Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine (77 page)

^83.
Based on those who shared a last name and place of birth; clearly this does not cover matrilineal or marital family ties.

^84.
Who's Who: Alumni Association, AUB, 1870–1923.

^85.
From the files of various Egyptian Masonic lodges we know that there were periodic Masonic assemblies for networking purposes, and Masons who moved or traveled from one locale to another had a ready network awaiting them. See CZA A192/812.

^86.
Chelouche,
Parshat
ayai
, 194.

^87.
Garcea later tried to establish another Masonic lodge in Egypt, passing himself off as a Jew and compromising the daughter of a respectable rabbinical family in the process. Frigere to GODF, February 12, 1917. BNR, RES FM2–142.

^88.
The Barkai lodge secretary in 2000 refused to disclose whether or not the lodge was in possession of archival material from the Ottoman period, but the long-time lodge Venerable Cesar ‘Araktinji reported to the GODF central office after World War I that his home, the former lodge headquarters, had been destroyed during the war. Letter from ‘Araktinji (in Konya) to GODF, January 8, 1919. CDGODF, boxes 1126–27.

^89.
Letter from ‘Araktinji, July 1913. CDGODF, boxes 1126–27.

^90.
January 11, 1910. CDGODF, boxes 1126–27.

^91.
Hafiz Sa'id. ‘Araktinji wrote in a postscript: “We have already written to the Grand Orient Ottoman of all his wretched qualities, especially his election which was by the despotic ways.” Letter from Barkai to GODF, November 8, 1909. CDGODF, boxes 1126–27.

^92.
Letter from ‘Araktinji to GODF, April 7, 1913. CDGODF, boxes 1126–27.

^93.
March 11, 1913. BNR, RES FM2–142.

^94.
April 29, 1913. BNR, RES FM2–142.

^95.
Ibid.

^96.
They were called “foreigners” despite the fact that all of the Jewish members had been born in Ottoman territories (two in Jerusalem, one in Istanbul, and two in Ottoman Sofia). BNR, RES FM2–142.

^97.
'Araktinji to GODF, April 7, 1913. CDGODF, boxes 1126–27.

^98.
GODF to ‘Araktinji, April 24, 1913. CDGODF, boxes 1126–27.

^99.
Although French was the official “liturgical language” of the GODF lodges, Barkai in Jaffa informed Paris headquarters that they were using Arabic for substantive lodge activities, since many members did not know French well enough. A lodge in Egypt
(Les amis du progres
, Mansura) had translated GODF rites into Arabic, and Barkai was using these translations in their work along with a summary in French. Letter from ‘Araktinji to GODF, May 19, 1911. CDGODF, boxes 1126–27.

^100.
'Araktinji to GODF, June 24, 1913. CDGODF, boxes 1126–27. Frigere was an employee of the Ottoman Imperial Bank, which was partly French-owned. ‘Araktinji seems to have assumed that the GODF Paris headquarters could intervene with the central bank administration to have Frigere transferred.

^101.
Frigere to GODF, June 27, 1913. BNR, RES FM2–142. This letter quoted in Sabah, “La loge Moriah,” 70–74.

^102.
Ibid.

^103.
'Araktinji to GODF, July 24, 1914. CDGODF, boxes 1126–27.

^104.
Ibid.

^105.
Sabah, “La loge Moriah.”

^106.
According to Moriah, “this [concessionary society], which appears at first to be commercial, is on the contrary a primarily secular work and we greatly await it. It should be known indeed that the secular French population is excessively restricted in Jerusalem,” most of them being Freemasons. “The
rest of the population is composed of religious of all orders.” Moriah to GODF, October 2, 1913. BNR, RES FM2–142. In 1912 Henry Frigere had written to the French government proposing the establishment of a French concessionary society along the model of the Société commerciale de Palestine, established by Jerusalem's notables of all three religions. See Frigere letter of May 17, 1912. BNR, RES FM2–142.

^107.
In the study submitted by Moriah lodge member Nissim Farhi (director of the AIU primary school in Jerusalem), there were twenty schools from six religions or denominations and five different nationalities serving ten thousand children in Jerusalem. June 19, 1913. BNR, RES FM2–142. A report in
El Liberal
claimed there were seventy-three schools in Jerusalem, no doubt including in their count the many traditional religious schools.
El Liberal
, April 23, 1909.

^108.
Quoted in Sabah, “La loge Moriah.”

^109.
October 18, 1913. BNR, RES FM2–142.

^110.
February 10, 1914. BNR, RES FM2–142. On the Alexandrian Masons, see the file CZA, A192/812. See also CZA, A192/816, in particular the November 1910 meeting of the L'Assemblee maçonique de la neutralite scolaire et des etudes laiques. In Lebanon the Freemasons of Le Liban lodge argued that confessional education promoted the “division of the country, intolerance, and the perpetuation of religious hatred.”

^111.
Moriah to GODF, May 25, 1914. BNR, RES FM2–142.

^112.
GODF to Frigere, June 11, 1914. BNR, RES FM2–142. This statement was crossed out in the original letter, perhaps considered too brash or stating the obvious.

^113.
See David Tidhar,
Barkai
; and Tidhar,
Sefer he-abim.

Chapter Six: Ottomans of the Mosaic Faith

An earlier version of Chapter Six was published as “Between ‘Beloved Ottomania' and ‘The Land of Israel': The Struggle over Ottomanism and Zionism Among Palestine's Sephardi Jews, 1908–13,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies
, 37, no. 4 (November 2005): 461–83. Copyright Cambridge University Press. Reprinted with permission.

^1.
La Tribuna Libera
, November 11, 1910; and November 25, 1910. The newspaper published the various responses it received from Jewish leaders and laymen alike over the next several months. The initial poll was republished in
Ha-
erut
, December 2, 1910.

^2.
See Benbassa, “Zionism and Local Politics”; Rodrigue,
French Jews, Turkish Jews
; and Stein,
Making Jews Modern.

^3.
Much of the scholarship of Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewry has been nationalized and mobilized for the Zionist movement and sees Middle Eastern Jews as “strangers” in their countries of origin. See Stillman,
Sephardi Responses to Modernity
; and Betzalel, “Prolegomena to Sephardi and Oriental Zionism”; see also Benbassa's sharp critique in the same issue.

^4.
For example, see
Ha-
erut
, August 19, 1910.

^5.
Kayali, “Jewish Representation in the Ottoman Parliaments,” 511.

^6.
For an account of the reaction of the Jews in Istanbul, see Benbassa, “Les ‘Jeunes Turcs' et les Juifs.”

^7.
In the 1905 Ottoman census in Jerusalem, 5,500 Ashkenazi Jews were counted as Ottoman nationals (41 percent of the 13,687 Ottoman Jews of Jerusalem). Schmelz, “Population of Jerusalem's Urban Neighborhoods.”

^8.
Frumkin,
Derekh shofet bi-Yerushalayim
, 146. See also
Ha-Po'el ha-
a'ir
, July-August 1908.

^9.
Ha-‘Olam, September 4, 1909;
Ha-Hashkafa
, August 9, 1908.

^10.
CAHJP, IL/Sa/IX/14.

^11.
Ha-Po'el ha-
a'ir
, July-August 1908.

^12.
Antébi to Henri Franck, September 28, 1908. AAIU IX.E.25.

^13.
CZA, A412/41.

^14.
Ha-
erut
, May 21, 1909. The journalist reporting on the society complained that its protocols were kept in Arabic.