The Business of Transition: Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule [1 ed.] 1503639665, 9781503639669

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THE BUSINESS OF TRANSITION

STANFORD STUDIES IN JEWISH HISTORY AND CULTURE Edited by David Biale and Sarah Abrevaya Stein

THE BUSINESS OF TRANSITION Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule

PARIS PAPAMICHOS CHRONAKIS

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Stanford, California

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2024 by Paris Papamichos Chronakis. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Papamichos Chronakis, Paris, author. Title: The business of transition : Jewish and Greek merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek rule / Paris Papamichos Chronakis. Other titles: Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture. Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2025] | Series: Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2024025733 (print) | LCCN 2024025734 (ebook) | ISBN 9781503639669 (cloth) | ISBN 9781503640931 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Jews—Greece—Thessalonikē—History—20th century. | Merchants—Greece—Thessalonikē—History—20th century. | Jewish merchants—Greece—Thessalonikē—History—20th century. | Middle class—Greece—Thessalonikē—History—20th century. | Group identity—Greece—Thessalonikē—History—20th century. | Thessalonikē (Greece)—Ethnic relations—History—20th century. | Thessalonikē (Greece)—History—20th century. Classification: LCC DS135.G72 T4733 2025 (print) | LCC DS135.G72 (ebook) | DDC 381.09495/65—dc23/eng/20240628 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024025733 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024025734 Cover design: Lindy Kasler Cover photographs: Auguste Léon, Un coin du bazar de Salonique (Salonica, a Corner of the Bazaar), May 13, 1913, A1978, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine; letterhead of the import-export company of Joseph Mano & Sons, 1911, and letterhead of Jacob Cazes, 1913, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece Typeset by Newgen in 11/15 Garamond Premier Pro

To my family, old and new, and to my teacher, Efi

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Contents

A Note on Languages, Places, Names, and Dates ix List of Maps and Figures xiii Abbreviations xv Acknowledgments xvii Introduction: Salonica’s Merchants between Empire and Nation-State

1

Part I: Making Salonica Jewish and Bourgeois, 1882–1908 Jacob Cazes 35

1 Merchants, Jews, Greeks

41



2 Merchants, Bourgeois, Salonicans

69

Part II: Maelstrom: Revolution and War, 1908–1918 Abram and David Errera 99

3 Revolutionary Hopes, Merchant Fears

106



4 The Balkan Wars: Politics in Times of Conflict

136



5 The Great (Class) War, 1914–1918

165

viii

Contents

Part III: Remaking Salonica Greek and Bourgeois, 1912–1922 Joseph Misrahi 211

6 Toward Hellenization: Coming, Going, Staying, Becoming



7 From Clubs to Associations: New Sociabilities, New Identities 243

Conclusion: “My end is my beginning”

215

270

Notes 287 Bibliography 335 Index 361

A Note on Languages, Places, Names, and Dates

As the letterhead of Jacob Fransès in Figure 1 shows, Jewish merchants in early twentieth-century Salonica were dizzyingly polyglot, regularly switching between no fewer than five languages, including French, Italian, Ottoman Turkish, Bulgarian, and Greek. The use of language could vary according to context and status. However, since the early sixteenth century, like all Jews in the Ottoman Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean, Salonica’s Jewish merchants have predominantly spoken and written a language akin to fifteenth-century Castilian Spanish, though printed in the Rashi Hebrew script. This language is variously known as Judeo-Spanish, Judezmo, or Ladino. I will refer to it as Ladino, following the customary practice in English-language scholarly publications. Multiple languages construct multiple worlds, and for that reason, place names in the Ottoman Empire and its successor states are equally—and notoriously—diverse. They appear in different forms depending on the language locals and visitors used; are often tweaked, adjusted, or reinvented by competing nationalisms; and change as state borders shift. Salonica was founded as Thessaloniki, but in the late Ottoman period and well into Greek ix

