296 r Efrat E. Aviv
together, so that when a young Jew wanted to marry a Muslim, he or she
had to convert to Islam. This phenomenon was apparently not unique to
the Izmir community but occurred throughout the Ottoman Empire. In
1903, for instance, thirteen Jews chose to become Muslims, in 1907 five
Jews, and in 1908 eight. The Jewish community of Izmir decided to fight
this phenomenon and founded an association to combat assimilation.^44
Perhaps the rabbis just took precautionary measures by prohibiting the
adoption of Gentile customs, including “borrowing” their music.
The current Jewish community in Turkey reports a 30 percent assimi-
lation rate. It is unavoidable that this process, resulting in so high an as-
similation rate among Turkish Jews, began as a massive and not marginal
phenomenon stemming from the period discussed in this article.
Conclusion
The influence of the surrounding Muslim culture on Ottoman and Turk-
ish Jewry is evident. This influence was mutual, as Jewish culture affected
its surroundings as well, although to a lesser degree. These influences were
cause for disagreement in Jewish society, mainly between traditionalists
and progressive Jews, and widened the gaps that appeared as moderniza-
tion set in. The opposition of the rabbis led to prohibition and stricter sep-
aration between Jews and Muslims, but the historical changes enhanced
the cultural collaborations and witnessed a process of total acculturation.
Notes
- Yosef Yahalom, “Shira Ivrit Mistit Ve’Hareka Ha’Ivri Shela,” Tarbiz 4 (1991): 626–27.
- The objective of Alliance Israélite Universelle was to educate in western ways and
instill openness to progress and new cultures all over the Spanish world. However, the
first to bring western civilization to these countries were actually the Christian mission-
ary schools. AIU became the main source for disseminating modern and western ideas
in the Jewish-Spanish world. This is clearly expressed through the distribution of the
French language and culture.
See also Esther Benbassa and Aron Roderigue, Yehudey Sepharad Be’Artzot HaBalkan
(Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center Press, 2001), 93–100. - Daniel Goffman, “Izmir: From Village to Colonial Port City,” in The Ottoman City
between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul, ed. Edhem Eldem, Daniel Goffman,
and Bruce Masters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 128. - For more on clothes, see Siren Bora, İzmir Yahudileri Tarihi (Izmir: Gözlem Gaze-
tecilik Basın ve Yayın A.ş, 1995), 80–81.