Read Online Greece, the Hidden Centuries: Turkish Rule From the Fall of Constantinople to Greek Independence by David Brewer - Free Book Online Page A

Christian, with no place for the Muslim or Jewish faith. To be Spanish was to be Catholic, just as to be Greek was to be Orthodox. But, as many Spaniards had foreseen, the expulsion was economically disastrous, depriving Spain of the Jews’ much-needed capital and skills. Whereas in England in 1290 there were English moneylenders to replace the Jews, in Spain they were replaced by foreigners from Holland, Germany or Genoa, ready to exploit rather than enrich Spain. But Spain’s loss was the Ottoman Empire’s gain. The expulsion and welcome of the Jews provides a striking contrast between Christian persecution and Muslim tolerance, and in economic terms between western Europe’s short-sightedness and sound Ottoman investment.
    When expelled Jews reached Thessalonika they found no Jewish inhabitants because the Jewish community, which had been there since Byzantine times, had been moved to repopulate Constantinople after 1453. But in a few decades the new arrivals had become dominant: the census of 1530 shows a Jewish population of some 16,000, over half the total population and so greater than the roughly equal Muslim and Christian numbers combined. The Jews felt warmly welcome. ‘Come and join us in Turkey,’ wrote one from Constantinople, ‘and you will live, as we do, in peace and liberty,’ and another from Thessalonika wrote that ‘The Jews of Europe and other countries, persecuted and banished, have come here to find a refuge and this city has received them with love and affection, as if she were Jerusalem, that old and pious mother of ours.’ The French commercial agent in Thessalonika described their contribution to the city: ‘The Jews have among them workmen of all artes and handicraftes moste excellent, and specially those of late banished and driven out of Spain and Portugale, who to the great detriment and damage of the Christianitie, have taught the Turkes divers inventions, craftes and engines of warre, as to make artillerie, harquebuses, gunne powder, shot and other munitions; they have also there set up printing, not before seen in those countries.’ 8
    One skill that the Jews brought to Thessalonika was metallurgy. This was put to work in the mines at Sidhirokávsia, which produced mainly silver but also some gold. The site has now disappeared but was in hilly country about 40 miles east of Thessalonika and a few miles from the sea. Streams supplied water, and the surrounding woods provided timber for the smelting kilns, of which there were reputedly 5,000 or 6,000. Under Jewish instruction many Greeks worked there, but the miners were mainly Bulgarians. At its peak around 1600 the mines produced eight and a half tons of silver a year, but by the end of the seventeenth century the silver deposits had been exhausted and Sidhirokávsia, once so bustling, had fallen into decay.
    The main occupation of the Jews of Thessalonika was in the production of woollen cloth. Their trade was given stimulus and stability when soon after their arrival they were given the contract to supply all janissary uniforms. Wealthy Jews bought local wool and imported dyes, and poorer Jews provided the labour. Thessalonika became one of the main exporters of cloth in the eastern Mediterranean in the sixteenth century. But by the end of the century the Thessalonika wool trade was facing two pressures: one was rising wool prices because Venetian and French merchants were buying up Balkan wool for their own industries, and by 1600 the price of wool had peaked at over ten times its 1530 level. The other pressure was a squeeze on the price of finished goods. This price was controlled by the Ottoman authorities, but more serious was competition from cheaper English goods: ships of the English Levant Company, in the Mediterranean on the way to buy raw silk in Persia, were carrying on the outward voyage any goods that could be sold at even a small profit. The cloth industry of the Thessalonika Jews never again achieved its