Jews and Christians in the Ottoman Empire

Harvard FAS

The Ottoman Empire is famously one of the most religiously diverse places in the early modern and modern world; although ruled by Muslims, in many parts of the Empire, Christians constituted the majority. This class takes as its focus the history of Jews in the Ottoman Empire, from the early modern period to the dissolution of the Empire after World War I. But Jews never lived in isolation, and in the Ottoman Empire their status was closely related to that of the other non-Muslims. For this…