Si Kere El Dio
Winner, general category. A conscripted husband miraculously reunites with his pregnant wife after fighting in the Balkan Wars in the Ottoman army — the great-grandfather and great-grandmother of author Nuia Menda Malki.
A Jewish, feminist, Ottoman gynecologist: A portrait of a physician from 19th-century Ottoman Istanbul
Graduate fellow Büsra Demirkol tells the story of the Romanian Jewish doctor who chose to live in Ottoman Istanbul and became a prominent member of its Jewish medical community — and an outspoken feminist.
A Turkish Jew in Nazi Germany: A family’s incredible story of survival, and a museum in a suitcase
While researching Jewish refugees of Nazi Germany, graduate fellow Joana Bürger uncovered the incredible story of a Sephardi-Catholic-German-Turkish family's survival during the Holocaust.
The religion of law and the law of religion: A 16th-century Ottoman murder mystery shows the rich history contained in Jewish and Muslim legal “questions and answers”
Religious legal scholars' explanations of their reasoning, called "questions and answers" in Hebrew, are a valuable source for historians, writes graduate fellow Elyakim Suissa.
VIDEO | Narrating Migration Stories: Podcasting Sephardic Jewish Journeys
In this exclusive student event, scholar and co-creator of the well-known Ottoman History Podcast Chris Gratien and retired journalist Sam Negri discuss their approach to telling the stories of marginalized migrants to the United States, focusing on the story of Negri’s father, Sephardic Jew Leo Negri.
Reproduction in the 19th-century Ottoman Empire: The story of the “bloodstained” Jewish midwives
Concern over a shrinking population led Ottoman authorities to undermine reproductive autonomy in the 19th century, writes grad fellow Büşra Demirkol, starting with outlawing abortion and exiling two "bloody" Jewish midwives.
PODCAST | Jewish Questions, Episode 5: Before Zionism — Liora Halpern
Present-day discussions of anti-Semitism often involve Israel and the Zionist movement… but before the 20th century, Jews’ and Jewish scholars’ understandings of anti-Semitism were completely connected with Europe and Christianity. In the last episode of our series, guest Liora R. Halperin looks at how 19th-century Jewish settlers to Ottoman Palestine were influenced by the anti-Semitism they experienced in the Russian Empire
From the Collection: Medjlis umumi, Jewish elections in the Ottoman Empire
When a Jewish election committee officially appointed Haim Nahum as chief rabbi of the Ottoman Empire, it changed the way Ottoman Jews navigated citizenship, self-governance, and religious authority.