Armenian Atrocities in Eastern Anatolia

Source: Stanford J. Shaw, on Armenian collaboration with invading Russian armies in 1914, "History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (Volume II: Reform, Revolution & Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808-1975)." (London, Cambridge University Press 1977). pp. 315-316:

"With the Russian invasion of eastern Anatolia in 1914 at the beginning of World War I, the degree of Armenian collaboration with the Ottoman's enemy increased drastically. Ottoman supply lines were cut by guerilla attacks, Armenian revolutionaries armed Armenian civil populations, who in turn massacred the Muslim population of the province of Van in anticipation of expected arrival of the invading Russian armies... In April 1915 Dashnaks from Russian Armenia organized a revolt in the city of Van, whose 33,789 Armenians comprised 42.3 percent of the population, closest to an Armenian majority of any city in the Empire... Leaving Erivan on April 28, 1915, Armenian volunteers reached Van on May 14 and organized and carried out a general slaughter of the local Muslim population during the next two days while the small Ottoman garrison had to retreat to the southern side of the lake."

Source: Hassan Arfa, "The Kurds," (London, 1968), pp. 25-26:

"When the Russian armies invaded Turkey after the Sarikamish disaster of 1914, their columns were preceded by battalions of irregular Armenian volunteers, both from the Caucasus and from Turkey. One of these was commanded by a certain Andranik, a blood-thirsty adventurer.. These Armenian volunteers committed all kinds of excesses, more than six hundred thousand Kurds being killed between 1915 and 1916 in the eastern vilayets of Turkey."

Source: Justin McCarthy and Carolyn McCarthy, Turks and Armenians, Washington DC, 1989:

Page 49:

"Armenian revolutionaries had secreted arms in the City of Van and surrounding villages. Throughout April 1915, Armenian rebels infiltrated the city, which was policed only by small detachments of security forces. Clashes with Ottoman police in the city began on April 13. By April 20, the rebels had begun to fire on police stations, other government buildings, and Muslim houses. The security forces were defeated and forced to withdraw from the city in the first part of May. During and immediately after the Armenian takeover the Muslims who could not escape the city were killed, as were the Muslim inhabitants of surrounding villages which came under Armenian control. In one incident, Muslims from villages to the North of Van were herded into the village of Zeve, where all but a few of the approximately 3000 Muslim villagers were killed. Similar incidents took place throughout the region. In Van itself, the entire Muslim quarter of the city was destroyed. No Muslims were left alive in the city. Refugees were set upon the roads by Armenian guerrillas, who killed untold numbers."

Page 50:

"The terror of Van was repeated in other cities as the Russians and Armenians advanced. In Bitlis and other cities Muslim men, women, and children were hunted down and murdered in the streets. Villagers fled before the advancing armies to be massacred on the roads by Armenian guerrilla units."

Source: Justin McCarthy, Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, The Darwin Press, 2nd Printing, 1996, pp. 186-187:

"Armenian plans to take eastern cities were brought into force once the war began. For the sake of understanding the chronology of massacre and counter massacre in the region, it should be understood that these and other revolutionary activities took place well before any orders for deportation of Armenians were given. The revolts or attacks on Ottoman forces in Van, Zeytun, Muş, Reşadiye, Gevaş, and other cities and towns all began before the Ottoman order of deportation  (26 May 1915). By May of 1915, eastern Anatolia was already in the midst of a civil war."

Source: John Dewey, "The Turkish Tragedy", The New Republic, Volume 40, November 12, 1928, pp. 268-269:

"Few Americans who mourn... the miseries of the Armenians, are aware that till the rise of nationalistic ambitions, beginning with the 'seventies, the Armenians were the favored portion of the population of Turkey, or that in the Great War, they traitorously turned Turkish cities over to the Russian invader; that they boasted of having raised an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men to fight a civil war, and that they burned at least a hundred Turkish villages and exterminated their population."

Source: Justin McCarthy, Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, The Darwin Press, 2nd Printing, 1996, pp. 196-197:

"The worst Armenian massacres of Muslims and destruction of Muslim villages took place in two periods at the beginning and end of the First World War. The first period began with the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the war and the beginnings of organized Armenian rebellion against the Ottomans. It ended with the Russian conquest of eastern Anatolia in 1916. The second period began as the Russian army dissolved or retreated from eastern Anatolia and ended with the defeat of the Armenian armed forces who had taken the Russians' place in the field. For the middle period of the war, the years of Russian occupation of eastern Anatolia, from the middle of 1916 to the middle of 1917, there is very little evidence of any kind. No Ottoman investigation committees such as the ones that investigated the early atrocities were present to record the events of the Russian occupation. Scattered reports indicate that major massacres of Muslims took place, particularly in Van and Bitlis vilâyets [75]. From the large number of Muslim refugees, it is obvious that conditions were awful, but not as bad as they would become after the Russian army collapsed in 1917. The Russian Revolution brought with it the wholesale desertion of Russian soldiers on the Anatolian front. Enlisted men and some officers simply left their units and walked home, stealing their sustenance (and anything else that was available) from villages as they passed. Russian authority in eastern Anatolia was replaced by the authority of Armenian soldiers and Armenian bands, at first nominally under the control of the Transcaucasian Federation, then as troops of the Armenian Republic. The area they ruled in Anatolia stretched from Erzincan in the east to the Persian border and north to Trabzon and the border of Russian Armenia. Muslim villagers suffered from the depredations of the deserting Russian soldiers, but they suffered far worse from the Armenians who were left in charge. After the Russians departed, nothing held the Armenians in check. The events of the first period of the short Armenian rule were of a type seen all too often in that time -- murder of unarmed Muslim villagers, kidnapping of villagers, who were never seen again, destruction of Muslim markets, neighborhoods, and villages, and ubiquitous plundering and rape."

[75] A postwar British source stated that Armenians "massacred between three and four hundred thousand Kurdish people in the Van and Bitlis Districts," mostly the work of  Armenians in the Russian Army ("Interview of Col. Wooley of the British Army, 12 September 1919," in U.S. 184.021/265). On atrocities against Muslims in the Erzurum Vilayeti during the Russian occupation, see Vehip to Acting Supreme Commander, 21 March 1916, Belgeler III, no. 169.

