The Jewish community of Izmir: some historical landmarks

Since ancient times, Asia Minor has been home to a Jewish diaspora of considerable importance, as evidenced today by the remains of the monumental synagogue of Sardis, located about 100 kilometers east of Izmir. However, the origins of the Jewish community in Smyrna are more recent. At the beginning of the 16th century, when Jews were forced to leave the Iberian Peninsula, Smyrna was still only a small town of little importance. The Spanish and Portuguese exiles preferred to settle in more prosperous inland cities such as Magnesia, Tyrias, Milas, and Cassaba.

It was not until the mid-16th century that the port of Smyrna experienced a decisive boom and became a major trading hub between Anatolia and Europe, exporting silk, cotton, figs, and cereals in particular. The Jewish settlement, coming from the hinterland, then grew rapidly and flourished at the end of the century.

In the 17th century, Smyrna benefited from a double migratory flow: on the one hand, Jews from Thessaloniki, where the community, burdened by heavy taxes, was going through a period of deep stagnation; on the other hand, Marranos from Portugal, who had returned to Judaism but retained their own identity and specific synagogues. In the 18th century, these groups were joined by “Francos” from Tuscany and Holland, with whom they shared a common history and, above all, the same commercial expertise. Settling around the port and the bazaar district, they played an essential role as brokers, dragomans, merchants, money changers, and lenders. They also introduced new ideas and techniques from the Renaissance, including Hebrew printing.

The return of these conversos to Judaism was not without tension. The self-proclaimed messiah Sabbatai Zevi, born in Smyrna in 1626, was initially expelled from his hometown, but made a triumphant return in 1665. Many of his followers came from this converso milieu, marked by Kabbalistic and messianic ideals. The ensuing schism, although it had deeper and more lasting repercussions in Thessaloniki, led to a decline in the Jewish community of Smyrna, which, after Sabbatai Zevi’s apostasy, adopted a resolutely conservative stance.

The earthquake of 1688, which devastated the port and several neighborhoods of the city, also put a temporary end to its development. The late recovery of Smyrna in the 18th century mainly benefited the Greek, Levantine, and Armenian communities.

The accounts of European travelers in the mid-19th century emphasize the backwardness of a Jewish community confined to a few streets adjacent to the bazaar, where it survived in a state of overcrowding and endemic poverty. Nevertheless, a more affluent fringe remained, benefiting from foreign nationalities that allowed them to escape some of the constraints of rabbinical justice and Ottoman taxes.

It was in this context that a desire for community reform emerged, resulting in the founding of the Alliance Israélite Universelle school, first for boys in 1873, then for girls in 1879. As elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, the Alliance promoted an educational model based on the French language and culture, encouraging the secularization and professionalization of the community, the promotion of reason, and the education of girls.

Smyrna was the most cosmopolitan city in the Empire, which also earned it the reputation of “gavur” — infidel in Turkish — a reputation that still clings to it today. Relations between Jews and Greeks were complex, marked by recurring accusations of ritual murder, but also by personal friendships.

The first generation educated in Alliance schools facilitated the integration of the Jewish community into new commercial networks at a time when Smyrna had become the leading port of the Ottoman Empire. A Judeo-Spanish press developed, reflecting the lively debates between traditionalists and reformists, and, among the latter, between Alliance members, Ottomanists, and Zionists. Reading clubs, circles of notables, and Masonic lodges sprang up, around which schools competing with those of the Alliance were created. At the same time, the city’s Jewish elite preferred to educate their own children with private tutors and in Christian denominational schools, which were seen as markers of social distinction. This new generation, benefiting from a more modern education, moved to the coastal suburb of Karataş at the end of the 19th century, where a new synagogue and a Jewish hospital were soon built.

Around 1900, the Jewish community in Smyrna numbered around 25,000 members, or nearly 13% of the population. The main “nation” in the city at that time was the Greek Orthodox, followed by the Muslim Turks, the Levantines, and then the Armenians. Smyrna was the most cosmopolitan city in the Empire, which also earned it the reputation of “gavur”—meaning “infidel” in Turkish—a reputation that still clings to it today. Relations between Jews and Greeks were complex, marked by recurring accusations of ritual murder, but also by personal friendships. The Jews claimed the status of a “nation loyal” to the Ottoman Empire, unlike the Greeks and, above all, the Armenians, who were increasingly attracted to irredentism. A Jewish police commissioner, Rafaël Chikurel, distinguished himself by his crackdown on Armenian nationalist circles in Smyrna in the 1900s. As a counterpoint to these community tensions, however, there was a shared Smyrna identity: all the major “nations”—Jewish, Christian, and Muslim—came together to celebrate Purim, the most popular holiday in the Jewish calendar in Smyrna, which gave rise to two days of carnival-like revelry throughout the Jewish quarter of the bazaar.

The last great moment of harmony between the city’s communities was undoubtedly the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, in which each “nation” believed it saw the promise of liberation after years of fierce Hamidian repression. The illusion quickly dissipated: behind the Ottomanist ideology emerged an increasingly intransigent Turkish nationalism. For Jews, compulsory conscription into the Ottoman army came as a brutal shock, especially as it was often accompanied by mistreatment. Learning Turkish also became an increasing requirement for a community that was certainly multilingual, but whose everyday languages remained Judeo-Spanish, French, Italian, and Greek.

The last great moment of harmony between the city’s communities was undoubtedly the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, in which each “nation” believed it saw the promise of liberation after years of fierce Hamidian repression.

From then on, a first wave of emigration took young Jews to Egypt, France, and the Americas. The First World War impoverished Smyrna, which was subjected to a blockade of its port by the Allied forces; famine and cholera struck a large part of the population. From 1919 to 1920, the city came under Greek administration, a period marked by numerous anti-Ottoman, anti-Armenian, and anti-Jewish incidents, prompting a new wave of exile. These years also constituted the golden age of local Zionism, with its supporters and detractors. The sequence ended with the capture of Smyrna by Mustafa Kemal’s army, the expulsion of the Greeks from Anatolia, and a grim procession of massacres, rapes, and fires that ravaged the city. From 1923 onwards, only the Muslim and Jewish communities remained in Smyrna.

Proclaimed by Mustafa Kemal, the Turkish Republic was intended to be a secular, Turkish nation-state. The Jews lost their community autonomy and their schools; they had to integrate into the Turkish nation, adopt the language, or emigrate. Between 1923 and 1939, between hopes and disillusionment, the vast majority of Smyrna’s Jews, unable to adapt to Turkification, took the path of exile. In 1948, the proclamation of the State of Israel—quickly recognized by the Turkish Republic—triggered a new wave of departures, particularly among the poorest communities.

Despite this considerable demographic decline, the Jewish community of Izmir remains one of the last in Turkey to maintain a relatively active community life. Above all, the diaspora of Smyrna Jews, like those of Rhodes and Thessaloniki, cultivates a vivid memory of the city’s Jewish past through cultural trips, stories, and publications. The following two articles are devoted to this recent heritage preservation—with its political, diplomatic, and linguistic implications—that the following two articles are devoted, one of which takes the form of a testimonial-manifesto from one of the young actors in this movement.

For a more complete historical overview, see Professor Henri Nahum’s article, “Les Juifs à Smyrne : de l’enfermement à l’ouverture vers le monde” (The Jews of Smyrna: from isolation to openness to the world).

See also “Kaminando i Avlando,” a magazine published by the association “Aki Estamos,” whose goal is to keep Judeo-Spanish culture alive today.