Table Of ContentJEWS AND PALESTINIANS IN THE
LATE OTTOMAN ERA, 1908–1914
Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire
Series Editor: Kent F. Schull
Published and forthcoming titles
Migrating Texts: Circulating Translations around the Ottoman Mediterranean
Edited by Marilyn Booth
Jews and Palestinians in the Late Ottoman Era, 1908–1914: Claiming the Homeland
Louis A. Fishman
Ottoman Sunnism: New Perspectives
Edited by Vefa Erginbaş
Armemians in the Late Ottoman Empire: Migration, Mobility Control and Sovereignty,
1885–1915
David Gutman
The Kizilbash-Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia: Sufism, Politics and Community
Ayfer Karakaya-Stump
Çemberlitaş Hamami in Istanbul: The Biographical Memoir of a Turkish Bath
Nina Macaraig
Nineteenth-Century Local Governance in Ottoman Bulgaria: Politics in Provincial
Councils
Safa Saraçoğlu
Prisons in the Late Ottoman Empire: Microcosms of Modernity
Kent F. Schull
Ruler Visibility and Popular Belonging in the Ottoman Empire
Darin Stephanov
Children and Childhood in the Ottoman Empire: From the Fourteenth to the Twentieth
Centuries
Edited by Gulay Yilmaz and Fruma Zachs
edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/esoe
JEWS AND PALESTINIANS IN THE
LATE OTTOMAN ERA, 1908–1914
CLAIMING THE HOMELAND
2
Louis A. Fishman
To the memory of my dear parents, Edward and Joyce,
who always supported me on my way and to the next generation,
my dear daughter, Alumah
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© Louis A. Fishman, 2020
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
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The right of Louis A. Fishman to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
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Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
Contents
List of Figures vi
Abbreviations vii
Acknowledgements ix
Note on Translation and Transliteration xii
Introduction 1
1. Setting the Stage before Conflict 31
2. The Emergence of a Collective Palestinian Identity 65
3. The Haram al-Sharif Incident and its Aftermath 102
4. Palestine’s Jewish Community Unites 134
5. Ottomans and Zionists in Istanbul 172
Conclusion 204
Bibliography 209
Index 224
Figures
I.1 Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem, late Ottoman period 9
I.2 Tuborg Beer advertisement, Filastin 14
I.3 Letterhead of the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem 15
1.1 The mutasarrifate of Jerusalem 38
1.2 The district of Beirut 39
3.1 The Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem 103
3.2 Clip of al-Quds newspaper 104
4.1 Karmi Eisenberg, an Ottoman Zionist soldier 163
Abbreviations
BEO Bâb-ı Âlî Evrak Odası
BOA Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (The Prime Ministry’s
Ottoman Archives)
CUP Committee of Union and Progress
CZO Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem
DH.EUM Dahiliye Nezareti, Emniyet-i Umumiye Müdüriyeti
Belgeleri (Public Security Directorate, Interior Mnistry)
DH.EUM.4.Şb Dahiliye Nezareti Emniyet-i Umumiye Müdüriyeti
Belgeleri (Public Security Directorate, Fourth division,
Interior Ministry)
DH.ID Dahiliye Nezareti İdare-i Umumiye (Public Affairs,
Interior Ministry)
DH.IUM Dahiliye Nezareti İdâre-i Umumiye Belgeleri (General
Administration, Interior Ministry)
DH.KMS Dahiliye Nezâreti Kalem-i Mahsus Müdüriyeti Belgeleri
(Private Secretariat, Interior Ministry)
DH.MKT Dahiliye Nezâreti Mektubî Kalemi (Correspondence
office, Interior Ministry)
DH.MUI Dahiliye Nezareti, Muhaberât-ı Umumiye İdaresi
Belgeleri (The General Communications Office, Interior
Ministry)
DH.ŞFR Dahiliye Nezâreti Şifre Kalemi Belgeleri (Cipher office,
Interior Ministry)
DH.SYS Dahiliye Nezâreti Siyasî Kısım Belgeleri (Political paper
section, Interior Ministry)
DH.UMVM Dahiliye Nezareti Umûr-ı Mahalliye-i Vilayât
Müdüriyeti Belgeleri (Directorate for Local and
Provincial, Interior Ministry)
vii
Jews and Palestinians in the Late Ottoman Era
MMZC Meclis-i Mebusan Zabıt Cerideleri (Proceedings of the
Ottoman Parliament)
MV Meclis-i Vükela (Council of Ministers)
PRO Public Record Office, British National Archives
viii
Acknowledgements
I wrote this book between three cities: Istanbul, Tel Aviv and New York,
over the last five years and a good part of it is based on a dissertation I
finished at the University of Chicago, in 2007. Over the course of the last
decade I was fortunate to live between the different cities, all of which
made getting this book done a bit difficult. However, admittedly, in return,
I was able to live some of the best days of my life, which were often spent
late at night on side streets of Istanbul, listening to stories of different sorts
of peoples (and sometimes telling my own story). During these years,
I also broke out into journalism and reached new heights I never could
imagine. It truly has been exciting. This time was needed and necessary
to rethink how I was going to knock down the proudly built building that
took the form of a dissertation, only to be rebuilt into the form of a book.
It is my hope that this book will provide a compelling narrative that allows
you, the readers, to look beyond what you might know and to rethink the
history of late Ottoman Palestine.
I owe much of my knowledge to the outstanding scholars on Ottoman
Palestine (and late Ottoman history in general). Their work, and that of
others, has set the stage for robust debates about the history of the period,
while their friendship has been rewarding. I am thankful to Emanuel
Beška, Michelle Campos, Julia Phillips Cohen, Bedross Der Matossian,
Abigail Jacobson, Vincent Lemire, Roberto Mazza, Devin Naar, Christine
Philliou, Avi Rubin and Salim Tamari. They, and other new authors
working on the late Ottoman era, all have turned the field into an exciting
one to be a part of. Certainly, there is much more work to be done on
Ottoman Palestine, and only by continuing to chisel away at the different
national narratives will we come close to understanding it in all of its
complexities.
I would like to extend my gratitude to those professors who have been
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