Other relevant quotes from the web:

Source: General Bronsart wrote as follows in an article in the July 24, 1921 issue of the newspaper "Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung:"

"As demonstrated by the innumerable declarations, provocative pamphlets, weapons, ammunition, explosives, etc., found in areas inhabited by the Armenians, the rebellion had been prepared over a long time, organized, strengthened and financed by Russia. Since all the Moslems capable of bearing arms were in the Turkish Army, it was easy to organize a terrible massacre by the Armenians against defenseless people, because the Armenians were not only attacking the sides and rear of the Eastern Army paralyzed at the front by the Russians, but were attacking the Moslem folk in the region as well. The Armenian atrocities which I have witnessed were far worse than the so-called Turkish brutality."

Source: Prof. Justin Mc Carthy, "The Anatolian Armanians 1912-1922", 1984.

"To understand the end of the Armenian presence in Anatolia one must remember that the Armenian disaster came in time of war -- World War I and the Turkish War of Independence.The numbers used by demographers are of limited use in describing war. They will not tell us who fired the first shot, nor label those responsible for the bloodshed.They only count the dead.We now know from reliable statistics that slightly less than 600,000 Anatolian Armenians died in the wars of 1912-22, not 1.5 or 2 million, as is often claimed. Not that 600,000 is a small number. The Armenians suffered a terrible mortality. But when considering the number of dead Armenians, one must also consider the numbers of dead Muslims. The statistics tell us that ...in the Six Vilayets, the Armenian homeland, more than one million Muslims died. These Muslims, no less than the Armenians, suffered a terrible mortality."

The Armenian Problem: Events Before 1915

The Armenians broke away from the Byzantine church in 451,150 years after they accepted Christianity, leading to long centuries of Armenian-Byzantine clashes which went on until the Turks settled in Anatolia starting in the late 11th century, with the Byzantines working to wipe out the Armenians and eliminate the Armenian principalities in order to maintain Greek Orthodoxy throughout their dominions. Contemporary Armenian historians report in great detail how the Byzantines deported Armenians as well as using them against enemy forces in the vanguard of the Byzantine armies. As a result of this, when the Seljuk Turks started flooding into Anatolia starting in the late 11th century, they did not encounter any Armenian principalities; the only force remaining to resist them was that of Byzantium. The Seljuk ruler Alparslan captured the lands of the Armenian Principality of Ani in 1064, but it had previously been brought to an end by the Byzantine in 1045, nineteen years earlier, with Greeks being brought in to replace the Armenians who had been deported.

Contemporary Armenian historians interpret this Turkish conquest of Anatolia to have constituted their liberation from the long centuries of Byzantine misrule and oppression. The Armenian historian Asoghik thus reports that "Because of the Armenians' enmity toward Byzantium, they welcomed the Turkish entry into Anatolia and even helped them." The Armenian historian Mathias of Edessa likewise relates that the Armenians rejoiced and celebrated publicly when the Turks conquered his city, Edessa (today's Urfa).

When eastern Anatolia was conquered by Fatih Mehmet II and Yavuz Sultan Selim I, it was taken from the White Sheep Turkomans and from the Safavids of Iran, who had occupied it after the Byzantines had retired; while Yavuz Selim took Cilicia from the Mamluks. In no case, therefore, did the Ottoman Turks conquer or occupy an existing Armenian state or principality. In every case, these Armenians had previously been conquered by peoples other than the Turks.

Source: ARMENIAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, Center for Strategic Research, Ankara, 2007

https://www.1915.gov.tr/images/uploads/documents/Ermeni_ingilizce_Soru_CevapKitapcigi.pdf


Prof. McCarthy:

"Under the Seljuk Turks and later the Ottomans, the Armenians lived as a Christian religious group whose separate existence was guaranteed by the rules of Islam. Armenian dedication to their religion, their geographic situation in Eastern Anatolia, and Ottoman religious toleration guaranteed their continuation as a people." (p.7)

"The claim of Armenian nationalists to a homeland in Eastern Anatolia would be considerably bolstered if there had been an Armenian majority, or even an Armenian plurality, in the East. Such was not the case." (p. 9)

"By the 1700s, there was no large area in which Armenians made up enough of the population to be the majority in an Armenian state. No province of the Ottoman, Persian, or Russian Empires had enough Armenians to make up an Armenia. For example, even much later, in the late 1800s, after Armenians migrated and concentrated their population, in no province of the Ottoman Empire was more than one-third of the population Armenian. The majority were in fact Muslims -Turks, Kurds, and many other ethnic groups who identified themselves primarily by religion, as Muslims, just as Armenians identified themselves religiously as Armenians." (p. 11)

"The rebellions of 1894-6 have often been cited as "Armenian Massacres," or the slaughter of innocent Armenians by Turks. Leaving aside the fact that such judgements  ignore the murder of Turks and Kurds, there is a matter of common sense to consider. Because some wish to never admit that Armenians had a part in the creation of their own history of suffering, they are forced to ignore all Armenian actions against Turks. This leaves them with some difficult explanations. Why would the Turks, who had lived in relative peace with the Armenians for centuries, suddenly start to attack them? Is it just an incredible coincidence that the trouble in the East began as soon as Armenian revolutionaries began to organize there?  Apologists for the Armenian Cause have resorted to the Devil Theory of History to explain what they allege were Turkish actions - a dormant evil tendency in the Turks awakened, stimulated by evil politicians. Such explanations can only seem believable if at least half the facts are ignored and one is willing to accept the absurdities of the Devil Theory. The antidote to this type of history is common sense."

Source: Justin McCarthy and Carolyn McCarthy, Turks and Armenians, Washington DC, 1989.

"In life, questions outnumber answers. Case in point: If they (The Turks) are bloodthirsty savages, why did they wait for 600 years to slaughter us?" 

Ara Baliozian (Armenian author, translator, and critic).

On Scholars/Historians Bullied by Armenian Nationalists

"Nationalist apologists first decide that the Turks are guilty, then look for evidence that will show they are correct. They are like a man in a closed room fighting against a stronger enemy. As the enemy advances the man picks up a book, a lamp, an ashtray, a chair-whatever he can find- and throws it in the vain hope of stopping the enemy's advance. But the enemy continues on. Eventually the man runs out of things to throw, and he is beaten. The enemy of the nationalist apologists is the truth.

They have thrown false telegrams, spurious statistics, sham courts, and anything else they could find, but the truth has advanced.

Some tactics have been all too successful in reducing the number of scholars who study the Armenian Question. When the fabrications and distortions failed, there were outright threats. When the historians could not be convinced, the next best thing was to silence them. One professor's house was bombed. Other's were threatened with similar violence.

