A Haven for Sephardic Jews
Sultan Bayazid II’s offer of refuge gave new hope to the persecuted Sephardim. In 1492, the Sultan ordered the governors of the Ottoman Empire “not to refuse the Jews entry or cause them difficulties, but to receive them cordially.” According to Bernard Lewis, “the Jews were not just permitted to settle in the Ottoman lands, but were encouraged, assisted and sometimes even compelled.”
Immanuel Aboab attributes to Bayazid II the famous remark that “the Catholic monarch Ferdinand was wrongly considered as wise, since he impoverished his country by the expulsion of the Jews, and enriched our empire.”
Over the centuries that followed, an increasing number of European Jews escaping persecution found refuge in the Ottoman Empire. In 1537, Jews facing expulsion from southern Italy found refuge in Ottoman lands. In 1542, Jews expelled from Bohemia by King Ferdinand I found safe haven. In March 1556, Sultan Suleyman wrote to Pope Paul IV demanding the release of the Ancona Marranos, whom he declared to be Ottoman citizens.
By 1477 — fifteen years before the Sephardic expulsion — Jewish households in Istanbul already numbered 1,647, representing 11% of the city’s total population (documented in Ottoman tahrir defterleri). Half a century later, after the great Sephardic influx, approximately 8,070 Jewish houses were listed — a fivefold increase reflecting the scale of Ottoman welcome.
Next: the golden age of Ottoman Jewish life — physicians, diplomats, scholars and the printing press.
The Life of Ottoman Jews →Sources cited
Abraham Danon, in Yossef Daath, No. 4.
Immanuel Aboab, Consolaçam as Tribulaçoens de Israel, III.
H. Graetz, History of the Jews.
Shaw, Stanford J. The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic. New York University Press, 1991.