Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine (32 page)

The Jewish press thus explicitly reinforced the link between the Ottoman citizenship project and the duty to serve in the military. On the eve of the first conscriptions, the press exhorted young men to think of the Ottoman
patria
and Ottoman
umma:
“Brothers! Don't be lazy, it is incumbent upon us to carry weapons and fight with our bodies for our dear homeland, because its peace is also peace for us.”
⁷⁹
One article by Nissim Behar reminded his readers that since they all had celebrated with the coming of freedom, they must serve as free citizens in their free land. “And we the Ottoman Jews especially will fulfill of course with strength of heart and great joy our duties to the homeland, with our blood, a duty that we could not fulfill until now because of the former lawlessness.”
⁸⁰
Patriotic articles were published that praised Jewish volunteers to the Ottoman army, Jewish war heroes from the spring 1909 countercoup, and even heroic Jews in uniform throughout the world. In that context, several articles reminded readers that Jews had served in the Russian army, despite the fact that they had no civil rights in Russia, making service in the army of a constitutional Ottoman Empire all the more reasonable and obligatory.
⁸¹

In February 1910, the first non-Muslims were finally inducted into the army in Istanbul, and the Palestinian Jewish press seized the opportunity to adopt the “Jewish pioneers” as an example to the local youth. As one newspaper remarked, the “capital was full of emotion” as people from all walks of life came to see the nearly one thousand non-Muslim conscripts performing their “duty for the homeland.”
⁸²
Furthermore, through their induction the Jewish and Christian youth embodied equality in deed and not just in words. That Friday evening, for the first time, the press noted, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim soldiers sat and ate together, fulfilling the revolution’s promises of brotherhood, equality, and a united Ottoman nation (though the paper did note that each ate from his own utensils, implying that the Jewish soldiers’ dietary restrictions were not compromised). Later, reports were published of a patriotic organization in Damascus visiting over fifty Jewish soldiers wounded in the fighting in the Hawran.
⁸³

With the passage of time, though, the Jewish press in Palestine had to acknowledge the growing resistance on the part of Jewish youth to voluntarily don the Ottoman uniform. The September 1909 rolls of eligible non-Muslim men in the Jerusalem area yielded 1,953 names, which included almost 600 Jews. However, from the periodic reports in the press, we know that by the time the actual call-ups came around, a significant percentage of the summoned youth never showed up; of those who did, large numbers requested exemptions or paid the optional exemption tax, and others flashed their foreign citizenship to get out of military service.
⁸⁴
Even while the first call-ups and inspections were taking place, an advertisement placed in a local newspaper urged all Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Maghrebi, and Yemeni Jewish young men who stood to be drafted to go to the house of one Shlomo Eliach to get advice on what could be done to better “their depressing situation.” In fact, dozens of Jewish and Christian youth were leaving Palestine weekly, with hundreds leaving Greater Syria. The Ottoman government’s threats against the émigrés did little to stem the tide. One article argued in their defense that the departing youth should not be blamed for not having received a patriotic education, which would have encouraged them to stay and enlist.
⁸⁵

Against this backdrop, by the spring of 1910, the tentative Christian-Jewish cooperation on conscription matters had given way to public rivalry. In the same issue that lauded the brotherhood and patriotism of the Istanbul recruits, the Hebrew
Liberty
published an article translated from the Christian-Arab newspaper
Equity
, which accused the Jerusalem Jewish community of lying to the local medical inspection committee in order to win exemptions from military service. In response, the Jewish newspaper voiced outrage, citing the deep loyalty and commitment of the Jewish community to the empire and, significantly, relying on the newly granted laws and rights of the constitutionalist regime to redeem them. “‘Otomani” (Ottoman) urged the Jewish community to sue the Arab paper according to articles 17 and 19 of the new press laws. As he wrote, “I call on every Jew who in his heart has feelings of patriotism and honor that it is a holy duty laid down upon them to prosecute the editor of this paper to either show the truth of his words or to punish him according to the law for the honor of the Jews.”
Liberty
’s editor seconded this recommendation and dismissed the Arab editor who was, in his opinion, jealous of the Jewish community’s advances in commerce, industry, and education. “The government knows its Jews well because they are loyal to it, not less than the Christians and perhaps much more than them.”
⁸⁶