Campaigns were organized to silence historians. One professor was mercilessly attacked in the press because he advised the Turkish ambassador on responding to questions about the Ottoman Armenians. It is worth nothing that no one questioned the probity of the American Armenian scholar who became the chief advisor of the president of the Armenian Republic or doubted the veracity of the American Armenian professor whose son became the Armenian Foreign Minister. No one questioned the objectivity of these scholars or attacked them, nor should they. The only proper question is, "What is the truth?" No matter who pays the bills, no matter the nationality of the author, no matter if he writes to ambassadors, no matter his religion, his voting record, his credit status, or his personal life, his views on history should be closely analyzed and, if true, accepted. The only question is the truth.

Such attacks have had their intended effect. Fewer and fewer historians are willing to write on this history. A very senior and respected scholar of Ottoman history, Bernand Lewis was brought to court in France for his denial of the Armenian genocide. After a long and successful career. Professor Lewis could afford to confront those who accused him. He also could afford to hire the lawyers who defended him. Could a junior scholar afford to do the same? Could someone who depended on university rectors, who worry about funding, afford to take up such a dangerous topic? Could someone without Professor Lewis's financial resources afford the lawyers who defended both his free speech and his good name?

I myself was the target of a campaign, instigated by an Armenian newspaper, that attempted to have me fired from my university. Letters and telephone calls from all over the United States come to the president of my university, demanding my dismissal because I denied the "Armenian Genocide". We have the tenure system in the United States, a system that guarantees that senior professors cannot be fired for what they teach and write, and my university president defended my rights. But a younger professor might understandably be afraid to write on Armenians if he knew he faced the sort of ordeal that has been faced by others.

To me, the worst of all is being accused of being the kind of politicized nationalist scholar I so detest. False reasons are invented to explain why I say what I say. My mother is a Turk, my wife is a Turk, I am paid large sums by the Turkish Government. None of these things is true, but it would not affect my writings one bit if they were. The way to challenge a scholar's work is to read his writings and respond to them with your scholarship, not to attack his character.

When, despite the best efforts of the nationalist apologists, some still speak out against the distortion of history, the final answer is political: Politicians are enlisted to rewrite history. Parliaments are enlisted to convince their people that there was a genocide. In America, the Armenian nationalists lobby a Congress which refuses to even consider an apology for slavery to demand an apology from Turks for something the Turks did not do. In France, the Armenian nationalists lobby a Parliament which will not address the horrors perpetrated by the French in Algeria, which they know well took place, to declare there were horrors in Turkey, about which they know almost nothing. The people of many nations are then told that the genocide must have taken place, because their representatives have recognized it.

The Turks are accused of Genocide, but what does that appalling word mean? The most quoted definition is that of the United Nations: actions "committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such." Raphael Lemkin, who invented the word genocide, included cultural, social, economic, and political destruction of groups as genocide. Leo Kuper included as genocide attacks on sub-groups that are not ethnic, such as economic classes, collective groups, and various social categories. By these standards, Turks were indeed guilty of genocide. So were Armenians, Russians, Greeks, Americans, British, and almost every people that has ever existed. In World War I in Anatolia there were many such "genocides". So many groups attacked other groups that the use of the word genocide is meaningless."

Source: Presentation by Prof. Justin McCarthy at the Seminar on Turkish-Armenian Relations organized by the Democratic Principles Association on March 15, 2001

Genocides in Southeastern Europe

Source: Professor Stanford J. Shaw, 'The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic,' New York University Press, New York (1991).

Page 187:

"...the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire which had been going on for a century was disastrous for Ottoman Jewry. This was the age of nationalism among the Christian subjects of the Sultan, starting with the Greek Revolution early in the nineteenth century, which, based on the Megali Idea, or Great Idea, sought to add to Greek kingdom Istanbul and large portions of Anatolia, union of which with Greece was felt to be the 'dream and hope of all'. The success of the Greek national movement, provided more in fact by the intervention of the Great Powers than by the efforts of the Greeks themselves, stimulated similar uprisings among the other subjects in Southeastern Europe who had long been oppressed, not so much by the Ottomans but, rather, by the Greek religious hierarchy which dominated the Orthodox millet, leading first to pressure for religious independence, granted to the Bulgarian Orthodox Exarchate in 1870, to the Serbian Church in 1879, and to the Rumanian Church in 1885, with subsequent aspirations for, and achievement of, political independence following..."

 Page 188:

 "...They [new nationalist leaders] were greatly assisted in their campaigns against the Ottomans both by the diplomatic and consular representatives of the major Powers of Europe and also by Christian missionaries, who emphasized feelings of Christian superiority and hatred for Muslims and Jews which fortified the religious as well as ethnic bases of their pursuit of independence.

Christian nationalism, based as much on religious as on ethnic identity, soon resurrected the medieval bigotries which had devastated both Jews and Muslims and consequently had driven them together in the past. Vicious anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic movements developed, involving large-scale persecutions and massacres carried out by invading armies, by the independent states that resulted, also by Christian subjects who remained within the Empire, particularly because of Jewish and Muslim support for Ottoman integrity in fear of their fate in the emergent nationalist states of Southeastern Europe. The results were explosive and damaging.

The invading armies of Russia and Austria as well as the revolting nationalists and, later, successfully established independent Christian states, committed systematic genocide against Jews and Muslims throughout the nineteenth century, despite Great Power admonitions to the contrary in the treaties of Paris (1858) and Berlin (1878),..."

Page 188:

"...As the peoples of Southeastern Europe achieved their independence, their Muslim and Jewish minorities were systematically persecuted and massacred, and those who survived were driven beyond the ever- shrinking boundaries of the retreating Ottoman Empire in a kind of slaughter which had not been seen since the dispersal of the Jews from Palestine centuries earlier.

This sort of genocide had begun as long before as the late sixteenth century, with the Rumanian Principalities taking the lead, as united Rumania did subsequently during the later years of the nineteenth century. In 1579 the ruler of Moldovia, Peter the Lame, banished its Jews because of their competition with its Christian merchants. When Prince Micheal the Brave revolted against the Ottomans in the Rumanian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in 1593, he ordered the massacre of all the Jews as well as Turks in Bucharest."

Page 204:

"Greeks and Armenians agitated widely to prevent Jews from constructing new synagogues when needed in the Empire. The best example of this came with Greek opposition to the construction of a new Jewish synagogue at Haydarpasa in 1899. Sultan Abdul Hamid II allowed the synagogue to be built, and assured its opening despite Greek protests by sending a contingent of soldiers from the nearby Selimiye barracks, leading the congregation to adopt the name Hemdat Israel synagogue, choosing the name not only because of its meaning, 'the mercy of Israel', but also because the word Hemdat was close to the name of their benefactor, Sultan Abdul-Hamid [43]. Macedonia was a living hell for Muslims and Jews alike, with terrorist bands organized by Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian and even Rumanian nationalists slaughtering all those who failed to share their national passions [44].

