Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine (31 page)

In October, a Jew visiting Hebron for the Jewish festival of Sukkot was reported murdered after he mistakenly climbed past the fifth step of the Cave of the Patriarchs, traditionally forbidden to Jews. The event caused outrage among Jewish journalists as proof of how the Jews had yet to benefit from real liberty. It is unclear whether this is a true story, however, since a government commission sent to investigate the disappearance and murder of the Jew was told by the Hebron chief rabbi, Suleiman Mani, that no such thing had taken place. Nonetheless,
Liberty
insisted that the man had been killed and scorned the chief rabbi for not taking the opportunity to demand that the prohibition on Jewish entry to the cave be lifted.
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Around the same time, an incident emerged involving a drunken homeless Jew by the name of Shlomo who insulted the police and subsequently was arrested and beaten by them and Arab passersby in the Old City of Jerusalem. The police said Shlomo had insulted Islam, and by the time he arrived at the jail one of his eyes was swollen shut. The Sephardi press responded in outrage:

After all this, there are people who think that there is liberty for all, there are those who say that all have the rights of equality, those who notify us that we live with our neighbors in brotherhood…this is intolerable! When the constitution was proclaimed in Turkey [
sic
] and the word
hurriyya
rang out, our joy was great, very great, thinking that we would finally…be able to breathe a pure and free air…[but] our situation has gotten worse! Yes! Worse! Before our lives were secure, our interests were not trampled and our dignity was not trespassed; while
now they insult us, they mistreat us, they trample us daily, and they look to calumny us always under the name of “liberty”!
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That same day, a stinging critique was published in
Liberty
, “Such is Brotherhood and Equality,” complaining about elements of discrimination against Jews as well as demanding full equality as promised by the new order:

Everyone says to give it time and our situation will improve. Enough! A year and a half have passed from the giving of equality to all the peoples without difference in religion or race. Fifteen months since the words freedom, equality, and brotherhood had high hopes, but every good change passes us by…our situation gets worse by the day, just because we are “Jews.”…Why don’t we raise our voices and demand a lawsuit?

If we are good enough to pay taxes and burdens, to go to the army and spill our blood for our homeland, then we should also enjoy the rights of the government…. All of us cannot remain silent—we must demand from the government an investigation, a trial. If everything is done and the government defends us, so our lives are secure from the accusing masses, and we know that freedom, equality, and brotherhood that were given to us were not just empty words, but according to law and deed.
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Liberty
's anger had been cumulative, and it also reflected a broader dissatisfaction with the post-Hamidian order that had fallen far short of expectations in numerous ways. Jews were not the only ones who were affected or concerned by the growing lack of security in the land and the frightful inability of the local government to impose order. In fact, this lack of security (the rise of robberies, assault, murder, and rape) was a recurrent theme in the Palestinian press, as we saw in the complaints in
The Carmel
, as well as elsewhere.
⁶⁵

As the Jewish community was not alone in its dissatisfaction with the shortcomings of the new era, the press offers us a window onto the development and expression of growing intercommunal rivalry. Rather than expressing age-old hatreds, the intercommunal rivalry of the constitutional period was cast in an Ottomanist lens. Tensions between communities found their expression in the pages of their newspapers, particularly around the new rights and responsibilities of citizenship and relative privileges. The language of a shared citizenship and nationhood was juxtaposed next to the much more complicated reality, where both Muslims and non-Muslims alike resented their own forced contribution to changing the status quo while questioning their neighbors’ lack of willingness to do so.

A perfect illustration of this is the case of universal military conscription. Until 1909, only Muslims were subjected to conscription in the Ottoman army, and military service was considered a heavy burden.
Healthy young men were taken for years to battle malnourishment, disease, late or missing paychecks, and appalling conditions in remote corners of the empire. Back home, families were deprived of healthy wage earners and working hands, uncertain about the fate of their departed sons.
⁶⁶
For their part, Jewish and Christian male subjects of the empire were expected to pay the military exemption tax. This tax was charged on a communal, not individual, level: each
millet
was taxed a lump sum based on the reported number of men in the community; in turn, the communal leadership would settle accounts with their members, heavily subsidizing the poor. While the
bedel
(or ‘
askariyya
, as it was known in Arabic) was also considered a heavy financial burden, there is no doubt that it was preferable to military service.

However, in the prevailing euphoria of the postrevolutionary period, when the Ottoman military was praised for its role in the revolution and in bringing
urriyya
, and while the Ottoman public was eager to participate in the benefits as well as responsibilities of citizenship, universal conscription took its place among the slogans of a changing empire. Universal conscription was talked about as a tool of social engineering, a policy that would Ottomanize and homogenize the empire’s polyglot communities. Public discourse embraced universal conscription as sharing the burdens of defending the empire as well as putting an end to the myriad privileges enjoyed by the non-Muslim communities of the empire.

For many non-Muslims and particularly for the Ottoman Jewish communities, support for universal conscription became a measure of support for Ottomanism, for the empire, and for the responsible participation of non-Muslims in the new Ottoman body politic. It was considered an honorable contribution to the Ottoman nation, not only a duty but a privilege for all Ottoman citizens.
⁶⁷
In short order, however, military service became another yardstick by which to measure the relative Ottomanist contribution of each ethno-religious community. In many respects military conscription became a new source of intercommunal rivalry more than of integration.

