The findings of Metin And (1927–2008),
the Turkish theater historian and critic in charge of teaching acting at
Ankara University, show that the expellees who settled in Istanbul, Izmir,
and Salonica brought their culture and customs with them.^10 There is evi-
dence of several Jewish entertainment groups performing in the Turkish
theater (Orta Oyunu, Turkish commedia dell'arte), within the scope of
the shadow theater (Karagöz) and in puppet shows.^11 The influence of the
Spanish Jewish groups was so vast that they even enriched the Turkish
language with the new Arabic and Spanish theatrical terms. But it was
not only culture that they brought with them from Spain; they were also
renowned for their skill in warfare, and they helped their Muslim hosts
in trade and economics, politics and industry, the sciences, and literature.
The French traveler Nicolas de Nicolay testified that the Jews taught the
Ottomans to create cannons and gunpowder.^12 The Spanish Jews also in-
troduced printing to the Empire, and they opened the very first Turkish
printing house in Istanbul in 1493.^13