Avram Galante, who lived for many years among the Greeks on the island of Rhodes, where the Jewish community was numerous, but still a substantial minority compared to the Greeks and Muslims, relates how he tried desperately to secure assistance from the Greek religious authorities to end the pogroms, securing Patriarchal encyclicals in 1873, 1874, 1884 and 1898, but with only limited success as they felt pressure from their flocks to go along with the attacks, or at least not to object, while the lower priests actively encouraged the attacks against the Jews, not only on the part of their followers but also by Muslims [45]. Efforts of the Grand Rabbi and individual Jews within the Empire to stop these pogroms were supported by leading European Jewish bankers such as Moses Montefiore and Baron Maurice de Hirsch (1831-96), principal builder of the Orient railroad between Vienna, Istanbul and the East, who as founder of the Jewish Colonization Association was the first Jewish philanthropist to help Jews resettle in the Holy Land, and by the AIU, whose educational efforts were also liberally subsidised by the Hirsch. Such interventions usually succeeded in getting the culprits imprisoned, but little could be done to remedy the damage done to Ottoman Jews during the course of the repeated attacks, and only the constant efforts at protection by the Ottoman government prevented things from becoming even worse as time went on."

[43] Guleryuz, 'Turkiye Yahudileri Tarihi: 19.Yuzyil sona ererken (2)', Salom, 19 November 1986.

[44] Robert Mantran, 'La structure sociale de la communaute juive de Salonqiue a la fin du dix-neuvieme siecle', RH no.534 (1980), 388; D. Levi, Ecole des Garcons, Rodosto, to AIU, 6 May 1920 (AIU Archives I C 33) describes a typical Greek blood libel incident at Gallipoli in 1920.

[45] Galante, Istanbul, 134-135. El Tiempo, 28 May 1920; Galante, Documents V, 181-96; Galante, Nouveau Recueil de Nouveaux Documents Inedits concernant l'Historie des Juifs de Turquie (Istanbul, 1952), reprinted in Galante, Turquie VI, 324.

Extermination of the entire Muslim population of Armenia

The following article was published in "The Jewish Times", June 21, 1990.

By Rachel A. Bortnick:

...the late Cecil Roth, eminent Jewish historian, who states in 'A Short History of the Jewish People' (London, 1969), p. 279:

"The Jewish people must always recall the Turkish Empire with gratitude because, at one of the darkest hours of history, when no alternative place of refuge was open and there seemed no chance of succor, it flung open its doors widely and generously for the reception of the fugitives, and kept them open."

'The fugitives' are the Jews who were banished from Spain in 1492 and those who fled the terrors of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions in the following years. Turkey's 'open-door' policy to Jews in distress continued throughout the following centuries where many found refuge from Russian pogroms and the European Holocaust. In fact, just recently, Selahattin Ulkumen, Turkish Consul in Rhodes during World War II, was named a 'Righteous Gentile' by Yad Vashem in Jarusalem for risking his life to save 42 Jews from deportation in 1942.

I can only comment on a few of the many fallacious statements in the article, beginning with Hitler's 'Who now remembers the Armenians?' which has been proven to be one manufactured after the war. By using it as a fact, he uses Hitler as his ally in accusing the Turks of genocide.

Respected historians, experts in Ottoman history at prominent American universities, are termed 'pseudo-historians' and deemed to be in the same category as the few lunatics who deny the Jewish Holocaust. A few years ago, 69 of these academics publicly denounced the term 'genocide' to refer to the massive deaths of Armenians during their rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in 1914-1915. They find that complicated era of intercommunal fighting and massacres within a world war analogous to the situation in Lebanon today.

A more appropriate analogy with the Jewish Holocaust might be the systematic extermination of the entire Muslim population of the independent republic of Armenia (which lasted from 1918 to 1920), which consisted of at least 30-40 percent of the population of that republic. The memoirs of an Armenian army officer who participated in and eye-witnessed these atrocities was published in the U.S. in 1926 with the title 'Men Are Like That.' Other references abound.

As human beings, we must feel deep sympathy for all the victims of massacres and starvation in Ottoman Turkey, Armenians and Turks. We should also feel sorrow for the Turkish diplomats and bystanders who were murdered by Armenian terrorists in recent years 'in revenge for the genocide.'

As Jews, we must be forever grateful to the Turks for the refuge they gave to our Spanish ancestors and for Turkish tolerance which has allowed Jewish - especially Sephardic - life to continue and flourish in Turkey for the last 500 years. 1992, the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Spanish Jews to the Ottoman Empire, will be celebrated in Turkey, Israel, the U.S. and other countries. It will be a year when 'Turks and Jews will remember together.'

Greek Atrocities in Izmir, Aydin, Bergama, Manisa, Tire...

Source: Professor Stanford J. Shaw, 'The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic,' New York University Press, New York (1991).

Page 239:

"While the Greek and Armenian community leaders in Istanbul and Paris pressured the Allies to drive the Turks out of Istanbul and much of Anatolia, the Empire's Jewish leaders, remembering very well the persecution their people had suffered as Ottoman territories had come under the rule of independent Christian states, not only refused to join their delegations but actively pressured the Allies to allow the Turks to remain in areas where they consisted a majority of the population, thus incurring further the wrath of the Christian leaders. In Thrace and Southwestern Anatolia also the invading Greek army, which was attempting to provide the Paris Peace Conference with a fait accompli in the territories it wished to retain, armed the Christian minorities and encouraged them to attack Muslims, with the Jews suffering as well because of their support for the Turks during the war [89], and with the once-flourishing Jewish community of Salonica in particular being permanently displaced by Greek refugees from Anatolia settled there after the Greek army evacuated Anatolia.

The Greek army that occupied much of southeastern Anatolia starting in May 1919 slaughtered thousands of Jews and Muslims in the course of its attack, not only during its initial landings at Izmir, but also in the interior during the subsequent two years, and particularly during its final retreat to Izmir, when it ravaged and burned Bursa and other towns and villages along the way. Albert Nabon, Principal of the AIU [Alliance Israelite Universelle] Boy's School in Izmir, reported to the Alliance on 6 July 1919:

'The city was put on fire and sacked, the people dispoiled of all they possessed. There is no food, putting the entire population on general, and our co-religionists in particular, in danger of suffering greatly from these privations'

going on to describe how most Jews, not only from Izmir but also from Greek attacks at Aydin, Bergama and Manisa, took refuge in his school, where they were suffering from overcrowding, lack of food, and medicine. [90]."