x

A Note on Languages, Places, Names, and Dates

rule it was mainly known as Saloniki (in Greek and Ladino), Selânik (in Ottoman Turkish), Solun (in Bulgarian), Salonica (in English), Salonique (in French), and Salonicco (in Italian). The same counts for most other towns of Ottoman Macedonia. I confess I have found no way to name these places in a manner that is reader-friendly without inserting them into one or another nationalist, communalist, or orientalist topography. For practical reasons, then, I have opted for contemporary names. I make a single exception for Salonica, whose English name is common enough and spans both the Ottoman and the city’s early Greek periods. Ethnic names reflect a group’s shifting institutional status and hence change accordingly as the narrative unfolds. I refer to “Greek Orthodox” merchants (or use the noun form “Orthodox Greeks”) when dealing with the late Ottoman period, given the empire’s organization into autonomous self-governing religious communities or millets. I then switch to “Greeks” once Salonica was annexed to the Greek nation-state. “Jews” was the name commonly used by all, and one they themselves would identify with across both periods. Names of individual merchants are even more fluid since they often reflect cultural or ideological choices and tend to vary according to the context, time period, and the language of the source. The same person could present himself as Jacob Molho on a French-language commercial letterhead from the early twentieth century, as Yaakov Molho on a Jewish community donors’ list, and as Iakov Molho in the Greek-language board minutes of Salonica’s chamber of commerce after 1917. To highlight the importance of commerce in a merchant’s self-fashioning, I opt to use the name that appears on their letterheads and other trade-related documents wherever possible. In late Ottoman and early Greek Salonica different calendars were in use reflecting the religious diversity and cultural orientation of its residents. The local Jewry employed the Hebrew calendar, although the Gregorian one was also making inroads among the educated middle strata and was used extensively in the press. The Greek Orthodox inhabitants and the Greek state followed the Julian calendar, whereas Europeans adhered to the Gregorian. With that in mind, all dates will be given as they appear in the original sources.

A Note on Languages, Places, Names, and Dates

xi

All translations of primary and secondary sources are my own. Greek words and phrases are transcribed in the Latin alphabet using the formulation of the Library of Congress, but without diacritics. For Ladino, I follow the Aki Yerushalayim transcription system. In both cases, I deviate when names are commonly known in other forms (e.g., Eleftherios Venizelos instead of Eleutherios Venizelos).

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List of Maps and Figures

Maps

1. Late Ottoman Salonica and its Balkan hinterland

xxi



2. Border changes after the First and Second Balkan Wars

98

Figures





1. Letterhead (in five languages) of Jacob Elie Fransès, merchant of “cashmeres and clothing,” 1901. Source: Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 184, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece.

3

2. Letterhead of the “large haberdashery store” of Aélion & Bajona, 1910. Source: Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 180, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece.

50

3. Letterhead of the cotton spinning mill of Loggos, Kirtsis and Tourpalis in Naoussa, 1911. Source: Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 183, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece.

60 xiii

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List of Maps and Figures

4. Share issued by the Société Anonyme Ottomane Industrielle et Commerciale de Salonique, 1898. Source: Private Collection of Yannis Megas.

89

5. Share issued by the Commercial Company of Salonica, 1895. Source: Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki.

117

6. Letterhead of the Sousmouch Ibrahim trade firm, 1911. Source: Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 182, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece.

131



7. Letterhead of the import–export company of Joseph Mano & Sons, 1911. Source: Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 184, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece. 147



8. Letterhead of the Hadjilazarou & Co. textile mill, 1911. Source: Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 183, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece.



235

9. Share issued by the Salonica Cold Storage Warehouses, owned by Epaminondas Charilaos, 1923. Source: Collection 013.01, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece. 239

10. Letterhead of the Alvo Brothers’ “Hardware and Construction Materials Store,” 1929. Source: Private Collection of Yannis Megas.

279

Abbreviations

AAEAIU: Association des Anciens Élèves de l’Alliance Israélite Universelle AAIU: Archives of Alliance Israélite Universelle ACAT: Archive of the Commercial Association of Thessaloniki ACCIT: Archive of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Thessaloniki AMMS: Archive of the Museum of Macedonian Struggle BSF: British Salonica Force Colonial Office (The National Archives, London) CO: Foreign Office (The National Archives, London) FO: DHAGMFA: Diplomatic and Historical Archive of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs GSA-HAM: General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia GSA-HAM AGGM: General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Archive of the General Government of Macedonia xv

xvi

Abbreviations

HANBG: Historical Archive of the National Bank of Greece LMA ABDBJ: London Metropolitan Archives, Archive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews MAE CADN: Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes WO: War Office (The National Archives, London)

Acknowledgments

Books are palimpsests of people as much as they are of texts. In the long course of researching and writing, many kept me company circulating among the countless documents waiting to be read, challenging and comforting me in equal measure. At the University of Essex, a graduate course I took with Geoffrey Crossick on the bourgeoisies in nineteenth-century Europe sparked my initial interest. Back in Greece, Christos Hadjiiossif and Socrates Petmezas posed all the tricky questions, and Akis Papataxiarchis offered the probing but empathic eye of the social anthropologist. Haris Exertzoglou and Vangelis Kechriotis helped me defamiliarize Ottoman Greeks right when Rika Benveniste, Rena Molho, and Jacky Benmayor were busy making Salonica’s Jews less Greek to me. My stomach hurt when I first realized that many of the merchants I encountered in the archives would be murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but Rosy and Nico Saltiel, and Mico and Mary Alvo—survivors forever—brought my city’s Jewish past to life and made me part of their present, too. Once in America, conversations on and off campus revealed how kaleidoscopic the history of Salonica’s merchants could be. At Brown University, Maud Mandel, Keith Brown, Beshara Doumani, and Mary Gluck made me wonder how much more a Jewish, Balkan, Middle Eastern, or Central xvii

