Salomon Rosanes
Salomon Rosanes (b. 1862-d.1938) was a historian of Ottoman Jewry and himself a Sephardic Jew from Bulgaria.[1] He is the author of Divre yeme Yisrael be-Togarmah (History of the Jews in Turkey),[2] called an "important book" by Avraham Elmaleh in his inaugural Hebrew language essay published in 1919 for the journal Mizarah u-Ma'arav.[3] The History of the Jews in Turkey has been described as a "classic" and "celebrated" work.
The six volume Divre yeme Yisrael be-Togarmah is considered the standard general history of Jews in the Ottoman Empire. It has been described as "a monument to Turkish Jewish learning" because of its emphasis on Ottoman rabbinic sources. Despite its shortcomings, like an unrealistic and uncritical portrayal of Jewish political and economic life in a "benevolent" Ottoman Empire, Rosanes' work is unmatched in its attention to the literary and scholarly culture of Ottoman Jews and has been an essential primary source for studies of Ottoman Jewish communities.[4]
After hearing of the Dolya massacre from Baruch Ben-Jacob, who was at the time trying to have the pogrom recognized in the Jewish histories Rosanes included an excerpt from Ben-Jacob's study in the History of Jews in Turkey.[1][5]
According to Nissim Behar, Rosanes was influenced by the Hebrew language teacher Rabbi Hayyim Babani who taught at the Alliance Israelite Universelle school in Constantinople.[6]
References[edit]
- ^ a b Naar, Devin E. (2016). Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. p. 205.
- ^ The title was later changed to Korot ha-Yehudim be-Turkiyah ve-'Arzot ha-Kedem. The French title was Histoire des Israelites de Turquie (Turquie, Hongrie, Serbie, Bulgarie, Bosnie, Albanie et Grèce) Et de L`Orient (Syrie, Palestine, Egypte etc.)
- ^ Behar, Moshe; Benite, Zvi Ben-Dor (2013). Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Politics and Culture. Waltham, Massachusetts: Brandeis University Press. pp. 4–5.
- ^ Gerber, Jane (1995). Sephardic Studies in the University. United States: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 73.
- ^ Little is known about the Dolya massacre. According to Ben-Jacob, Salonican Jewish merchants returning home from an annual fair in present day Macedonia were massacred by brigands. A fast day was designated by the rabbis to be observed by all Salonican Jews across generations at commemoration ceremonies at the Talmud Tora. When the Talmud Tora was destroyed in a fire in 1620 the community memory of the massacre faded,
- ^ Herzog, Christoph; Wittmann, Richard (2019). Istanbul - Kushta - Constantinople:Narratives of Identity in the Ottoman Capital 1830-1930. United Kingdom: Routledge.