Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine (41 page)

These Hebrew-oriented youth were the main leaders of the “renaissance spirit” among the Sephardim. Hebraism was a response to perceived communal stagnation—a call to modernize the Jewish community while at the same time incorporating an authentic element of Jewish culture and identity. In the years after 1908, Zionist-styled clubs like the Jewish sporting association the Maccabis, Hebrew kindergartens and schools, and Hebraic cultural societies spread throughout the Ottoman Empire, especially in large Jewish centers like Istanbul, Salonica, and Izmir.
⁴²
And yet, it is important not to overstate the participation of Ottoman Jews in grassroots Zionist organizations—more frequently, they expressed profound indifference bordering on outright hostility toward the Zionist program, as numerous articles in the Zionist press attest.
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To the extent that it did exist, though, Sephardi and Maghrebi Zionism was socially and ideologically distinct from the larger Zionist movement, divorcing Hebraic and Judaic cultural and social renaissance and
local communal and economic development on the one hand from Jewish autonomy, anti-Ottoman separatism, and national statehood on the other. Ottoman Jews of Palestine insisted on the absolute compatibility of their Ottomanism and Zionism, and further believed that Zionism was a real contribution to the rest of the Ottoman
umah.
The rebirth of the Jewish people, in its cultural, social, and economic dimensions, would work to the benefit of the empire at large. Hence, the Palestinian Sephardi commitment to Zionism should be characterized as an Erez-Israeli (Land of Israel) commitment within the Ottoman body politic.
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According to Elmaliach, Zionism sought to strengthen the Jewish spirit, to widen the study of Hebrew, and to improve the economic and moral situation of the Jews. He called on the Sephardim of the empire to participate in the Zionist movement, consisting of: helping sustain the Jewish colonies in Palestine; founding societies to promote love and solidarity; cultivating Jewish studies (in history, literature, and language); bettering the social and intellectual situation of brother Jews; and paying the shekel to the Zionist movement.
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In addition to cultural Hebraism, Sephardi Zionism acknowledged the need for immigration to Palestine for persecuted Jews from Russia and Romania at the same time that there was no illusion that this was a necessary or desirable course for Ottoman Jewry itself. In turning to the Ottoman Empire, due to its long tradition of tolerance and hospitality, Zionists were seeking a refuge and in return would bring it utility and material benefits, concurrent with Ottoman interests. “The Zionists do not want to overcome or to conquer,” Elmaliach argued, but rather, “they are searching for a shawl, a coat, a place of rest.”

As a result, some Ottoman Jews insisted on the absolute compatibility between their Ottomanism and Zionism, claiming that Zionism was a real contribution to the rest of the Ottoman nation. The rebirth of the Jewish people in its cultural, social, and economic dimensions would work to the benefit of the empire at large. This convergence of Ottoman and Jewish interests was duplicated in the language used by the press and was a central component of its outlook. It was not, however, an uncontested or universal claim.

