Jewish Imperial Allegiance and the Greco-Ottoman War of 1897 · 33Jewish journalists openly discussed their goal of consciously shaping the
way their community would be seen by contemporaries and by future
generations. Discussing the Jewish “patriots” who had volunteered as
soldiers during the short war, the paper issued a call for all 41 of the Sa-
lonican Jewish youths who had ultimately become Ottoman soldiers to
register their names at the office of its press.^17 The information gathered
about each young man was limited, the piece explained, but La Epoka’s
editors hoped to publish a list that would include each soldier’s full
name along with a brief biographical sketch.
Soon after reading this notice, a correspondent writing from Adriano-
ple (Edirne) suggested that the paper consider publishing photographs
of each of his “brave young compatriots.”^18 The following issue of La
Epoka quoted the reasoning behind the Adrianople correspondent’s sug-
gestion in more detail: “During the Russo-Turkish Campaign,” the piece
read, “many Jews from Salonica enrolled in the army. What memory has
remained of those patriots? None! If we do not attempt to collect the pho-
tographs of those who proved willing to go to war this time, within a few
years, perhaps even in a matter of months, the memory of their service
will be reduced to the newspaper articles written during the war.” In
other words, he concluded, “they will be forgotten.”^19 Another contribu-
tor to the paper remarked that it was indeed very important to “always
maintain an active memory of the Jewish participation in the last cam-
paign [and]... to do more than take the photographs of these young
volunteers.” “We also need to include details about each action taken
by Jewish communities on the patriotic occasion of the war,” he added,
“and publish them together in a brochure that every Jew should keep as
a prized possession.”^20
Added to the above acts of patriotism, that brochure, if it did appear,
might have included other “positive” patriotic acts, such as the special
communal prayers for Ottoman victories recited throughout the war,^21
Jewish schoolgirls who sewed soldiers’ uniforms,^22 or sentimental stories
about poor Jewish pupils who bought patriotic supplements of Ottoman
newspapers in order to support their Muslim peers recently orphaned
by the war.^23 It might have mentioned the Jewish girl who visited ailing
soldiers,^24 or the doctors who volunteered to heal them, or those who
made public appeals to their fellow Jews to turn in their hats and “take
out their fezzes,” so as to display their patriotism more evidently on a
day-to-day basis as they walked down their city’s streets.^25 It might have