At the same time, Mendel Kremer, a
mukhtar
of Ashkenazi Jews in Jerusalem, went to the head of the military inspection committee to complain about the Christian paper’s libelous accusations; the official reportedly denied the Christian press’s allegation of Jewish shirking. The editor of
Liberty
then demanded that official steps be taken through the SOJ to sue the editor for libel. At that point, the Christian editor of
Equity
apologized and promised to retract his statements in the next issue if the Jewish community did not sue him. Partially placated, the Jewish
Liberty
insisted that if the other editor fulfilled his promise, they would forgive him, but “if not, we will demand a lawsuit so that all our haters and enemies will hear, and know that there is an eye that sees and an ear that hears, and the Jews will go to court over everything.”
⁸⁷
Several
days later,
Liberty
reported that
Equity
had in fact retracted its former accusations in a short note to its readers, stating, “By the way, the notice we published that some Jewish youth put tobacco in their eyes to fool the doctors is a falsehood.”
⁸⁸
In response, the Jewish newspaper editors wrote that while they were uncertain whether the Arab editor had “seen the truth” or simply feared punishment, they were pleased that he had considered their demands for a retraction.

In addition to its formal retraction,
Equity
published a lead article praising the Jewish population of the empire, sections of which were translated and republished in
Liberty
for its readers. If the article struck the Jewish editors as overly florid or sarcastic they did not let on:

All the peoples in the great Ottoman Empire received the constitution like a man thirsty for water and on the faces of all we saw the joy and brotherhood and equality. But more than all the people of Turkey [
sic
] the Israelite nation excelled in its amazing celebrations, and more than once we saw our Jewish brothers in the markets and streets with the flag of freedom in their hands, and their homes were decorated with lights and lamps at the gate of each Jewish house and window decorated wonderfully, and the joy on their faces called for equality and brotherhood. But that was not enough for them, and when the non-Muslim youth were called to inspection before the military committee, they marched young and old to the tents outside the military fortress with joy and excitement due to the constitution that made them equal to the rest of their brothers in the empire. And it is a miracle that all the Jewish youth who said they were sick at the first inspection were in fact proven at the second inspection in front of doctors to be sick, and they were exempted. And the Jews like the rest of their brothers thanked God for creating them Ottomans.
⁸⁹

By the time the first Jewish and Christian youth from Jerusalem were conscripted in the fall of 1910, the difficulties between them were temporarily put to rest. The induction of the seventeen Christian and eleven Jewish youth was depicted as the ideal Ottomanist moment—three thousand Jerusalemites went to the train station for their departure, the military commander gave a speech about their “duty to the homeland,” the military band played patriotic songs, and the cries of the parents, brothers, and children of the departing soldiers rose up to the heavens as one. One local Jewish paper waxed lyrical: “And you, dear soldiers! Be strong and courageous and be loyal sons to our land and our dear homeland, struggle for the good of the state in peace because her peace is also peace for you. Be loyal to our religion and our holy Torah and be with your Ottoman brothers in brotherhood and friendship so that your names will be blessed and Jerusalem will boast about you!”
⁹⁰
In fact, the soldiers’ names were published in the local paper, as sources of pride, alongside the names of those who chose to pay the
bedel
instead, as objects of shame.

