The city of Aydın (known as Güzelhisar under the Seljuqs and their successors, and as Tralleis in pre-Islamic times) is situated near the coast of western Anatolia (southwest of Izmir). It had a Jewish community in Roman times, but whether Jews lived there continuously until the Ottoman era is uncertain. Ottoman records from the early seventeenth century indicate that Aydın had an established Jewish community and a rabbi. Ottoman census records from the late nineteenth century put the number of Jews in the city at over eighteen hundred, a fi…