Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine (79 page)

^26.
By the eve of World War I, the Palestine Office did not have complete statistics on the citizenship of Zionist settlers, but it used the number of eligible voters in the Ottoman elections as a standard of measurement: approximately 250 Ottoman citizens in six Judean colonies, another 50 Yemenites in five colonies, and virtually all of the ICA (Rothschild-funded) settlers in the Galilee. PO to Jacobus Kann, April 30, 1913. CZA Z3/1449.

^27.
By 1909, two more figures who would become central in Zionist (and Israeli) history—Menachem Ussishkin and Vladimir Jabotinsky—were sent to work in the Istanbul office.
Ha-
erut
, August 23, 1909.

^28.
By 1907, however, an internal memorandum indicated that the Zionist movement felt this was unrealistic given the demographics of Palestine; the best they could hope for would be partial autonomy, preferably over part of Judea and Tiberias. Memorandum of the Future Zionist Work in Palestine, November 1907. CZA H148/34.

^29.
Zionist Central Office to Ruppin, September 15, 1908. CZA L2/26I. For more on Ekrem Bey's report and attitudes toward the Zionist movement, see Kushner,
Moshel hayiti bi-Yerushalayim.

^30.
August 8, 1909. CZA Z2/1.

^31.
“The New Situation in Turkey [sic],” by Vladimir Jabotinsky,
Ha-‘Olam
, February 2, 1909.

^32.
One of these important figures in the capital was Isaac Fernandez, the AIU and ICA representative in Istanbul said to have good ties with high-ranking Muslims and Christians. Jacobsohn to Wolffsohn, September 10, 1908. CZA A19/7. Another prominent Jew was Nachmias Bey, the dragoman of the Ottoman Imperial Bank who was a close friend of the Minister of Interior Hakki Pasha; in the case of Nachmias Bey it was a lost cause, for he was adamantly against Zionism. Jacobsohn to Wolffsohn, October 6, 1908. CZA Z2/7.

^33.
Zionistische Zentralburo to Mazliach and Russo, January 24, 1909. CZA Z2/7. As Weiner affirms, this was a deliberate “camouflaging” of the long-term ambitions of the Zionist movement. Weiner, “Ha-mediniyut ha-
iyonit be-Turkiya,” 268 and 274.

^34.
Jacobsohn to Wolffsohn, January 14, 1909. CZA Z2/7.

^35.
Wolffsohn to Mazliach and Russo, early 1909. CZA A19/7.

^36.
December 31, 1908. CZA Z2/7.

^37.
Riza Tevfik Bey and Enver Bey were deemed to be sympathetic, whereas Nazim Bey was very nervous about the idea of concentrating Jews in Palestine. Jacobsohn to Wolffsohn, February 12, 1909. Jacobsohn to Wolffsohn, February 15, 1909. CZA Z2/7. In a meeting with the Baghdad MP Ezekiel Sasson,
Mazliach ascertained that he was anti-Zionist. “The difficulty with Mr. Sasson is that he seems to be to be an Arab patriot.” Cited in Jacobsohn to Wolffsohn, February 22, 1909. CZA Z2/7.

^38.
Jacobsohn to Wolffsohn, March 10, 1909. CZA A19/7.

^39.
Weiner, “Ha-mediniyut ha-
iyonit be-Turkiya,” 276. For example in 1909 Wolffsohn met with Ahmed Riza.
Ha-
erut
, August 25, 1909.

^40.
El Liberal
, July 30, 1909. Also see Nahum Sokolow, “The Jews of Turkey [sic] and Zionism,”
Ha-
erut
, January 17, 1910, for European Zionism's official expectations of Ottoman Jewry.

^41.
Interview with Avraham Elmaliach, Oral History Project, Institute for Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, December 17, 1963. For early discussion in the Sephardi press about the possibility and desirability of reviving Hebrew, see Romero,
La creacion literaria en lengua sefardí.

^42.
In addition to the extensive work of Esther Benbassa on Istanbul, see also reports in
Ha-
erut
, August 11, 1909, and September 3, 1909; on Salonica:
Ha-
erut
, May 25, 1909, and June 8, 1909; on Izmir:
El Liberal
, May 7, 1909, and June 11, 1909;
Ha-
erut
, July 14, 1909. In addition see “The Hebrew Renaissance in Damascus,”
Ha-
erut
, April 13, 1913. Benbassa argues elsewhere that the Zionist focus on populist themes contributed to its appeal in the Balkans. Benbassa, “Zionism in the Ottoman Empire.”

^43.
For example, a complaint that there was only a single Sephardi present at a conference of Hebrew culture.
Ha-
erut
, February 9, 1910. Complaints also abounded that Hebrew (national) life in Beirut, Damascus, Aleppo, and Egypt was nonexistent; see Ruppin to ZAC, May 30, 1913. CZA Z3/1449;
Ha-Po'el ha-
a'ir
, December 1909. As a corrective measure Nissim Malul envisioned translating Theodor Herzl's Zionist utopian novel
Altneuland
into Arabic, and the Palestine Office sent the Sephardi chief rabbi of Jaffa on a propaganda tour in greater Syria in 1913. Thon to ZAC, August 21, 1913, CZA Z3/1450; Ruppin to ZAC, June 6, 1912, CZA, Z3/1448. See also Bessemer, “Ottoman Jewry and the 1908 Revolution.”