Once Jews had been inducted into the Ottoman army, the Jewish community began a new wave of activity and mobilization on their behalf. The community established ad hoc committees to take up donations to support poor soldiers and their families and to provide clothing and kosher food for soldiers stationed in Jerusalem.
⁹¹
The press continued to publish articles about Jewish soldiers in the Ottoman army, as an example to local Jews and as proof of Jewish Ottomanism.
⁹²
Throughout 1911-13, the conflict against the Bedouin of the Hawran and Kerak as well as the wars in Libya and the Balkans increased the need for soldiers in the Ottoman army and the pressure on non-Muslim communities to prove their loyalty to the empire. In particular, the Christian communities were under pressure to prove that the remaining Christians would be loyal Ottoman citizens. For Jewish citizens in Palestine, the suspicions against Christians provided an excellent opportunity to highlight their own loyalty. The Jewish press stepped up its own pressure on the communal leadership to provide Ottoman Turkish language lessons for Jewish youth so they would be able to advance in the military. Furthermore, public criticisms of the youth who fled military service grew, since the high attrition rate “does not give honor to the Jewish community.”
⁹³

At the time of the Balkan wars, the Jewish press advocated that Jews volunteer for the army, “for the good of the homeland, the love of which is deep in their hearts!”
⁹⁴
Reports in the Ottoman Turkish-language press that the empire’s Jews were not contributing to the war effort elicited a strongly worded rebuttal in the Hebrew press. As a further measure, the chief rabbi issued a circular to the Jewish communities of the empire:

My dear brothers! Our dear and beloved homeland stands in danger. The enemies who launched a war against our land want to defile her honor! In the face of such a situation the whole Ottoman nation is rising without difference to race or religion like one person to defend her holy homeland, her honor and her sons…. In these difficult moments in which our beloved homeland finds herself, there is upon us, especially, a sacred responsibility to show our government how much we are in her debt with gratitude, how much we give her without limit, and every one of us will help save the honor of her nation and her land.
⁹⁵

The chief rabbi's circular underscores the very fragile position of non-Muslims by 1912-13, a situation that renewed tensions between them and revealed the very real strains under which the Ottomanist project was suffering. Locally, an unnamed Christian newspaper defamed a Jewish doctor in Jaffa who had volunteered to serve as a military physician, saying that he had volunteered purely for personal financial gain. In his defense, “Ottoman Jew/Yehudi ‘Otomani,” from Jaffa, blamed “the usual Christian jealousy,” claiming that the Christians had done
this “at a time when their doctors are fleeing to Egypt.” “Certainly Dr. Moyal will take them to court,” the anonymous writer confidently proclaimed.
⁹⁶

INTERCOMMUNAL RIVALRY III: ANTI-SEMITISM, ANTI-ZIONISM, AND THE PRESS WARS IN PALESTINE

Indeed, throughout the years 1910-14, Muslims, Christians, and Jews used the Ottoman censor and court system extensively as an arbitrator as they sought legitimacy from the government that their activities were, unlike those of their opponents, compatible with Ottomanism. In addition to the issue of military service, there were dozens of mutual recriminations in the Ottoman press between Jewish, Christian, and Muslim writers, editors, and ordinary citizens who accused each other of libel or defamation on the individual, communal, and imperial level. Lawsuits generally involved accusations of printing falsehoods, of slander, and of dividing the Ottoman nation.
⁹⁷

For example,
Liberty’s
editor, Haim Ben-‘Atar, was taken to court in late 1912 after publishing two short articles: one stating that the Italians were bringing running water to Tripoli after their invasion, and the other claiming that the Italian, Austrian, and Russian governments had plans to conquer additional Ottoman territories. The judge who questioned Ben-‘Atar asked why he was publishing “false news that stirs up the spirit of the people.” In response, Ben-‘Atar argued that his paper “fulfills its obligation as an Ottoman newspaper devoted to homeland and the good of the government,” and that he had published those translated articles only to show what the European press was writing about the empire.
⁹⁸
Two months later
Liberty
noted that its editor was appearing in court for the fourth time that month. Similar altercations with the government censor took other newspaper editors to court.