Page 240:

"Jewish notables, like the Muslims, were beaten and executed, many Jewish homes and shops were ravaged and burned, and hundreds of Jews were deported to almost certain death in the countryside. As the Greek army retreated in panic late in the war, moreover, it burned the Jewish and Muslim quarters of Izmit, Manisa and Bergama, destroying synagogues, yeshivas and hospitals as well as homes and businesses while killing hundreds and forcing the remainder of the non-Christian population to flee in panic, ...[95]"

[89] Edgar Morin, Vidal et les siens (Paris, Seuil, 1989), 67-93. A dossier of reports on Greek atrocities against people and officials in the Izmir area is in BA [Basbakanlik Arsivi=Prime Minister's Archives], Adliye Tezkere 246/2740, 18 September 1920; see also Ottoman Council of Ministers Minutes/MVM vol.213 no.457, 24 November 1334/1918; vol. 215, no. 249, 28 May 1335/1919; vol.216 no.263, 1 June 1335/1919, describing Greek soldiers driving the settled population out of Bergama and Izmir; vol.216, no.269, 1 June 1335/1919, describing the displacement of Jews and Muslims at the Dardanalles/Canakkale by Greek settlers from the Aegean islands; vol. 216, no.288, 9 June 1919, regarding Ayvalik; vol.216 no.380, 21 June 1919, describing Greek and Allied attacks on the local populations in Thrace and at Izmir, Diyarbekir and Bayezid; vol.216 no.323, 26 June 1919; vol. 216 no.337, 15 July 1919; vol. 216 no.339, 15 July 1919; and particularly vol.216 no.343, 16 July 1919, regarding Greek atrocities in Aydin province; vol.217 no.573, 29 November 1919, and vol.221 no.127, 30 April 1921, and no.239, 4 August 1921, on Greek atrocities in Thrace; vol.218 no.9, 11 January 1920 on resettlement of Greeks from America in Anatolia; also BEO, 343329; Greek atrocities in Southwestern Anatolia and Thrace were condemned by an international investigation commission headed by American High Commissioner in Istanbul, Admiral Mark Bristol, leading the Allies to abondon further support for the Greek invasion. See Ottoman Council of Ministers Minutes, vol.217 no.481, 16 October 1919. Also Hayyim Cohen, Jews of the Middle East, 18.
[90] Similar reports came from Nabon to the AIU on 2 July 1919 (no.23/915), 9 July 1919 (no.26/927), 12 July 1919 (no.27/932) and 14 July 1919 (no. 28/933). In Nabon's report of 17 July 1919 (no.30/935), he stated that the Greeks at Aydin had burned 200 Jewish houses and 13 shops, had dispoiled all the local Jews of their money and property, and had strangled two Jews as well as driving the remainder to seek refuge in the local AIU school: 'At Aydin, Manisa, Tire and everywhere else, our Jews live in an atmosphere of suspicion by the Greek inhabitants' who suspect that they favor the Turks. On 23 July 1920 Nabon reported that all the Jews had left Izmir, the synagogue had not been burned, but the Greeks had taken all its valuables as well as the property of local Jews, and the streets were full of bodies.
[95] Univers Israelite, 2 September 1921, p.467-48, quoted in Guleryuz; see also Galante, Anatolie II (1939), 70-100; and 'Manissa', EJ XI, 878-79.

Source: 'Greek Atrocities in the Vilayet of Smyrna (May to July 1919), Inedited Documents and Evidence of English and French Officers,' Published by The Permanent Bureau of the Turkish Congress at Lausanne, Lausanne, Imprimerie Petter, Giesser & Held, Caroline, 5 (1919).

pages 82-83:

1. The train going from Denizli to Smyrna was stopped at Ephesus and the 90 Turkish travellers, men and women who were in it ordered to descend. And there in the open street, under the eyes of their husbands, fathers and brothers, the women without distinction of age were violated, and then all the travellers were massacred. Amongst the latter the Lieutenant Salih Effendi, a native of Tripoli, and a captain whose name is not known, and to whom the Hellenic authorities had given safe conduct, were killed with specially atrocious tortures.

2. Before the battle, the wife of the lawyer Enver Bey coming from her garden was maltreated by Greek soldiers, she was even stript of her garments and her servant Assie was violated.

3. The two tax gatherers Mustapha and Ali Effendi were killed in the following manner: Their arms were bound behind their backs with wire and their heads were battered and burst open with blows from the butt end of a gun.

4. During the firing of the town, eleven children, six little girls and five boys, fleeing from the flames, were stopped by Greek soldiers in the Ramazan Pacha quarter, and thrown into a burning Jewish house near bridge, where they were burnt alive. This fact is confirmed on oath by the retired commandant Hussein Hussni Effendi who saw it.

5. The clock-maker Ahmed Effendi and his son Sadi were arrested and dragged out of their shop. The son had his eyes put out and was then killed in the court of the Greek Church, but Ahmed Effendi has been no more heard of.

6. At the market, during the fire, two unknown people were wounded by bayonets, then bound together, thrown into the fire and burnt alive.

The Greeks killed also many Jews. These are the names of some:

Moussa Malki, shoemaker killed
Bohor Levy, tailor killed
Bohor Israel, cobbler killed
Isaac Calvo, shoemaker killed
David Aroguete killed
Moussa Lerosse killed
Gioia Katan killed
Meryem Malki killed
Soultan Gharib killed
Isaac Sabah wounded
Moche Fahmi wounded
David Sabah wounded
Moise Bensignor killed
Sarah Bendi killed
Jacob Jaffe wounded
Aslan Halegna wounded....

pages 40-41:

VIOLATED MOSQUES

All the mosques and religious institutions of Manissa, numbering about 150, have been violated by the Greek army, their doors were forced in and their floors torn up, their carpets stolen or soiled, their windows broken and their inside walls defaced. The worst damaged mosques of the town are the following:

Servili mesdjid
Tchatal djami
Kenzi djami
Mouradie
Ak mesdjid
Ayvaz Pacha djami
The convents Kenzi, and Kabak Hadje
Gune Djami
Dilchikar
Dere mesdjid
Nifli Zade
Hodjdja-djlar
The school of Theology Sinan and the cemetery Thchatal Kabristan,
are violated, defiled and deteriorated.

page 53:

VILLAGES DESTROYED

The following villages of Bergamo, one of the richest and most prosperous regions in the world, are completely burned and destroyed by the Greek hordes:

Kirikly
Kalarga
Djame-Keuy
Eminly
Mouhadjir
Baba-Keuy
Hamzaly
Korkally
Eyry-Keuy
Yenidje
Kizil-Tchoukour
Kodja-Oba
Merkez-Kozak
Aladjalar
Achaghi-Kiriklar
Rechadiye
Tepeleni
Chakran
Eyri-Gueul
Boz-Keuy
Djoumali
Tchenguelly.

