Moïse Kohen (Munis Tekinalp), an important political writer and ideological exponent of Ottoman and Turkish nationalism, was born in Serres, Macedonia, in 1883. He left his native town for Salonica, where he attended the Alliance Israélite Universelle school, studied for the rabbinate at the Jewish Teachers’ College (although he never practiced), and, finally, studied law at the newly founded École Impériale de Droit. Salonica was a hotbed of political ferment and revolutionary activity in those days, and in his search for a satisfactory political commitmen…