Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World

Ebüzziya Tevfik, who was born in Istanbul in 1849 and died in 1913, was an Ottoman journalist, encyclopedist, and publisher. Early in life he entered upon a career in newspapers and publishing, through which he met fellow intellectuals and others associated with the Young Ottomans and soon joined their movement. In 1873 he was exiled to Rhodes because of his political activities. Upon his return three years later, he joined the group that was writing the first Ottoman constitution, the Kanuni Esasi. Ebüzziya was exiled several more times after Abdülhamid II abolished the constitutio…

The École Normale Hébraïque (ENH) was founded inCasablanca in 1946 by the Alliance Israélite Universelle to train teachers in modern Hebrew and Jewish Studies. It was part of an effort to modernize the Jewish and Hebrew curriculum in Morocco, as well as to replace the more traditionalist rabbi-teachers who taught Hebrew and Jewish Studies in the Alliance schools, and to serve as a testing ground for the organization’s post–World War II program of reform. Its founders were Jules Braunschvig, the vice-president of the Alliance, Isaac Rouche, a rabbi from Oran and supporter of the AIU, and Re…

When theAlliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) was established in Paris in 1860, one of its goals was to support the emancipation and “moral progress” of the Jewish people. To accomplish this mission, the AIU established a network of schools in the Balkans, the Middle East, and North Africa, and a teacher-training college in Paris for young men (1867) and held classes for young women (1872). The school, the École Normale Israélite Orientale (ENIO), recruited the best students from the AIU schools in “Oriental” lands at ages fourteen or fifteen and brought them to…

Established in 1936 by the Alliance Israélite Universelle in cooperation with the Direction Générale de l’Instruction Publique, the École Professionelle Agricole of Marrakesh was the first of two agricultural schools for Jews founded in Morocco during the protectorate period. While diversifying Jewish occupational patterns was consistent with the AIU’s larger emancipation project, the school also had the more practical goal of providing local Jews with modern agricultural training so that they could find employment on farms owned by European colons, which had been steadily…

The Ecoles Franco-Israélites were public schools for Jews established in 1916/17 by the education department of the French protectorate in Morocco, parallel to the Muslim state educational network, in order to develop a French-controlled school system and limit the influence of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. In 1921 there were twenty-seven EFI schools, which by 1926 had around five thousand students. By comparison the AIU had seventeen schools with 4,683  students. The EFI schools were tuition-free, placed no financial obligations …

1.    Brief History of EdirneEdirne (Adrianople) is an ancient city in northwestern Turkey (Thrace), neighboring Greece and Bulgaria. In 2000, its population was 119,316. Throughout its long history, Edirne’s strategic location led to intense competition to control it. The city was ruled by several different nations and finally was captured by the Ottomans in 1361. From 1365 until the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Edirne was the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The Sublime Porte used the city as a E…

Stillman, Norman A.is the Schusterman/Josey Professor of Judaic History at the University of Oklahoma, and is an internationally recognized authority on the history and culture of the Islamic world and on Sephardi and Oriental Jewry. Professor Stillman received his BA (magna cum laude) and PhD in Oriental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is the author of seven books and numerous articles in several languages. His next…

Moses ben Isaac Edrehi (al-Darʿī) was a noted Moroccan scholar, rabbi, and writer in the first half of the nineteenth century. He was born in the southwestern Moroccan city of Agadir in 1774, but moved from there to Essaouira (Mogador) at an early age. In the introduction to his Torat Ḥayyim (London, 1792), he says that he studied in Salé under Judah Anhori. In his Yad Moshe (Amsterdam, 1809) he says that he preached in Meknes when he was just fourteen years old (p. 23v), and that at sixteen he gave sermons in London and at the Sephardi religious school ʿEṣ Ḥa…

1. Medieval PeriodThe education of the young in the medieval society documented in the Cairo Geniza was basically aimed at preparing them to integrate as early and efficiently as possible into the world of adults. This is clearly reflected in some eleventh- and twelfth-century halakhic monographs that discuss the passage from childhood to maturity. They present the early years of human life as a prolonged ascent toward the peak of full adulthood; the stages preceding adulthood are only important as  preparatory steps toward the goal. Religious studies, however, were lifelong and…

earrings, Clothing, Jewelry and Make-up“The Earthquake at Agadir” (poem, Biton), Biton, Erezearthquakes  in Agadir (1960), Agadir  and Jewish community, Sous, Inezgane, Inezgane in Aleppo (1822), Aleppo in Algeria, Orléansville (El Asnam, Ech-Chelif, Ar. al-Shalif) in Palestine, PalestineEast Bank (London), synagogue in, United Kingdom ​East India Company (Dutch Republic), Long-Distance Trade access by Jews to, Trading NetworkEast India Company (Great Britain), access by Jews to, Trading Network ​Eastern Europe  Jewish education in, Lubavitch Schools Karaism in…