Christian Anti-Semitism in the Ottoman Empire

Extracts from:

Stanford J. Shaw (Professor of Turkish History, University of California Los Angeles), 'Christian Anti Semitism in the Ottoman Empire,' Belleten, C. LIV, 68 (1991).

As a result of the tension now existing between Israel and the Muslim world, it long has been assumed that the anti Semitism to which the Jews of the Ottoman Empire were subjected over the centuries was the result of Muslim antipathy for Judaism and Jews, and that it was carried out
largely by Muslims. This idea was spread by Christian nationalist groups within and outside the Ottoman Empire for the purpose of gaining the support of world Jewry for their causes. At times, moreover, these groups even stimulated Muslim attacks on their own people to gain the support
of the Christian nations of Europe [1]. The fact, however, was quite different. It was the Muslim Turks who invited Jews to the Ottoman Empire as they were driven out of western Europe and Russia by massacres, blood libels, and persecutions of all sorts. It was the Muslim Turks who provided Ottoman Jewry with the kind of opportunities and protection which enabled them to prosper during four centuries of Ottoman rule. During the centuries of Ottoman decline which began in the seventeenth century, it was the Ottoman Turks who provided Jews with what protection they could against the advancing anti-Semitism of Christians both within and outside the Empire. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in particular it was Christian armies invading the Ottoman Empire as well as Christian national movements arising within that carried out most of the mass attacks, persecution and massacres which decimated much of Ottoman Jewry before World War I despite the continued protection provided by the Ottoman government.

Anti Semitism originated as a Christian and not a Muslim phenomenon. Jews were driven from the Holy Land by Pagan Rome primarily for political rather than religious reasons. The Jews of Eretz Israel refused to accept Roman rule and wanted to remain independent. But once rule over Palestine was settled, Pagan Rome had no antipathy to Jews, and allowed them to settle freely elsewhere in its domains, particularly in Anatolia where they constituted a large portion of the population. It was only after Rome converted to Christianity, and in particular after the East Roman Empire became Byzantium and developed its own form of Orthodox Christianity, which was particularly virulent regarding Jews, that the latter came to be subject to intense persecution so that hardly any Jews were left by the time the Ottoman Turks came onto the scene.

Just as the Turks began moving into the Middle East and Anatolia from Central Asia at the end of the eleventh century, thus beginning the process by which they would take over the area and establish the Ottoman Empire, the Jews ..themselves began to experience new waves of persecution... In 1078, the Pope decreed that Jews should not occupy important positions in Christian countries and that in particular no Jew could be superior to any Christian. Jews who had settled in France and Germany found their occupations increasingly narrowed by economic and religious prejudice to trades associated with banking and money changing, which in turn exacerbated long-held religious prejudices into ever-deepening political and economic persecutions based on racial and religious anti-Semitism.

Jews had long been accused of being Christ killers, those who had caused the Crucifixion. Added to this, however, were new accusations, of which the most influential were the popular myths known as the 'blood libel', or 'ritual murder' accusations, invented by the ancient Greeks, the idea that Jews kidnapped and murdered Christian children and drained their bodies of blood for use in religious ceremonies, especially those associated with wine and the making of unleavened bread, or 'matzoh'.

Added to this was the myth of 'desecration of the host', by which Jews were alleged to be profaning the wafer consecrated in the Catholic ceremony of the Eucharist which, since the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, was believed to [be] the actual body of Jesus, which the Jews were said to be stabbing, tormenting or burning in order to subject Christ once again to the agonies of the cross. These accusations seem utterly absurd in the modern world. It stretches the imagination to believe that such ideas could stir people up to such frenzies of emotion that they could attack even aged and crippled Jews in the street, not only stoning them and pulling their beards and hair but massacring them and destroying their shops and homes, particularly during the week preceding Easter when Christian religious passions were at their peak. Yet such incidents took place repeatedly in Europe, starting first at Norwich, England in 1144, and continuing into the late nineteenth century, and also, with even more vehemence and violence, in the Middle East by native Christians infected by the prejudices of their European coreligionists.

Stimulating and exacerbating these long-held religious passions and economic motives were the Crusades, particularly in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. On November 27, 1095 Pope Urban II went to Clermont-Ferrand in Southern France and delivered a speech which started almost half a millenium of Crusades against the 'infidel' Muslims. With great emotion, he said the Christians of the East, and particularly in the Holy Land, were suffering at the hands of the Muslims, formerly the Arabs and now the advancing Turks. He said that Jerusalem already had been profaned by the anti-Christians and that Christian Constantinople now was under threat, and he appealed to all of Christian Europe to send off armies to save Byzantium and rescue the Holy Land from the unbelievers, offering remission from all sins, past and future, for those who shared in this endeavor. All of Christian Europe was stirred to frenzy by religious and political leaders who spread the idea of freeing the Holy Land and Byzantium from the infidel Muslims, though again, as with the blood-libel and desecration of host accusations, economic motives were probably as important as religious ones, at least for many of the leaders. There was no particular reason that these Crusades should have effected the Jews, but they did because of the passions involved. Those Christians who were stirred to believe that the Muslims were the embodiment of all evil soon found it convenient to include the Jews who were prospering in the Muslim lands and therefore supporting the Muslims against the Crusader attacks in fear of renewed spread of anti-Semitism into the Middle East, and who were in any case considered just as bad as the Muslims. People who felt that they were servants of God, with all sins forgiven in advance for what they were going to do in the Holy Land, were in no way inhibited from plundering the Jews as they went along, particularly when the monks who accompanied them suggested that it would add to their favor with God if they forced the Jews they found to convert to Christianity as well. So as the Crusaders marched along from England and France through Germany and Austria toward the Islamic Middle East, they sacked and often destroyed Jewish communities found along their paths massacring many as they went in Germany and Bohemia in particular.

When one group of Crusaders led by Emmerich Count of Leinigen, reached Worms they demanded ransom from its Jews, who paid. But soon afterwards he sent his men to break into their houses, slaughtering the men and children and raping the women, with many commiting suicide to save themselves. Many Jews were burned alive in their synagogues. After seven days of this, the Jews who survived were offered the opportunity to baptism and convert to Christianity with the alternative of being turned over to the crowd to be torn apart. They were given time to think about it in the local synagogue, but when no answer came, the mob broke in and found all the Jews had committed suicide. The same thing happened as the Crusade went on to Mainz and Cologne, and throughout the Rhineland.