However, at the same time that universal conscription was praised as properly “Ottomanist,” the Ottoman government itself was wary of universal conscription and its impact on the sectarian and ethnic status quo of the empire. Among the official bodies there was a real reluctance to arm and train suspect minorities of the empire, particularly the Orthodox and Armenian communities.
⁶⁸
As well, the issue of conscription threatened to reawaken the conflict over electoral representation. In one parliamentary debate, when it was demanded that non-Muslims be conscripted at a ratio consistent with their population, Greek representatives
retorted that proportional representation had not been adopted in the parliament so should not be adopted in the army, either.
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After several months of debate in the Ottoman parliament, the parliament finally voted in favor of universal conscription in May 1909.
⁷⁰
However, pragmatic considerations intervened to limit the appeal and practicality of conscription: the Ottoman budget simply could not absorb the cost of training and maintaining thousands of new soldiers from the non-Muslim communities. In July, the parliament reopened debate on the issue, as the loss of the
bedel
tax from the non-Muslim citizens posed a serious fiscal challenge to the empire. Bringing in over one million Turkish lira annually, the
bedel
was an important regular source of revenue for imperial coffers. In the Jerusalem province alone, the 1907-8
bedel
amounted to 5.7 percent of total local revenues (12,416 Turkish lira); by fiscal year 1909-10, it had grown to 9 percent of local revenues, a not insignificant chunk for the cash-strapped empire.
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Due to the political and economic ramifications of universal conscription, the first non-Muslim recruits did not head out to the field until 1910; even then, the parliament continued to debate various aspects of military service. In addition to the question of non-Muslim conscription, the parliamentarians debated exemptions for religious scholars and students and for descendants of the Prophet and Ottoman princes, and questioned military reforms and the broader role of military service in social engineering. One parliamentarian, Bertakis Effendi, criticized the law on interesting grounds: religious scholars should not be exempt from service because in the days of freedom and equality it is impossible to separate the shepherd from his flock; soldiers should be educated while in service so that they return home as better men; and the empire should be divided into three regions based on climate so that soldiers do not have to suffer from radical changes. Previously, the
sharifs
and
sayyids
, purportedly descendants of the family of the Prophet, were exempt from conscription. The governor of Mecca responded to the parliament that Muhammad himself had been a military man, and hence, no exemptions should be granted for them. Also, MPs Sidqi Bey and Basfi Bey argued that “equality” had no meaning if the Ottoman princes were not subject to the draft.
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In part because of the lack of a clear policy emanating from Istanbul, the conscription issue was the source of much confusion and misinformation, and as a result the local press became an important intermediary for the people. The Jewish press published numerous articles and notices about the new law, exemption regulations, dates of medical exams, call-up notices, and procedures.
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In order to preempt any intercommunal conflicts, the government established local induction and appeals committees
consisting of the governor, local military commander, head of military conscription, population registry
(nüfus)
clerks, and religious heads and lay leaders placed there, “so that no injustice is done and all is carried out according to law.”
⁷⁴
One member of the military induction committee, Albert Antébi, wrote that it was important to “fight for equality with the Muslims in terms of exemption rights.” Nevertheless, the conscription process was messy and inefficient, and led to frequent public complaints of unfairness, inefficiency, and exploitation.
⁷⁵

Because of their shared interests in negotiating the new reality, initially there was a degree of tentative cooperation between Jews and Christians in Palestine and in the empire at large around the conscription issue. As early as May 1909 the Roman Catholic
millet
in Jerusalem invited Jewish leaders to participate in a community discussion of army service. In late 1909 a joint committee of sixteen Jews and Christians was established to deal with military matters, most pressingly the updating of census registers; joint appeals were sent from Jerusalem, and Jewish and Christian members of parliament together lobbied the Ministry of War.
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Furthermore, non-Muslim religious leaders pushed for separate units, local service in Jerusalem, and other concessions that would ameliorate the new demands. For example, Haim Nahum, the chief rabbi of the empire, was actively involved in trying to minimize the impact of conscription on the Jewish community by securing kosher food for Jewish soldiers, establishing religious holidays as leave time, and arranging the assignment of Jewish soldiers to regions with an existing Jewish community. Ultimately the Ministry of War rejected the demand for separate units out of hand as being counter to the spirit of the conscription law, and Jewish and Christian soldiers were not awarded any special privileges.
⁷⁷

While at first loudly declaring Jewish excitement at serving the homeland, once the popular image of the romantic heroism of the Ottoman military wore off, many non-Muslim youth showed themselves unwilling to join an institution that posed certain health and financial risks. The press therefore played a dual function as platform for promoting military service as a duty of citizenship and trumpeting the community’s loyalty to the empire, while at the same time pleading with Jewish youth not to emigrate or otherwise escape military service, thereby revealing the limits of that loyalty. In May 1909, for example,
Liberty
proclaimed that “we the Jews were always loyal to our homeland and to our enlightened government, and it is incumbent upon us to fulfill our holy duty especially according to the laws.” Although new beginnings are difficult, the paper continued, particularly since the majority of Jewish young men did not know Arabic and Ottoman Turkish, it was incumbent upon Jews to “give the last drop of their blood for the good of the homeland.”
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