THE OTTOMANIST CRITIQUE OF ZIONISM

There is some evidence that with the regime change in 1908, at least some officials in the Ottoman government supported a Sephardi view of Zionism as cultural Hebraism, emphasizing that as long as the Jews did not carry their Zionism in the political direction, they would continue
to be considered loyal Ottomans. As Minister of Education Emrulla Bey reportedly phrased it, “We are truly happy with our Jews. Why shouldn't they learn Hebrew? If the Jews decide to adopt for themselves Hebrew as a national language, the government does not see anything in that which awakens suspicions.”
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Dr. Riza Tevfik especially was considered a friend of the movement, and he spoke often to Jewish organizations in the capital. He is reported to have supported Zionism as offering a shelter for persecuted Jews, as well as due to the financial and labor capital it brought into the empire. As he told his Jewish audiences, the Ottoman Empire did not see the Jews as foreigners, and recognized its need for them. In his words, “We are lacking strong workers, honest people who busy themselves more with agricultural labor than with the politics of revolution.” In this line of thought, Palestine “will be turned into a rich and fertile province that will lead to the success of Turkey [
sic].”
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According to contemporary scholars, at least in the early years after 1908, Ottoman officials did not consider the Jews a security threat like other minorities, and they did not consider Zionism a nationalist movement along the lines of Balkan nationalism, characterized by its underground committees and armed struggle.
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Riza Bey made very clear that the new government's tolerance of cultural Zionism was conditional, and political Zionism would not be tolerated. “If the Jews are moderate,” he informed his Ottoman Jewish audiences, “the government will not oppose bringing them into the empire. But we should not forget that if the Jews make out of Zionism a political question…then a Jewish question will be created in Turkey [
sic
] and its outcome will be very bitter.”
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From the point of view of the central Ottoman government, political Zionism was a threat to its central authority and the communitarian status quo in Palestine, but it also did not consider most of its Jewish citizens to be those kinds of Zionists. It viewed political Zionism as a danger imported by European, and largely Russian, Jews, supported by meddling European governments. Even as late as the spring 1911 debate on Zionism instigated in the parliament by the Palestinian Arab delegates, Grand Vezier Ibrahim Hakki Pasha responded by saying: “Jewish Ottoman citizens who have never deviated even one inch from Ottomanist convictions will not be suspected of sharing views and fantasies of a few witless Zionists whom they themselves consider to be madmen.”
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By that time, however, in the changed context of imperial turmoil, loss of important provinces, and growing ethno-national dissolution, the question of Zionism had taken on a new urgency.

This argument over the nature and aims of Zionism and its subsequent implications for Ottomanism stood at the crux of a series of
protracted and bitter debates that took place in the Judeo-Spanish press spanning from Salonica and Anatolia to Palestine and Egypt. On one side stood Sephardi Ottomanist-Zionists who claimed that Ottomanism and Zionism were perfectly or very nearly perfectly compatible. On the other side stood Sephardi Ottomanist anti-Zionists who believed quite simply that “Zionism is contrary to Ottoman patriotism.”
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The wave of anti-Zionist publishing in the Sephardi press began in May 1909 with a series of articles in the Izmir newspapers of the brothers Alexander and Moshe Ben-Giat. The following month, I. Cohen from Salonica wrote an article in the Istanbul newspaper
Stamboul
against the upcoming Ninth Zionist Congress, saying that Jews should worry about the Ottoman nation and not the Jewish one.
⁵²
Several other prominent Ottoman Jews denounced the Zionist movement in the press. For example the Izmir poet Reuben Qattan wrote to the Jerusalem Judeo-Spanish paper
Liberty
to remind its readers, “Before everything we should live Ottoman lives, cultivate the language of the Ottomans, form an integral part of the Ottoman nation, and sincerely love the Ottoman patria.” According to Qattan, “We are Ottomans and nothing else.” If the Jews were to turn to work within the Ottoman Empire, they would be a factor for progress and prosperity in the land. “To work and to die for Turkey [sic]—that should be our only and sacred duty.” But continuing to turn toward Zionism, Qattan warned, would be a “catastrophe” for the Jews, a forecast shared by others.
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In Qattan's view, Zionism was not like lighting a match on Shabbat but, rather, like working on Yom Kippur—a far more unjustifiable and unpardonable sin.

