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In the Service of Ottoman Diplomats: Prussian Jews as Brokers of Financial Networks and Cultural Exchange in the second half of the Eighteenth Century
Abstract
By scrutinizing practical workings of diplomatic relations, this paper demonstrates for the first time that Prussian Jews played a significant role in conducting financial and cultural exchange between the Ottoman Empire and Prussia. In contrast to the political and emblematic narratives of conventional diplomatic history, the paper shows the everyday life practices of Ottoman diplomats relying on services provided by Prussian Jews and traces the opportunities carved out by Jews benefitting from growing diplomatic relations between the two regions. In the second half of the eighteenth century, at a time when Berlin was becoming the center of Jewish social life, enlightenment, and commercial activity, the Ottoman Empire dispatched several ambassadors and chargés d'affaires to Prussia. The Ephraim family, who were court jewelers and merchants, and the banker family Oppenheim financed not only Prussian kings and noblemen but also their diplomatic guests. This paper will depict how Prussian Jews from all levels of society offered various services for the city’s diplomatic guests. Current historical research is also silent on the commercial ties of Prussian Jews to the Ottoman Empire, which often operated by the means of direct representatives or associations with trading companies residing in Istanbul. Hence, another contribution of this paper is the disclosure of important agents connecting the two regions such as the Jewish messenger and dragoman Ludwig Groß, who had accompanied Ahmed Resmi Efendi (1763-1764) and of Ahmed Azmi Efendi (1790-91) to Berlin. My sources are reports and petitions submitted by Prussian subjects to their government, aimed to settle open accounts with the Ottoman diplomats or discuss commercial exchange with the Ottoman Empire. Next to responding the diplomats also wrote petitions to the Prussian government – on few occasions on behalf of Prussian Jews in their services. Since in Prussia appeals were often solved by governments rather than courts, the elaborate petitions were one of the main channels for asserting individual rights and thus give an insight into the everyday life of the diplomats in Berlin. Additional evidence comes from the diplomatic correspondence between the Prussian government and its embassy in Istanbul. Joining the various sources and narratives, the paper displays how Jewish brokers facilitated the Ottoman diplomats’ travels to Prussia and their everyday lives in Berlin.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Europe
Ottoman Empire
Sub Area
None