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Acknowledgments

European look at the city could uncover. When I moved west to the University of Illinois at Chicago, Nanno Marinatos, Jennifer Tobin, and Karen Ros showed me how much modern and ancient Salonicans shared. Back in the Old World, at Royal Holloway, University of London, Charalambos Dendrinos’ unbending faith and unwavering support were as crucial as they were touching. Kate Cooper, Simone Gigliotti, Dan Stone, Steven Franklin, and Markus Daechsel listened patiently and edited copiously, guiding me through the oddities of English academic life, which often seemed like a campus novel come true. At conferences, talks, and colloquia in Europe, America, and beyond I benefited from the knowledge, wit, and humor of Michelle Campos, Jessica Marglin, Matthias Lehmann, Holly Shissler, Thomas Gallant, Eyal Ginio, Sakis Gekas, Sotiris Dimitriadis, Kostis Kornetis, and Dina Danon. Brief conversations with Aron Rodrigue, Francesca Trivellato, and Mark Mazower were intellectual gifts that keep giving. Devin Naar, my Ladino teacher and fellow Salonican, unlocked a language and a world to me, and Julia Phillips Cohen’s thoughts, ideas, and smiles enriched my writings and lifted my spirits. When I finally decided to take the leap and submit the manuscript, Devi Mays offered invaluable advice and much-needed moral support. At Stanford University Press, working with Margo Irvin, Cindy Lim and my meticulous copy-editor Sarah Campbell turned publishing from an emotionally drenching to an intellectually stimulating experience. I remain grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their incisive comments and perceptive suggestions—they are the book’s ideal readers as much as they are its first ones. David Biale and Sarah Abrevaya Stein, the series editors, warmly welcomed a book that I thought was somewhat of a misfit, showing me how open a field Jewish history can be. Without Sarah’s generosity, support, and encouragement all my fears would have prevailed, and little of what follows would have seen the light of day. Archivists and librarians in Salonica and beyond were helpful enough to turn a couch historian like me into an archive rat. In France, I am thankful to the staff at the Archives of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, the Grand Orient de  France, the Archives de  la  Défense, the Centre des  Archives Diplomatiques de  Nantes, the Institut des  Langues Orientales, and the Bibliothèque de  Documentation Internationale et Contemporaine. In Greece,

Acknowledgments

xix

I was welcomed at the Municipality of Thessaloniki, the National Research Foundation Eleftherios K. Venizelos, the Museum of Macedonian Struggle, the Journalists’ Union of Macedonia and Thrace, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Thessaloniki, the Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, the Historical Archive of Macedonia, the Historical Archive of the National Bank of Greece, the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, the Service of Diplomatic and Historical Archives of the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Association of Monasteriots, the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki, the Bissel Library at the American College of Thessaloniki, the University of Crete Library, the Koventarios Municipal Library of Kozani, the National Library of Greece, the Library of the Greek Parliament, the Society of Macedonian Studies, Thessaloniki Municipal Library, the Gennadius Library at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the library of the Department of Modern and Contemporary History and the Central Library of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Finally, in London, I benefited from staff advice at the National Archives, the London Metropolitan Archives, the University College London Library, and The British Library. Katerina Yannoukaki at the Historical Archive of Macedonia in Thessaloniki and Lucy Nahmia at the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki went above and beyond to help me locate some striking company shares and commercial letterheads. Yannis Megas generously allowed me to reproduce two more from his private collection. Salonica was called the “Babel of the Mediterranean” for a reason, and traveling to the many places where its past now resides would have been far more difficult without financial assistance from the Greek State Scholarship Foundation, the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry, the British School at Athens, the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe, the Dr.  Elka Klein Memorial Foundation, the Ministry of Education, Sport and Youth of the Republic of Cyprus, and the Isobel Thornley’s Bequest to the University of London. A handful of friends bravely endured my constant whining, shared my deepest fears, and somewhat miraculously managed to turn all these into joy. Tassos Anastassiadis, Giorgos Antoniou, Vassilis Christakis, Stamatis Donias, Rainer Heuer, Eleni Hodolidou, Kostis Karpozilos, Constanze Kolbe, Antonis Molho, and Lena Varmazi taught me that life is not a rehearsal but a show to enjoy. That it is also the best show I could ever ask for is due to my parents, Nikos Papamichos and Zoe Chronaki, and my brother,

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Acknowledgments

Manolis Papamichos Chronakis. My supervisor, Efi Avdela, taught me that a history of open horizons is the only history worth writing, and so should be my life. Yet, what I can now see rising on the horizon of history and life only makes sense thanks to my wife, Marina Aivaliotou, and our son, Odysseas. They made everything that follows possible, all those words that will forever express my love for them.

