Ottoman History and Society

This work brings together Professor Aryeh Shmuelevitz’s work on Ottoman Jewry into a single volume. The essays deal with a variety of Hebrew and Ottoman sources: Responsa (questions on religious law answered by rabbis); chronicles by Jewish historians; the Jewish press; Ottoman taxation records; and local archives. The sources consulted by Shmuelevitz offer insight into not only the Ottoman Jewish communities but also their relations with their Muslim and Christian neighbours. Shmuelevitz begins by addressing the question of the reliability of the sources, before moving into specific case studies such as the Jews of Cairo, Greece and Palestine or Jewish-Armenian relations in the Ottoman Empire. The careful consideration the sources being used and their placement in the historical context makes the approach of this volume valuable to students of Ottoman and Jewish history.