The transformation of the Jewish community of Izmir, 1847-1918 [electronic resource]
Keywords: History.

Numbering 25,000 by the turn of the twentieth century, Sephardi Jews had enjoyed a continuous presence in Ottoman Izmir for over four hundred years. Unlike other Sephardi communities of the eastern Mediterranean such as those of Istanbul and Salonica, the Jewish community of Izmir was established not in the direct wake of the Expulsion, but a full century later, as new generations of Ottoman Sephardi Jews migrated to the rapidly developing port city to participate in its economic growth. Izmir quickly emerged as a major center of Jewish life, and saw the development of numerous Jewish neighborhoods, schools, and synagogues, active Hebrew and Ladino printing presses, multiple rabbinic dynasties, and an extensive network of charitable associations. Despite its longevity and vibrancy, the Jewish community of late Ottoman Izmir has fallen prey to historiographical preoccupations that have placed it on the margins of both Ottoman and Jewish narratives. Its lackluster socioeconomic profile during the modern period has rendered it of tangential importance in studies on Izmir's ever-expanding commercial prowess during the 19th century. Up until very recently, the Jewish community of Izmir suffered the same neglect as the entire eastern Sephardi diaspora during modern times, as ideologically-driven narratives dismissed this collectivity as a footnote to the "glory" of medieval Sepharad. Izmir's role as the birthplace of Sabbatianism has only exacerbated its presumed marginality in ideological approaches that have charted the inexorable "decline" of the eastern Sephardi world after the early modern age. Despite what the silences in the current literature suggest, this study argues that the case of the Jewish community of Izmir is not only significant, but is of profound relevance in illuminating the complexities of modernity both within the Sephardi context as well as in the wider Jewish world. Drawing on a broad array of primary sources, among them previously unexplored Ladino archival material, it highlights how forces specific to late Ottoman Izmir, such as a rapidly changing urban landscape, pronounced westernization, and a continuous affirmation of communal autonomy, shaped how the city's Jewish community reinvented itself according to the perceived demands of the modern era. Focusing in depth on both social transformations, such as the emergence of new constructions of poverty, charity, and class, as well as transformations in communal self-government, such as the reconfiguration of structures of leadership and taxation, this dissertation seeks to highlight social and economic factors as agents of modern change. More broadly, through its exploration of uninterrupted Ottoman legitimation of Jewish particularism, this study aims to nuance prevailing approaches that interpret the modern Jewish experience largely through the framework of the tension between the "universal" and the "particular." As such, it argues that the case of Izmir is reflective of a distinctive Sephardi encounter with modernity, one primarily molded not by the "Jewish Question, " but rather the "Eastern Question.".