From Crimea to Istanbul
Journal: Princeton University Press eBooks
Year: 2020

This chapter addresses how some of the Jewish captives were bought by professional slave merchants for resale elsewhere—most commonly Istanbul or Iran. With Jews so deeply engaged in the slave trade, it is surprising that so few of the Jewish captives from Ukraine following 1648 were actually ransomed in Crimea. It is impossible to determine why the local Jews and Karaites did not do more to help, but perhaps the huge number of captives overwhelmed them. They may have thought it better for the J