page_title: Socialist Workers' Federation
section_title: The Federation in the Ottoman Empire
hierarchical_section_title: Socialist Workers' Federation / The Federation in the Ottoman Empire
caption_attribution_description: English: Avraham Benaroya circa 1914 in Thessalonica
context_page_description: The Socialist Workers' Federation, was a socialist organisation in the Salonica Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, led by Avraam Benaroya. It was an attempt at union of different nationalities' workers in Salonica within a single labor movement.
context_section_description: Idealistic and pragmatist at the same time, Avraam Benaroya, a Jew from Bulgaria, played a leading role in the creation of the mainly Jewish Fédération Socialiste Ouvrière in Thessaloniki, in May–June 1909. His main associates were militant Sephardic Jews, Alberto Arditti, David Recanati and Joseph Hazan, as well Bulgarians like Angel Tomov and Dimitar Vlahov.
  The organization took this name because, built on the federative model of the Social Democratic Party of Austria, it was conceived as a federation of separate sections, each representing the four main ethnic groups of the city: Jews, Bulgarians, Greeks and Turks. It initially published its literature in the languages of these four groups (i.e. Ladino, Bulgarian, Greek and Turkish, respectively) but in practice the two latter sections were under-represented if not nonexistent. The publication's title was Journal del Labourador (Ladino) - Amele Gazetesi (Ottoman Turkish).
  The democratic Fédération soon became, under Benaroya's leadership, the strongest socialist party in the Ottoman Empire, while the "Ottoman Socialist Party" was essentially an intellectual club, and the other socialist parties were at the same time national parties, like the Istanbul Greek Socialist Center, the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party or the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. It created combative trade unions, attracted important intellectuals and gained a solid base of support among Macedonian workers. By 1910, the Fédération comprised fourteen syndicates, and in 1912 it mobilized about 12,000 workers in various demonstrations. From 1910 to 1911 Benaroya edited its influential newspaper, the Solidaridad Ovradera, printed in Ladino. Fédération cultivated strong links with the Second International and had its own representative, Saul Nahum, in the International Socialist Bureau.
  Unlike other parties which were organised on ethnic lines, as a cross-community group the Fédération was tolerated by the Ottoman authorities. A prominent Bulgarian member, Dimitar Vlahov, was a socialist MP in the new Ottoman parliament, which was dominated by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) party until 1912. Indeed, its leaders initially supported the Young Turks, and Benaroya participated in the "Action Army" march on Istanbul to help put down the Countercoup of 1909. Alarmed by the growing power of socialist groups, the CUP subsequently launched a crackdown, during which Benaroya was jailed.
  In their reference book over the Balkan Jews, Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigues show that the internationalist socialists of the Fédération defended the Ladino language against the Zionists, favouring Hebrew, and the Alliance Israélite Universelle, who favoured French, thus remaining in some way close to the traditional Jewish world, they represented a form of westernization without assimilation.
caption: Avraam Benaroya
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