English report of the Expulsion from Spain, 1689

The English is a bit tortuous, but I think historians tend to accept that Jews went to Italy before settling in Islamic territories. I suppose, if nothing else, there wouldn't have been transport from Spain to their mortal enemies.

It is a matter of little moment to know whether the Jews that departed from Spain and Portugal retired amongst the Moors or elsewhere, since it is without doubt, that there are at this day Jews of the Spanish Rite in the Levant, who beside that of the Places where they reside, have still preserved their ancient Spanish Tongue. This is the ground of the present Dispute: and by this it is made appear, that it is not impossible that the Jews should retain their ancient Language where there is another that is vulgarly spoken. We see moreover, that the Portugal Jews of the Spanish Rite, who are settled at Amsterdam, do keep the Portugal, with the Language of the Country; and that their Rabbins do also preach in Portugaise in their Synagogue.

Furthermore, it is not true that all the Jews that were driven out of Spain and Portugal took refuge among the Moors: there were many that withdrew themselves into Italy, from whence some passed afterwards into the Levant. However it were, it is certain that there is at this day, in the Turkish Territories, a considerable number of Jews, who follow the Spanish Rite; and besides that of the Places where they remain, do speak their ancient Spanish Language. I believe also, that a Party of these Jews was in those Countries before those of their Nation were expelled out of Spain and Portugal.

Richard Simon (oratorien). Critical History of the Versions of the New Testament. 1689.

Jews of Constantinople, 1784

The report below suggests that in 1784 Jews lived better in Constantinople than London. If so, it was probably the end of the era. Between the usual anti-Semitic nonsense it shows the Jews' role as (essentially powerless) middlemen.

The Jews wear drawers and slippers of a sky-blue colour, their turban is totally different from the Christians, and they have two bunches of hair hanging down by the sides of their ears. These people are very fond of appearing what they are, lest they should be mistaken for Christians. But there are some privileged persons, both Greeks and Jews, who are allowed to wear yellow slippers, and scarlet drawers, the fame as the Mussulmen; but these are the dragomen to ambassadors, and the Metzellemins, who pay no annual tribute.
…
The Jews come next under our consideration. Their number in and about Constantinople is astonishing; they reckon 40,000 families, which, upon a moderate computation, makes 200,000 persons. They are subject to a kind of aristocratical government among themselves. They have a class of men whom they call Cajams [Haham?], they are doctors of their law, and to them they submit the decision of all common causes which occasion any differences between them ; and it seldom or ever happens that they appeal from the sentences of those judges to the Turkish tribunals. They possess great riches, and live as much, if not more at their ease, than their brethren at London ; for the Turks esteem them far beyond Christians. They carry on every branch of art and commerce, from which they acquire their opulence.

There is not a Turkish house at Constantinople of any note, but what has Jews familiar in the family. One may judge from this of the number and quality of their protectors; a circumstance which makes them haughty and insolent to the Greeks and other Christians. All the under-officers of the custom-house are Jews, who make very considerable gains. The factor to the Agha of the Janissaries is a Jew, and perhaps the most considerable in the city. Though they are held in slavery, not being suffered to purchase lands, they have a strong tincture of ambition, and love to lord it over their inferiors, by the strength of their riches. A prodigious number, as in other capital cities, follow the profitable business of exchange-brokers, money-scriveners, and dealers in jewels. Their intercourse with the Turks of rank gives them a knowledge of their private circumstances, and of their secrets; a science which they turn to very good account as pimps and spies. A foreign ambassador may know more of the state of the Turkish cabinet by gratifying the avarice of a Jew, that being his ruling passion, than from any other quarter whatever.

Source: Elias Habesci. The present state of the Ottoman empire. 1784.

British cloth trade with Turkey, 1753

The piece below shows the mistrust the Christian English merchants had for the their Jewish opposite numbers. My impression is that the underlying fear is that the Jewish merchants in London and those in Constantinople would cooperate to squeeze out the Christians.