The aftermath of these articles was swift and nasty. Cohen's article in particular caused a stir in the capital, and the Ottoman Turkish and French press (not to mention the Judeo-Spanish and Hebrew press) covered it extensively.
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Indeed, the early ease with which the Zionist movement operated in the Ottoman Empire began to change that summer with the Ninth Zionist Congress, which brought to light the contradictions between the benign aims portrayed to and by Ottoman Jews and the separatist aims of many European Zionists. At the congress, the Basel Program of the Zionist movement was only slightly modified, and in an alarming step, the Zionist leadership called for the upcoming congress to be held in Istanbul. Furthermore, the Zionist leadership refused to certify that Zionism had no national aims. In retaliation, the CUP in Salonica took action against its members who participated in the Zionist Congress.
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In response to this early wave of anti-Zionism in the Jewish press, the Jerusalem Sephardi press mobilized to defend Zionism. The Judeo-Spanish paper
Liberty
derided Ben-Giat and sarcastically wrote that he “is showing himself more patriotic than Dr. Riza Tevfik, than Emmanuel
Carasso [Jewish MP from Salonica], than Señor Nissim Mazliach [Jewish MP from Izmir] and others who have all declared themselves in favor of Zionism, and he shows that he understands better than others what Zionism is.” Instead, the paper claimed, Zionism had contributed greatly to progress in the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, the paper asserted that while the Jews in the empire were lucky to have the constitution, they must think of the other Jews who were less fortunate and searching for a safe haven. The new editor of
Liberty
, Haim Ben-'Atar, urged his fellow Jews to show “a little more courage!” by supporting Zionism. Zionism was, in his mind, a commitment to bettering the moral, physical and economic state of the Jews in all lands, as well as a respect for Jewish history and literature. According to Ben-'Atar's view, “every Jew who recognizes himself as a descendant of Israel has declared by this his Zionism! Every Jew who wants to contribute with his time and work to better the situation of the Israelites in Palestine—or outside of it—is with this a Zionist!”
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Within weeks a semiorganized campaign had sprung up to boycott the newspaper of the “enemies of Zionism” Alexander and Moshe Ben-Giat. Distributors reportedly refused to sell their newspaper, and even small communities joined in the struggle. “Long live the boycott! Down with the reactionaries!” crowed
Liberty
at the news. “They represented Zionism as a revolutionary organization, with unjust aims against the government. Miserable Ben-Giat brothers!” According to the paper, the consequences of the Ben-Giats' attack was already being felt—Armenian and Greek journals had taken to ridiculing and attacking Jews and Judaism, presumably inspired or emboldened by the internal Jewish feud.
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OTTOMAN ZIONISM II: COMMUNAL RIVALRY

Reuben Qattanʼs article was a heavier, more unexpected blow, for he was a renowned poet who wrote of his love toward Zion. Despite this, Ben-‘Atar asserted that Qattan had no real sense of Zionism: “Zionism is in no way a contradiction to Ottomanism. On the contrary, the Jew can, thanks to glorious liberty, be a Jewish-Ottoman nationalist, like one can be Greek-Ottoman, Albanian-Ottoman, and Armenian-Ottoman. Our movement can go together with Ottomanism without Turkish nationalism supporting this.” In the end, Ben-'Atar urged Qattan to rethink his opposition and join hands with the Zionists, who will always be “faithful servants to our dear Ottoman
patria
!”
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The Jerusalem writer Yehuda Burla also wrote a response to Qattanʼs piece, saying that Qattan did not realize the harm he was causing the
Jewish people. Because of articles like his, allies in the Ottoman government, like Riza Tevfik Bey, had declared that they realized their mistake in not considering Zionism a political movement. According to Burla, Qattan did not understand that they proposed
national Zionism, not political Zionism (“ha-ziyonut ha-le'umit lo ha-medinit”)
, and because of that distinction, enemies of Zionism did not see the Jewish people's needs clearly. “In short,” Burla wrote, “it will become clear to us how we must be Ottomans, and something more as well.”
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At the core of Ben-ʻAtarʼs and Burla's defense of Zionism was a sense that the cultural and institutional development of the Jewish community, even along Hebraist-Zionist lines, was seen as concurrent with the rights of all Ottomans. Ottoman Zionists were deeply influenced by the other ethnic groups in the empire, and the broader sense of growing rivalry and competition was not far from the surface. For example, after Armenian and Greek students at the prestigious Robert College in Istanbul successfully fought for language courses in their ancestral tongues, Jewish students petitioned to have Hebrew offered as well.
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More significant, while seeking to normalize Jews within the Ottoman Empire, the Sephardi Palestinian press sought equality with the other ethnic groups—legal and representative equality, and even the equal right to ethno-national expression. This “race for national rights” in the empire was a subtext of Zionist work among Ottoman Jews as well.
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Indeed, refusing the Jews the right to express their Zionism was considered unfair if not illegal. As the Hebrew
Liberty
proclaimed: