ARMENIAN ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE OTTOMAN PERIOD

Free E-Book: The Armenian Issue and the Jews By Sedat Laciner & Ibrahim Kaya

ASAM - Institute for Armenian Research
Ankara University Printing House, 2003 (Out Of Print)

CONTENTS
-About the Authors
-Armenia's Jewish Sceptism and its impact on Armenia-Israel Relations, Sedat Laciner
-The Holocaust and Armenian Case: Highlighting the Main Differences, Ibrahim KAYA
-Selected Bibliography . .

About the Authors
The Armenian Issue and the Jews
Sedat Laciner: Assist Prof. Dr. at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Department of International Relations and senior researcher at the Institute for Armenian Research, Ankara. He also is the President of the Middle Eastern Studies Desk at the Center for Eurasian Studies. Dr. Laçiner is co-editor of the Review of Armenian Studies and Ermeni Arastirmalari journals. Laçiner is also author of: “Art and Armenian Propaganda, Ararat As A Case Study”, (Ankara: 2003, with Kantarci); “Turkey and the World” (Istanbul: 2001); “Bir Baska Açidan Ingiltere” (Ankara: 2001, editor); “Ararat Sanatsal Ermeni Propagandasi” (Ankara: 2002, with Kantarci); “Ermeni Sorunu El Kitabi (with Kantarci, Kasim and Kaya). BA (Ankara University, Turkey), MA (Sheffield University, England), PhD (King’s College, University of London, England). E-mail: sedat100@hotmail.com.

Ibrahim KAYA: Assist. Prof. Dr. at Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Department of Public Administration and senior researcher at the Institute for Armenian Research, Ankara. He is the author of many articles on Armenians and the Armenian issue. Dr. Kaya is also the co-editor of the Review of Armenian Studies, Stratejik Analiz and Ermeni Arastirmalari journals. BA (Ankara University, Turkey), LLM (Nottingham University, England), PhD (University of Keele, England).

Armenia's Jewish Sceptism and its impact on Armenia-Israel Relations
Asst. Prof. Dr. Sedat Laciner*


The Armenian Issue and the Jews

‘It is in our blood to hate the Turks. However, we hate Bulgarians and Greeks also. The Jews like Turks, but they hate Arabs. The Arabs, in their turn, are not in favor with the Turks. And the level of hatred is rising’
Narek Mesropian[1]

Although the Jewish community in Armenia dates back almost 2,000 years, the population of the Jews has reduced to fewer than 1,000 individuals in Armenia and in Karabakh province, which is the Azerbaijan territory under the Armenian occupation. Ironically this tiny Jewish community has exposed to the rising Armenian anti-Semitism in the recent years, and now they are considered as ‘guests’ in Armenia where they have lived for the ages.[2] The reasons for anti-Semitism among the Armenians is not actually the Jewish activities, but the regional and international politics and the historical mistrust, namely the problems between Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan, and Israel’s recent co-operation with Turkey. Before analyzing the reasons, the study will provide the historical background of the Armenian ‘antagonism’ against the Jews and the history of the Jewish community in Armenia. Then it will move in to the current reasons of the Armenian Jewish skepticism in the recent years. The study, in questioning the reasons, also focuses on Armenia-Israel relations and the Israeli-Turkish alliance’s impact on Armenia’s perception of the region. The article further discusses Israel’s and the world Jewish community’s attitude regarding the Armenian ‘genocide’ allegations. The author reminds that the Jewish community clearly oppose the Armenian allegations and reject all the Armenian attempts to create a similarity between Holocaust and the 1915 events, and the article discusses the Jewish opposition’s effects on the Armenian issue.

I. ARMENIAN ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE OTTOMAN PERIOD

The Ottoman experience proves that anti-Semitism is an old Armenian habit. The main reason for anti-Semitism among the Ottoman Armenians was mainly religious biases. For the Christian Armenians the Jews were in great sin. It was a common belief among the Armenians that the Jews slaughter young Christian Armenians and use their blood at the Passover feast. In Amasya province for instance local Armenian priests and notables claimed that an Armenian woman had seen Jews slaughter a young Armenian boy and use his blood for religious purposes. Stanford J. Shaw describes the following events:

‘Several days of rioting and pillaging and attacks on Jews followed, with Armenian mobs devastating the Jewish quarter of the city, beating men, women and children alike. The Armenian notables convinced the local Ottoman governor to imprison several Jewish leaders, including Rabbi Yakub Avayu, who was accused of having supervised the blood letting. They were said, after undergoing severe torture, to have confessed to their crimes and were hanged. Later, however, the Armenian boy who supposedly had been murdered was found and a new Ottoman governor punished the accusers, though nothing could be done about the Jews who had suffered in the process.’[3]

As Abraham Ben-Yakob put it, the Armenian and Greek attacks against the Armenians continued in the following years:

‘There were literally thousands of incidents in subsequent years, invariably resulting from accusations spread among Greeks and Armenians by word mouth, or published in their newspapers, often by Christian financiers and merchants who were anxious to get the Jews out of the way, resulting in isolated and mob attacks on Jews, and burning of their shops and homes.’[4]

Apart from the religious prejudices, the Jewish community in the Empire dramatically rose in numbers and their influence over the administration and economy increased, and this development made the Christian subjects (Armenians, Greeks etc.) worried. Unfortunately this competition between the Jews and Christians resulted in a long series of attacks against the Jews by the Armenians and Greeks, who simply did not want to lose their influential position in terms of politics and economy. In these assaults many Jews were assassinated. When the Europeans increased their economic and political influence over the Ottoman Empire they publicly supported the Ottoman Christians and the Armenians and Greeks gained a clear privilege in trade, which was unfavorable to the Jews. The local Armenians and Greeks had the American and the European diplomats and businessmen with them, while the Jews had to rely on their own sources and their good relations with the Ottoman bureaucracy. In addition, as the Armenians and Greeks got richer and more influential, harassments and the constant attacks against the Jews increased as witnessed in Izmir during the 19th century. The competition between the Armenians and the Jews was severe in Palace and the financial system in particular. When the Armenian bankers sustained monopoly over the Ottoman financial system they did everything to get the Jews out of the Palace, and even labeled Jews by accusing the Jews of not being loyal to the Sultan. As a result of these slanders, many Jews lost their life.[5]

Another dramatic development for the Jews was the impact of the European military victories and conquests of Ottoman territories by the European armies, because when the Christian European armies occupied the Ottoman possessions they were supporting their Christian ‘brothers’, Armenians, Greeks and Bulgarians, and punishing the Jews and Muslims alike.[6] Consequently the Jews became the most loyal ones to the government in the 19th century and this also worsened the relations between the nationalist Armenians and the Jews. The radical Armenians perceived the Jews as the agent of the state against their ‘revolutionary’ movement. Even some Armenians would claim that some of the responsible officers for the 1915 events, which the Armenians see these events as ‘genocide’, were Jews, freemasons or supported by the Jews or freemasons. Although this kind of claims cannot be considered as serious or scholarly, they are useful to understand the degree of the Armenian anti-Semitism.

The fourth negative development for the Ottoman Jews was the nationalist-separatist movements in the Arab territories, the Balkans and in Anatolia. The only protector of the Jews in these regions was the Ottoman state and its governor because the Arabs and the Christians hated the Jews due to the tradition and religion. That is why the Jews became more and more loyal to their state, and this more annoyed the nationalist groups, particularly the Greeks and the Armenians. In many Greek uprisings for instance the Jews supported the Ottoman State against the rioters as witnessed in the Ottoman - Greek War in 1897 for Crete Island. The Ottoman security forces had to intervene to protect the Jews from the Armenians, Greeks and the Arabs especially in the 19th century. In Syria in particular the Christian Arabs and Armenians hated the Jews as a result of the religious biases.[7]

In summary, the Armenians continually attacked the Jews for the religious reasons and for personal and ethnic interests. In the words of Shaw, ‘the attacks were brutal and without mercy. Women, children, and aged Jewish men were frequently attacked, beaten and often killed’.[8] These attacks inevitably caused a severe tension and nourished mutual hate between the Armenians and the Jews. As a result the Jews sometimes co¬operated with other ethnic groups against the Armenians as Shaw puts it:

‘Jewish resentment against the continued persecution and ritual murder attacks by Greeks and Armenians led to such hatred that, for example, many Jews actively assisted the attacks of Kurds and Lazzes on the Armenian quarters of Istanbul in 1896 and 1908, showing the Kurds where Armenians lived and where many of them were hiding and joining them in carrying away the booty. The result was even greater Armenian hatred for Jews than had been the case before, leading to further persecution and attacks in subsequent years’.[9]

In addition to the assaults against the Jewish people the Armenians and Greeks made enormous efforts to keep the Jews out of the Palace and other important official places. Furthermore they tried to prevent constructing new synagogues in Istanbul. Güleryüz’s research on Turkish Jewry’ gives an example:

‘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 and Armenian opposition to the construction of a new Jewish synagogue at Haydarpasha in 1899. Sultan Abdul Hamid II allowed the synagogue to be built, and assured its opening despite the protests by sending a contingent of soldiers from the nearby Selimiye barracks, leading the contregation to adopt the name Hemdat Israel synagogue, but also the word Hemdat was close to the name of their benefactor, Sultan Abdul Hamid.’[10]

In conclusion, anti-Semitism was a strong tradition among the Ottoman Armenians, and as will be seen it would be revived in the modern ages.

[1] For example see Richard G. Hovannasian, ‘Etiology and Sequele of the Armenian Genocide’, in George J. Andreopulos (ed.), Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimnensions, (Philedeiphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), pp. 125-126.
[2] For a recent example of this see Vahak” N. Dadrian, ‘The documentation of the Armenian Genocide in the Light of Persistent Turkish Denials’ Conference paper delivered at Generations of Genocide, Wiener Library, 26-27 January 2002, London/UK.
[3] Heat W. Lowry, ‘The U.S. Congress and Adolf Hitler on the Armenians’, Political Communication and Persuasion, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1986, pp. 111-140.
[4] The facts given in this part is based on the information supplied by Haim Bresheeth, Stuart Hood and Lisa Jansz, The Holocaust, Turkish translation, Soykirim, (istanbul: Milliyet Yayinlari, 1996). Various internet resources, including thinkquest, Massuah. The Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, remember.org, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum are also referred to. The views contrary to those which summarized here may be found at fpp.co.uk and the works of David Irving.
[5] Emil Fackenheim at http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/uk/newsid6l80
[6] Eight centuries ago the Jews were hunted in Germany, expelled from England, France and finally from Spain in 1492.
[7] Yavuz Ercan, Osmanli Yönetiminde Gayrimüslimler (Non-Muslims under the Ottoman Rule), (Ankara:Turhan Kitapevi, 2001), p. 3.
[8] See Ercan, Osmanli Yönetiminde... ,pp.1-23.
[9] Vartan Artinian, The Armenian Constitutional System in the Ottoman Empire, (Istanbul), p.1 1.
[10] Yves Ternon, The Armenians, (Delmar: Caravan Books, 1981), pp. 37, 38 and 49.