I don't know about the claim that the Jews might supply French rather than English cloth to the Turks. The English merchants fancifully suggest that the Jews might actually replace the French as competitors of the English. They are at pains to say that being of a different religion should not be a bar to doing business, but this is hardly surprising if they are planning to trade with Muslim Turks through the agency of Sephardic Jews and Armenian Christians.

The JEWS now desired to be admitted into a share of the trade, and the demand of the generality of the people was for an open commerce, or a limitation of the charter granted to the TURKEY company: the JEWS were strongly objected to, particularly by those members of the company who had most experience in the trade. The consideration of difference in religion among people subject to one common government, does not seem essential in commercial affairs, nor is it regarded much in our EUROPEAN trade; but the great influence they are supposed to have in ASIA, created an insuperable difficulty to their admittance. It seemed natural to believe, that by admitting no other JEWS than those of LONDON, and placing these under the fame common restrictions as other subjects, .that they would employ their power in favour of this nation, under whose government they are happy. It appeared however on this occasion, as if they were doomed to be excluded on account of their religion, at least it seemed a hard supposition, that EUROPEAN JEWS mould be at the bottom of all schemes against EUROPEAN trade with ASIA, as was then alledged. It was further objected, that the JEWS in CONSTANTINOPLE would promote a monopoly of the TURKEY commodities with the JEWS in ENGLAND, to the prejudice of the other subjects of this nation, and that the JEWISH factors abroad would underwork the CHRISTIANS: it was also urged, that the influence of the JEWS, arising from their great riches, would have too great a weight in the commercial scale. But was not this an acknowledgment that they were bold traders, possessed of large capitals, and would be contented with small profits? if it was, and that the trade was really in danger of being loft to this nation, were not these the very people who bid fairest to rival the FRENCH? There was yet a further objection, that they might go to market to MARSEILLES for their cloths, and only bring their silk here: even this might be preferable to the loss of the trade, for all commodities which we manufacture at home, are certainly great national benefits: but it was reasonable to imagine, that the JEWS under the protection of the BRITISH crown, might be restrained to a subjection to BRITISH laws, as well in commerce as in civil society in general.

It was however allowed, that the JEWS who reside in TURKEY are, for the most part, an immoral people, and have by a kind of confederacy established an exorbitant brokerage of i or more per cent. as it were by inheritance; and this reason, joined to others of the like nature, induced the FRENCH to stipulate with the TURKS, that they might not be obliged to employ JEWS. The debate, which at this time ran high, was at length reduced to this issue, viz. whether the liberty of trading to TURKEY should be granted to all his majesty's subjects, or to all his christian subjects only; and whether it should be made an open trade, or continue exclusive under the restrictions the legislature might judge necessary. Upon this occasion the following bill for enlarging and regulating the trade to the LEVANT seas was proposed to the parliament.

Source: Jonas Hanway. An historical account of the British trade over the Caspian sea. 1753.

Agrinio, Arta and Patras on the Ionian coast, 1816

More now-forgotten Jewish communities on the west coast of Greece.

Janina, 6th of Alonari, (July) 1816.

Vrachori [Agrinio], the residence of Elmas the governor, and the modern capital of Ætolia or Carleli, is said to have been founded and reared by Jews driven from Lepanto and other places in that quarter; but this is probably an error, for the Jews always take up their abode in towns already established, and are never known to form new colonies. The town, nevertheless, contains 120 persons, of the Hebrew nation, authorised to have a synagogue. Three churches, and as many mosques appropriated to the use of 600 families, Christian and Mahametan. The Turks live on the revenue of their military lands and pensions; the Greeks are wholly engaged in agriculture, so that the trade in silk, the only proper business of Vrachori, is altogether in the hands of the Jews. The bazars presented but a few poorly furnished shops; and on the river Thermissus, which passes a mile east from the town, are established tanneries for the manufacture of red and yellow morocco-leather.

