History of the Turkish Jews and Sephardim: Memories of a Past Golden Age

Elli Kohen

Jan 2007 · University Press of America

About this ebook

This book presents aliving history of the Turkish Jews. Despite numerous historical studies of this time period and its people, includingFarewell to Salonica by Leon Sciaky, the works of the Bulgarian Sephardic author Canetti,History of the Israelites of Salonica by Joseph Nehama,Salonica by Mark Mazower, and the works of Abraham Galante, there are few livinghistories. InHistory of the Turkish Jews and Sephardim author Elli Kohen attempts to combine the patience of the chronicler with the folksy humor of the storyteller, without undermining the presentation of the Sephardic Jews cultural history. It is a book of love for all the cultures that have come to coexist on the shores of the Bosphorus.



This comprehensive work explores the early Ottomon period, the Sephardi period, and concludes on the eve of the Sabbastian upheaval. Unique in tone and purpose,History of the Turkish Jews and Sephardim explores the cultural synthesis resulting from the interaction of the various elements co-existing near the shores of the Bosphorus. In style and breadth, this new work complements the existing literature on this historical period.



Below are some of the events and stories chronicled in the History of the Turkish Jew and Sephardim:

- The mysterious sect of Judaizing Chiones

-The enigmatic Torlak and the Anatolian syncretistic-communist revolution

- The Jewish doctors of Sultan Mehmed II and Suleyman the Magnificent

-The circular letter of the Sarfati calling the Ashkenazes to Turkey

-The lives of the Iberian Jews in the Turkish Paradise

-The rise of Joseph Nasi, the Duke of Naxos

-The charter for the quasi-autonomous Jewish mini-state, Muselemlik, in Salonica

-The monetary crisis of coinage (Jew money)

-The rise and fall of Esther Kyra, Court Jewess

-Murad IV and the Salonica textile crisis

About the author

Elli Kohen, MD, born in Istanbul, Turkey, is an anatomopathologist, researcher in cell biology, cell biochemistry, and cellular pharmacology, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Miami. He has written eight books in science, a Ladino/English Encyclopedic Dictionary, and the biography of Rabbi Nissim Ovadia, A Pillar of Sephardi Judaism. He appears in the marquis Who's Who in America 2005 and 2006, Who's Who in Science and Engineering 2005, Who's Who in the World of Education 2005, and the forthcoming Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare 2007. Dr. Kohen has spent many years in Turkey and the surrounding area. He incorporates his experiences in these regions into his writing in an effort to preserve and impart the history of the Jews in the Byzantine and Ottomon periods.