These Crusaders left in their wake new 'blood libel' and 'desecration of host' passions which in turn led to later attacks on the surviving Jewish communities wherever there was even the slightest rumor which provided a pretext and rallying cry. The spread of the Black Death throughout Western Europe, particularly between 1348 and 1350, provided a new pretext to blame Jews for catastrophe, in this case with the story that they poisoned water supplies to cause the plague and wipe out Christianity, with the hope that by persecuting them its spread would be checked [8]. Many Jews who survived were ultimately allowed to resettle in their old homes, but invariably in worse terms than before [9]. The Black Death and the resulting pogroms not only caused deaths and destruction of homes and shops of thousands of Jews, thus, but also intensified the popular Christian stereotypes of the Jews, many of which have remained the basis for anti-semitism in modern times.

There often were massacres, as for example in Frankfurt in 1241, Munich in 1285-6 [10] and Amleder in 1336 [11]. Expulsions had been carried out in earlier centuries, but they always had been limited both in time and area. But now as royal authority extended more widely in each kingdom, so also did the expulsions become more permanent and extensive. Now there were sudden and violent deportations, sometimes for very long periods of time. They began in England, strangely enough the last country of Western Christandom to admit Jews, starting with the decree of Edward I issued on 18 July 1290, which was enforced for almost four centuries, until 1650 [12]. In France, Louis IX (1226-1270) enforced the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council with great severity, decreeing the expulsion of all Jews from his kingdom as he left for the first Crusade in 1249. Philip the Fair (1285-1314) ordered all French Jews to be arrested (July 1306), following this up with a decree condemning them to expulsion and confiscation of their property, though this later was revoked by his successor. Charles IV expelled the Jews again in 1322, and it was only due to a financial crisis in 1359 that they were admitted again. In 1380 and 1382 there were riots against the Jews in Paris, and starting in 1394 they were expelled again, this time not to return for centuries, in some areas not until the start of the French Revolution four centuries later[13]. Jews were excluded from Russia from the fifteenth century until 1772, when masses of Jews were included as a result of the Russian annexation of Poland and Lithuania. They were banned from Hungary after 1376 [14], from Naples in 1510-1511, and from almost anywhere in Germany in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, though in some cases because of its lack of unity these deportations were temporary and local at best, with Jews simply going from one locality to another, and then ultimately returning to their original homes as time passed and the deportation decrees were annulled or forgotten by political and religious leaders who saw their own incomes falling in the absence of their Jewish advisors.

Things were no better in Byzantium. Byzantine Jews were nominally free to follow their own faith, but just as the Romans had reduced Jews to no more than subject status, so also Byzantines excluded Jews from rights of full citizenship. The motives of Romans were mainly political; but Byzantines were moved also by religious reasons as well. From their absolute conviction, taught by the Greek Orthodox Church, that the Jews were condemned by God for rejecting his Word and for the Unforgivable Crime of killing Jesus Christ, it was logical to conclude that the Jews ought to be punished by God's new chosen people, the Christians, by being subjected to various restrictions.

Byzantine leaders demanded on numerous occasions that Jews be removed from Constantinople and the Empire altogether, and several expulsion orders were issued. Judaism actually was outlawed and Jews ordered forceably converted at least five times, by Emperor Heraclius in 632, in 680 in an effort to secure a united front against Islamic attacks, by Leo III in 721-723, by Basil I in 873-874, and by Romanos I in 930. Jews were allowed to seek 'salvation' through conversion, but even those who did convert were suspected of potential acts of blasphemy and were therefore subjected to periodic persecution, as was later the case in Spain. Legends of Jewish moneylenders took on the negative dimensions of the later Shylock traditions. In church services Jews were normally referred to as 'the accursed', but they could benefit from divine guidance to baptism, as opposed to other non-Christians who could be converted only by the sword. There were also passion plays and the like which played on the popular prejudice. All these religious traditions and folklore accounts influenced the Orthodox urban neighbors of Jews, causing a great deal of persecution and conflict [15].

Those Jews who lived in Byzantium were subjected to various legal restrictions, severely limiting even minor details of their religious activities, excluding them from most of the privileges of citizenship while imposing all sorts of intolerable burdens. Theodosius II (408-450) excluded Jews from all offices of honor and prohibited them from building new synagogues, although he did allow them to repair old ones. Soon afterwards, during a battle between parties in the chariot races at Rome, many Jews were murdered, their synagogues burned, and their bodies thrown into the fire.

Justinian (527-565) was the first emperor to set a precedent for interference with the social and religious practices of Judaism, in 553 even going so far as to dictate that Greek and Latin translations of the Old Testament should be used in Jewish religious services in hope that this would convince some Jews to convert. He forbad the use of the phrase 'our God is the one and only God' in Jewish services because he considered this to be blasphemy against the Christian Holy Trinity, and he outlawed the reading of sayings of Isaiah promising consolation for the downtrodded people of Judaism. He went on to forbid the observance of religious services during Passover, forbad the celebrating of Passover at the same time as Easter, and ordered end to the baking of unleavened bread [16]. He even placed spies in synagogues during services to watch out for any violations of his rules, though he soon found they could not prevent secret praying of the disputed passages at other times of day when the spies were not present. He also imposed many disabilities on Jewish citizens, prohibiting them from testifying against Christians in court and restricting them to minor positions in bureaucracy. As a result of all this, when his armies attacked Naples, its Jews gave up their property and even their lives joining in defence of the city against the Byzantines.

Heraclius (610-641) was the first emperor to convert the Jews to Christianity by force, and other emperors did the same between the eighth and tenth centuries. After the Vandals destroyed the Jewish synagogue in the late fifth century, the Byzantines refused to allow it to be restored, and soon after Heraclius died, the Church prevented the survivers and newly arriving Jewish immigrants from building new synagogues to meet their religious needs. Basil I (867-886) first tried to convert the Jews by persuasion, inviting rabbis to debate to defend their faith and offering them benefits if they accepted defeat. He then had recourse to bribary, providing gifts to those who agreed to convert. After that failed, in 884 he ordered all Jews converted to Christianity, and though this effort was abondoned under his immediate successors, the pressure continued, and most Byzantine theologians and church leaders protested vigorously when those who had converted under pressure during the preceding regime were allowed to return to Judaism. Emperor Romanos Lucapenus, in about 935, again ordered the forcible conversion of all Jews of Byzantium, leading to the murder of hundreds of Jews and the desecration of many synagogues throughout the Empire.