…

The extinction of the Jews of Patras is chiefly ascribed to the brutal treatment they received from the Turks during the dreadful pestilence of 1756, when they were forced into a walled inclosure, and there they perished by contagion and famine; war in such a condition would have been welcomed as a mercy.

…

The town [Arta, Greece] contains also the residence of the archbishop, with twenty-six Greek churches, seven synagogues, and five mosques; circumstances announcing a place of no small extent and population. Still, the inhabitants did not exceed 7000 Greeks, 1000 Jews, originally from the south of Italy, and 800 Mahometans, up to the breaking out of the pestilence of 1816.

François Charles Hugues Laurent Pouqueville. Travels in southern Epirus, Acarnania, Ætolia, Attica, and Peloponesus. 1816. Page 40.

Patras and the Albanian trade, 1813

At various points Patras, situated on the northern Peloponnese on the Gulf of Corinth was ruled by the Genoese and Venetians. Apart from 1687–1715, when the Venetians re-established themselves, this area was ruled by the Turks and their vassals. Possibly the Jews arrived during the Venetian rule and remained.

"Patras is governed by a bey, subject to the pasha of the Morea; the town contains a great number of Jews, who are the principal commercial agents; almost all business in this way passes through their hands. France names a commercial agent who receives no salary, but all ships of the country which stop here make him some present; they also pay an anchorage, though it cannot be exacted. The drogmans are all Jews, who eagerly seek after an office which they know very well how to turn to a good account. To judge by one of these good people, by name Solomon, they do no great honour to the languages they pretend to speak: the French, as he called it, which he spoke was a terrible mix of the Provençal and Barbary languages, pronounced with so strange and discordant an accent, that it was no very easy matter to comprehend what he meant to say."

Pouqueville comments that French trade has done very well in Albania over the preceding ten years. The merchants of Ancona and Sinigaglia pass their shoddy products off as French. While the locals still prefer Venetian-supplied muskets from Brescia to the French product, the Jews can’t compete with the French. I suspect the situation changed within the year once formerly embargoed British products entered the market.

François Charles Hugues Laurent Pouqueville. Travels in the Morea, Albania, and other parts of the Ottoman empire. 1813

Coffee arrives in England from Turkey, 1651

Coffee was introduced into England from Turkey in 1651 by "Jacob", a Jew who presumably had contacts or experience of the Ottoman Empire. He started trading in Oxford, then moved to Southampton Buildings in Holborn in London. That area is overwhelmed by coffee shops today, but not sure what Jacob would think about the quality.

"It has been held by many respectable authorities, that coffee was first brought to England in 1652 by Mr. Edwards, a member of the Turkey Company, and that his servant was the first who opened a house for publicly vending it as a drink; but it appears from the following extracts from the Life of Wood, the antiquarian, that a coffee-house had been opened at Oxford a year or two sooner. “In 1651 one Jacob, a Jew, opened a coffee-house at the Angel, in the parish of St. Peter, in the East Oxon, and there it was, by some who delighted in noveltie, drunk. When he left Oxon, he sold it in Old Southampton Buildings, in Holborne, neare London, and was living there in 1671.”

William Milburn. Oriental commerce, Vol 2. 1813. Page 530.

Jewish Population of the Ottoman Empire, 1819

Extract from a letter dated Constantinople, October 26, 1819. It gives estimates for main Jewish population centres in the Ottoman Empire.

