Universality And Its Effect On The Jewish Community

Ellie Perlmutter

The Jews of North Africa

Dr. Jay

2 February 2023 Universality and its Effect on the Jewish Community

During the Ottoman Tanzimat from roughly 1839-1896, the Jewish community experienced two distinct moments of universality. In one case, there was the establishment of Jewish schools by French Jewish elites and philanthropists in the Ottoman Empire. There was also the Damascus Affair which brought some of the same French Elites to fight for the accused Jews. In both of these cases, I argue that there was an element of universality. In the case of the establishment of Jewish Schools in the Ottoman Empire I argue that the language and practices therein were extremely degrading to Jews and the attempts to universalize the Jews

For example, the tax farming system and corruption were abolished and military conscription became standardized. The system of “difference” in this empire was being replaced with western and “enlightened” ideas of equality. While this system of difference was not always perfect, before these reforms if a community paid their Jizya, they could practice their religion in the Ottoman Empire as they saw fit. The period of the Tanzimat sought to create equality as was framed by the West. The Jewish community in particular experienced this through the involvement of Jewish French elites and philanthropists such as Adolf Cremuix and Sir Moses Montifeore in their efforts to “regenerate” the North African Jews of the Ottoman Empire. These efforts of “regeneration” as they put it often revolved around education. Their efforts to create a “European-style education” meant that these new schools they developed taught French, eliminated a focus on Talmudic texts and Judeo-Spanish instead of the vernacular, and more “Mendelssohnian” type reforms that diluted Jewish practice in an attempt to not only impose their own western European ideals but to make them “good citizens.” This is why in Istanbul, Montifeore promoted the learning of the Turkish language as opposed to Hebrew and Judeo-Spanish. They wanted utility from the Jews of North Africa to their empire so that they would leave their

As it relates to the educational efforts in the Ottoman Empire, this attempted universality was convoluted. It was not the connection of Jewish values and practice across the world, it was a time of extreme degradation for Ottoman Jews by French Jews and the stripping of Jewish identity and practice of these Jews to become more useful to society. This was an imposition of Western European “enlightened” ideals that were inconsistent with life for Jews in the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand we see heroic efforts by the same people during the Damascus Affair to save these wrongfully accused Jews from death and more torture after the place of French Jews goes into question. In the Damascus Affair, non-Jews did not seem to see the French Elites as exempt or very different from the accused in Damascus, while they were not completely equalized, they were also just seen as Jews who may be guilty of similar crimes. I found it very interesting that while these French Elite Jews saw themselves as above and more enlightened than their Mizrachi counterparts, the non-Jewish community saw them too as traitors in this moment. The Jews were universalized then if they wanted to be or not. While the French Jewish Elite were attempting to “universalize” (I would say westernize) the Ottoman Jews, the Damascus Affair not only put all Jews under the same lense,