To the Greek Orthodox Church, Jews were absolute filth, whose touch was considered to be contaminating. Christians who had any contact with Jews had to be excommunicated.

Thus the Quinisext Council of 692 declared that 'Whatever remnant of pagan or Jewish perversity is mixed with the ripe fruit of the truth must be uprooted like a weed...Neither clergyman nor layman may partake of the unleavened bread of the Jews, associate with them, accept medical treatment from them, or bathe with them. Should anyone attempt to do it, if a clergyman, be defrocked, if a layman excommunicated.' [17]

[1] The latter efforts were well-documented in William L. Langer, 'The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890-1902,' (2nd Ed., New York, Knopf, 1956) and Louise Nalbandian, 'The Armenian Revolutionary Movement: The Development of Armenian Political Parties Through The Nineteenth
Century,' (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967), particularly pp. 110-112.
[2] 'Anti-Semitism', EJ III (Jerusalem, 1972), 87-159; Hermann L. Strack, La Superstition du Sang dans l'Humanite et les Rites Sanguinaries (Munich, 1892); Salomon Reinach, 'L'Accusation du Meurtre Rituel', Revue des Etudes Juives, XXV (1892), 161-180; J.W.Parkes, Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue: A Study of the Origins of Antisemitism (1934). A. Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (1961). G. Kisch, jews in Medewal Germany (1949). B. Blumenkrantz, Juifs et Chretifens dans le monde occidental 430-1096 (Paris, 1960). Philip P. Argenti, The Religious Minorities of Chios: Jews and Roman Catholics (Cambridge, 1970).
[3] On the blood libel, see 'Blood Libel', EJ (Jerusalem, 1972) IV, 1119-1131; 'Blood Accusation', The Jewish Encyclopedia: New Edition III (New York, 1925) 260. M. Samuel, Blood Accusation (1966). Cecil Roth, The Ritual Murder Libel and the Jew (1935). Bernard Lewis, Semites and anti-Semites: an Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice (New York and London, Norton, 1986), 101. On its invention by Greeks in the Ist century A.D. see Philip P. Argenti, The Religious Minorities of Chios: Jews and Roman Catholics (Cambridge, 1970), 20.
[4] 'Host', EJ.
[5] 'Blood Libel', EJ (Jerusalem, 1972) IV, 1121, The Jewish Encyclopedia:
New Edition III (New York, 1925), 260. Jessopp and James, St. William
of Norwich (Cambridge, England, 1899). 'England', EJ VI, 747.[8] 'France', EJ VII, 16. 'Germany', EJ VI, 468.
[6] A. Neubauer and M. Stern, Hebraische Berichte uber die Judenverfolgungen wahrend der Kreuzzuge (Berlin, 1892), and review by Charles Porges, 'Les Relations Hebraiques des Persecutions des Juifs pendant la Premiere Croisade', Revue des Etudes Juives XXV (1892), 181-201, XXVI (1893), 183-197.
[7] The situation of Jews in Europe during the Crusades is described in 'Crusades', EJ V, 1135-1140. Bernard Lewis, Semites and anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice (New York and London, Norton, 1986), 101. 'France', EJ VII, 13. 'Anti-Semitism', EJ III (Jerusalem, 1972), 102. 'Germany', EJ VI, 462-463.
[EJ = Encyclopedia Judaica (17 Volumes and supplements, Jerusalem, 1972).]

[8] 'France', EJ VII, 16. 'Germany', EJ VI, 468.

[9] J. Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews (1961), 97-108. P. Ziegler, Black Death (1969). 'Black Death', EJ IV, 1063-1068.

[10] 'Germany', EJ VI, 467. The Jewish Encyclopedia: New Edition III (New York, 1925), 266. Zunz, Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters, 33. Mom.Germ. XI. 210, 872, XVII, 415. A. M. Hebermann, ed., Sefer Gezerot Ashkenaz ve-Zarefat (1946), 199. 'Blood-libel', EJ (Jerusalem, 1972) IV, 1122. Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland, 282.

[11] 'Germany', EJ VI, 468.

[12] 'England', EJ VI, 751-752.

[13] S.A. Rozanes, History of the Jews in Turkey (in Hebrew) (2nd edition, Sofia, 1930-38), 11, 128; Barisa Krekic, Dubrovnik in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (Norman, Oklahoma, 1972), 30. 'France', EJ VII, 17.

[14] EJ [Encyclopaedia Judaica] VI, 469.

[15] Steven Bowman, The Jews of Byzantium (Alabama Press, 1985), 34-36.

[16] Byzantine Empire, EJ [Encyclopaedia Judaica] IV, 1550-1552. Joshua Starr, The Jews of Byzantine Empire, 4-6, 212-213. Philip P. Argenti, The Religious Minorities of Chios: Jews and Roman Catholics (Cambridge, 1970), 39-63. Abraham Galante, Histoire des Juifs d'Istanbul depuis la prise de cetle ville en 1453 jusqu'a nos jours (Istanbul, 1941-42), 39.

[17] Joshua Starr, The Jews of Byzantine Empire (Athens, 1939), 89.


Addendum:

On the basis of examining literally thousands of reports of anti-Semitic attacks found in the archives of the Alliance Israelite Universelle in Paris, Professor Paul Dumont reported:

''..the increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Turkey during the second half of the nineteenth century is striking. Though the Ottoman government never failed to punish the guilty parties, the antagonism between communities remained intense. In most towns in Rumelia, as well as Anatolia, Muslims, Jews and Christians lived in apparent harmony, often intermingled in the same quarter. But the slightest spark sufficed to ignite the fuse. Whenever a young Christian disappeared at the approach of Passover, Jews were immediately accused of having kidnapped him to obtain blood necessary for the manufacture of unleavened bread. Threats and violence followed close behind the suspicions and generally things ended with a boycot of Jewish shops and peddlers. It is especially with Greeks that the Jewish communities had a bone to pick. But anti- Semitic prejudice was also frequent among Armenians and Bulgarians. Furthermore, as a general rule, when an incident occurred, Christians, without regard to their particular ethnic or religious affiliation, forgot their own quarrels and formed a block against Jews. In the region of Izmir, where the Greek population was particularly cohesive the correspondents of the Alliance from 1870's onward, reported anti-Jewish upheavels practically every year. These upheavels were usually based on blood libel. '' [1]

[1] Paul Dumont, 'Jewish Communities in Turkey during the Last Decades of the Nineteenth Century in the Light of the Archives of the Alliance Israelite Universelle', Braude/Lewis, 222.