"The Jews of Constantinople, and indeed most of the cities in Turkey, are Spanish Jews; and to the present day speak a language which with great propriety may be denominated the Jewish Spanish. I formerly entertained an idea, that perhaps they had adopted the Turkish as the language of their families, and of their written intercourse with each other: this however is not the case, for in every quarter of Asiatic and European Turkey, where the Spanish Jews are to be found, the Jewish Spanish is the language of their family circles and of their written correspondence. This language of their’s is said to be spoken and written with the greatest purity in Salonica, (the ancient Thessalonica,) where their numbers amount to about 10,000 souls. Their numbers in and about Constantinople are very considerable, but cannot be exactly ascertained, from causes over which a traveller has no controul (sic). However, I have heard some of the most intelligent Jews here estimate them at between 60 and 70,000 souls. They reckon about 8000 more in Smyrna [Izmir], 4000 in Adrianople [Edirne], 3000 in Gallipoli, 3000 in Brusa [Bursa], 7000 in Jenichere [?], 100 families at the Dardanelles, and so further in other towns of minor note throughout Turkey."

Source: American Bible Society, Annual report of the American Bible Society. 1821. Page 182.

Spanish Jews of Constantinople, 1833

This missionary report claimed that Constantinople had the largest Jewish population of any city in the world in 1833. I suspect this is incorrect.

"The Jews at Constantinople [Istanbul] are variously estimated at from 40,000 to 80,000. The number is uncertain, but it is believed that more Jews are collected there than at any other place of their dispersion. … Having come originally from Spain on the expulsion of the Jews from that country, their language is corrupted Spanish which is written in the Spanish Rabbinical letter; differing from the German Rabbinic and still more from the Hebrew letter. Their language contains a mixture of Spanish and Hebrew words. …
…
The Jewish boys attend school for several years, but not the girls. Instances where males cannot read are rare, as rare is to find a female reader."

Source: William G. Schauffler, Missionary. Mission to the Jews of Turkey. Annual report - American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions: Volumes 24-26. 1833. Page 45

Sephardim in Hungarian territory, 1840

I never realised that Sephardim had migrated so far north, to the edge of central Europe. The towns mentioned in Miss Pardoe's book are today in Serbia, but were formerly in the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It had been Ottoman territory for around 150 years until 1699. I have no idea when the Sephardim arrived. In 1840 Miss Pardoe reported that Hungarian Jews were tolerated rather than emancipated. Some of the wealthier had converted to Catholicism and joined the Hungarian aristocracy.

"At Semlin [Zemun in Serbia?] and Pancsova [Pančevo in Serbia] many Spanish and Portuguese Jews still reside descendants of those who were compelled to exile themselves during the persecutions of Torquemada.

These people retain their original language, like their brethren at Constantinople, of whom I have spoken in a previous work [The City of the Sultan, vol. iii. (2nd edition.)], and who fled at the same time from the same evil."

Source: Julia Pardoe. The City of the Magyar, or Hungary and her Institutions in 1839-40: Volume 3. Page 300.

Jews in the Ionian Free States, 1850s

The Ionian Islands had been a Venetian outpost for almost five hundred years. They fell to France when Napoleon occupied Venice in 1797. They were briefly occupied by the Russians before being returned to France in 1807. The British took the islands in 1809. Once Greece became independent in 1830 the Greek islanders wanted to join that country, which did not actually happen until 1862.

The report below is from the last days of British rule. No longer on one of the world’s major trade routes, between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, bullied by the majority Greek population and perhaps aware the British are leaving, the small Jewish community was in a sorry state.

Mr. Chazan spoke of the very sad condition of the Jews in the Ionian Free States. There were four thousand of them in Corfu, and two thousand in the Island of Zante. Most of them are engaged in trade; only a few support themselves as mechanics. Scarcely any of them are in comfortable circumstances, and notwithstanding the proud title, Ionian Free States, and the Protectorate of England, they neither enjoy liberty not are they free from oppression.

Jewish children are mocked at in the schools, girls altogether excluded. The Jews of Zante had just drawn up a representation to the Government, begging that their deplorable social condition might be ameliorated.
…

“Better a learned heather than a high priest who is an idiot,” quoted Mr. Chazan, from the Talmud.

Source: The Jews of the East, written by Dr. Ludwig August Frankl, an Austrian doctor, and translated by Rev. P. Beaton in 1859