·
„daughter trouble” usual formula in letters in
the 16th century
·
in the Ottoman world a man’s honour was measured
by the behaviour of the women of his family
·
child marriage considered to be protective for
the morality, because in this way at reaching sexual maturity, people had
already sexual partner
·
multi-generation, extended households
·
sandix=dowry boksz
·
spinterhood considered as danger for the
society, for the community’s survival
·
gelin kemeri (engagement belt)-> for
Christian, Muslim and for Jewish girls alike: marked that she belonged only to
one man from that time
·
14 suicides in Istanbul till the 17th century,
all of them young females. Minna Rozen found it out from research of tombstones
·
Kalamaria: a district of Salonikabuilt up by the
Jewish community
·
Jews of Turkey were involved in the I. World War
from the beginning
·
1880s Jewish refugees from Russian Empire->
very poor-> prostitution
·
Balkan wars + I. World War changed everything,
the Empire and the patriarchal (Jewish) family collapsed alike
·
Salonika –tobacco industry: daughters of empoverished
families became workers in tobacco factories: many of them at the age of 12 or
13!, in order to collect money for marriage-> 1920s trade unions
·
-> women became more independent-> dancing
hall, trade union-> getting know men not chosen by the parents…
·
the situation was worse in Istanbul: less
available job for women, they had to go to serve well-to-do families
·
in Istanbul only half of the Jewish community
was Sephardic, in Salonika almost all of it
·
the „Buda” congregation in Istanbul existed from
the mid-16th century
·
multiple married men very rare even amongst
Sephardim
·
Jewish women used to turn to Shariya courts with
their complainst about husbands! and the Shariya court could force husbands to
behave better (but could not arrange divorce of Jewish marriages)
·
Jewish women are not in inheritance line, but in
case of becoming widows they get back the dowry
·
intermarriage to muslims could happen only
either in the highest or in the lowest social layers and from the 19th century,
because middle class girls did not ever meet non:Jews and did not speak a
single word in Turkish
Jewish Studies public lecture at CEU, 2012.09.27.