History of the Jewish People and Contemporary Jewry

Subject:The Ottoman-Jewish Haskalah, 1839-1908: A Transformation in Western Anatolia, the Southern Balkans and Jerusalem Jewish Communities

Supervisor: Prof. Yaron Ben-Naeh

Abstract: This dissertation discusses the Ottoman-Jewish Haskalah (Enlightenment), which had developed and grown in the Tanzimat period (1839-1876) and the Hamidian period (1876-1908). The study focuses on the four central urban Jewish communities in Western Anatolia, the Southern Balkans (Salonica, Istanbul, Izmir, and Edirne), and in Jerusalem, as a unique study case of an ottoman province.

The research encompasses a circle of some 30 Maskilim, which their main cultural and intellectual links, defining them as a group in this study, was to the Jewish Haskalah movement in Central and Eastern Europe, mostly in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. These Maskilim, most of whom had acquired some rabbinic education, wrote mainly in two languages: Hebrew, the Lingua Franca of Jewish Haskalah movement, and the Sephardic Ottoman vernacular – Ladino.

Presidential Stipend 2015/16