Defenders of Imperial Industry: Jews and the Politics of Economic Ottomanism

Studies of the Ottoman empire’s integration into the world economy often emphasize non-Muslim merchants’ roles as intermediaries between Western capital and the empire’s Muslim population. Indeed, by the nineteenth century, significant numbers of Ottoman non-Muslims were linked both economically and politically to European powers, in many cases through their employment with European consulates and companies. These commercial affiliations have been tied to the formation of an influential protégé class comprised primarily of non-Muslim natives who began to benefit from extraterritoriality and trading privileges within the empire.

Different scholars of the late Ottoman era consequently describe the rapid Westernization of these merchants, their lack of investment in the Ottoman economy, and their subsequent alienation from their local milieux. In the words of the historian Charles Issawi, it was “perhaps superfluous to add that the minorities [of the empire] felt much more affinity with Western culture than did Muslims and absorbed it with almost no reservations.” Living within imperial domains but outside of the sultan’s control, we are told, non-Muslim merchants came to tie their fortunes increasingly to European interests.

My paper aims to offer an untold chapter in the economic and political history of Ottoman non-Muslims. Studying the professional lives and ideological commitments of different Ottoman Jewish individuals, I seek to revisit the suggestion that the Ottoman non-Muslim middle-classes collectively embraced Western ideas, trade, and technologies during the modern era. Legal positions, economic activity, and political commitments could sometimes align in unexpected ways. Indeed, despite their extensive relations with Westerners and Western capital, the different Jewish individuals I will discuss in this paper were all part of particular initiatives and niche markets that led them to proclaim their sense of economic investment in the Ottoman empire.