‘Edut be-Yosef (In Joseph for a Testimony, Joseph al-Ashqar), Tlemcen ‘Edut bi-Yhosef (Testimony of Jehoseph, Joseph ben Isaac Almosnino), Almosnino, Joseph ben Isaac ‘Edut bi-Yhosef (Testimony of Jehoseph, Joseph Garjī), Garjī, Mullah Benjamin, Garjī, Mullah JosephEdward I (king of England), expulsion of Jews by, United Kingdom Efa Shelema (Duwayk, Ḥayyim Saul), Duwayk (Douek, Dweck), Ḥayyim SaulEfendi, Ahmed, Abravanel, Moses ben RaphaelEfendi, Aziz Mehmed seeShabbetay ṢeviEfendi, Çelebi, Kırklareli (Kırk Kilise)Efendi, Mehmed Emin, Abravanel, Moses ben RaphaelEfend…

Emmanuel, Isaac Samuel, Kalai, Mordechai Ben Solomon, Levi (Le-Vet Ha-Levi) Family, Salonica, Levi (Le-Vet Ha-Levi) Family, Salonical’Empereur, Constantin, Jeshua ben Joseph ha-Leviemployment of women  in Morocco, Meknes, Meknes in Tunisia, TunisiaEmsellem, Makhlūf ben Isaac, Emsellem, Makhlūf ben Isaac Emuna Rama (The Exalted Faith, Abraham ibn Da’ud) see The Exalted Faith Emuna Yoṣera Eṣlo Amana (God Fostered the Torah with Him, poem, Ben Ḥalfon), Ben Ḥalfon, Abraham Emunot ve-De‘ot (Sa‘adya Gaon) see Kitāb al-Amānāt wa ’l-I‘tiqādāt (Emunot ve-De‘ot), Book of Doctrin…

Ets-Haim Library (Amsterdam), Manuscripts and manuscript collectionsEtz Ahayim Synagogue (Bursa), Bursa (Prousa), Ottoman Empire, Etz Ahayim Synagogue, BursaEtz Ḥayyim Synagogue (Izmir), IzmirEuclid, Mizraḥi, Elijah ben Abrahameulogies  on Abraham ibn Ezra, Aaron Ḥakīmān by ‘Aṭiyya, Isaac, ʿAṭiyya Family Hebrew, Hebrew Poetry in the Medieval Islamic World for prophet Moḥammed, by Ibn Kammūna, Ibn Kammūna, SaʿdEureka (program on new technologies), Attali, JacquesEurope  Andalusian Jewish culture spread in, Qimḥī, Joseph ben Isaac anti-Jewish violence in, in Mi…

1. Medieval PeriodFrom Arab Conquest to Fatimid Conquest (640–969)When the Arabs conquered Egypt between 640 and 642, there was a large Jewish community that dated back to the Hellenistic era, mainly in Alexandria. According to the early Arab chronicler Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam(d. 871), the conqueror ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ wrote to the caliph ʿUmar that there were forty thousand tax-paying Jews in Alexandria. The true figure was probably more like four thousand heads of households, but the exaggerated number is a good indication of the Bedouin Arabs’ se…

The Characteristics of Spoken Egyptian Judeo-ArabicEgyptian Judeo-Arabic is the dialect that has been used by Egyptian Jews. Nada Tomiche was the first to document Egyptian Jewish speech, highlighting several spoken features, distinguishing them from Christian and Muslim Egyptian Arabic in phonetics, morphology, and the lexicon. Haim Blanc followed suit, laying the foundations for research on Egyptian Judeo-Arabic. Although Blanc argued that the dialect spoken by Cairene Jews is not distinct from the…

The promulgation of the 1929 Egyptian Nationality Law was the culmination of a long search for a legal answer to the question of who was an Egyptian. Several decrees between 1892 and 1902 tried to deal with this issue for administrative purposes, but it was only after the severing of Egypt from the Ottoman Empire in 1914, and the subsequent emergence of the Egyptian nation-state, that the question became acute. Several draft laws were prepared, beginning in 1914, but the nationality law was only fina…

Mass demonstrations against Zionism were called for November 2, 1945 (Balfour Declaration Day) in the major cities of Egypt by several Egyptian nationalist and Islamist groups, such Miṣr al-Fatāt, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Young Men’s Muslim Association. A report by the British police commissioner of Cairo written three days before the demonstrations noted “considerable ill-feeling . . . against Jews,” but stated that security precautions in place alleviated any cause for concern. Events proved othe…