GERMANY

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Florina Naoussa

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Kleisoura Korisos

Salonica

Kozani Siatista

Map 1.  Late Ottoman Salonica and its Balkan hinterland

200 mi

E

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THE BUSINESS OF TRANSITION

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Introduction Salonica’s Merchants between Empire and Nation-State

“Salonica is not a city of letters, nor an industrial city. It is a city of commerce, not primarily commercial, but solely commercial. Every blow against commerce is a blow against the whole of Salonica,” declared the Greek newspaper To Phos in 1915.1 By then, the city had been Greek for just about three years, after nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule. It had been Byzantine for even longer, second only to Constantinople, and, before that, Roman and Hellenistic. Established in 315  BCE, Salonica had seen many empires come and just as many go. It had also seen its population change time and again, eventually becoming one of the world’s most diverse cities by the early twentieth century. When the Greek troops entered on October 26, 1912, Salonica was home to circa 150,000 people whose origins spanned the Mediterranean and traversed the Balkans. Approximately 70,000 were Sephardi Jews, a near majority ever since they had settled in the city following their expulsion from Spain in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Muslim Turks and Dönme (Jewish converts to Islam) barely reached 30,000, whereas Greek Orthodox Christians trailed far behind at no more than 10,000. Additionally, there were some 6,000 Bulgarians, alongside 1

2

Introduction

Romanians, Albanians, and a few Armenians and Kurds. Small European “colonies” of French, Italians, Germans, and Austro-Hungarians added to the mix. There was a reason Salonica was commonly known as the “Babel of the Mediterranean.”2 Commerce was the common thread binding it all together. In 1933, Georgios Christodoulou, a local Greek journalist, titled his history of the city, Salonica, City of Commerce.3 The work, possibly the first local economic history, traced Salonica’s long past through the lens of trade. Christodoulou dedicated his work to the local chamber of commerce and, by weaving together factual documents and “objective” statistics, memorialized merchants as the city’s main—indeed only—historical actors. Starting from the city’s founding, Christodoulou crafted a coherent, triumphant narrative of unbroken progress. The book spanned an array of diverse epochs, empires, and conquests, yet aligned with the dominant Greek national narrative to foreground the continuity between Salonica’s ancient Greek past and its modern Greek present.4 Still, while emphasizing the role of the Greeks, Christodoulou did not fail to acknowledge the significant contributions of the Jews. In fact, his work was as much a response to local anxieties as it was an expression of national pride. Published four years into the global financial crisis that had finally reached Salonica, in a time marked by economic distress, political instability, intensifying working-class agitation, rising antisemitism, and unprecedented Christian-Jewish friction, his book offered Salonica a usable past fit for all. Christodoulou was looking back in search of a brighter future. Commerce, it seemed, held the key to understanding the city’s changing fortunes. In 1914, right after the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 and just before the outbreak of World War I, another Salonican intellectual, Joseph Nehama, a leading figure of the local Jewish community, published in Paris The Coveted City, Salonica, the first—and for a long time the only—truly integrated history of the city.5 Writing under the pen name P. Risal, an acronym for P[a]ris-Sal[onique], Nehama presented a comprehensive history of his hometown that celebrated Salonica’s grandeur by seeking to explain its persistent yet ever-changing significance. Nehama identified a tension between the city’s enduring importance and its perennially contested territorial status: How was it that Salonica thrived amid oftentimes brutal, debilitating conquests? Nehama argued that Salonica’s appeal to both past

Introduction

3

Figure 1.  Letterhead (in five languages) of Jacob Elie Fransès, merchant of “cashmeres and clothing,” 1901. Source: Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 184, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece

empires and modern nationalisms stemmed from its role as a crucial commercial hub, strategically located at the crossroads of major trade routes connecting the Mediterranean with the Balkans and the Adriatic with the Aegean Sea. While Salonica may never have been an empire’s capital, it made empires great. It was the symvasileuousa, the co-reigning city of the Byzantine empire, the most important European port for the Ottomans, and even the Austro-Hungarians’ prospective gateway to the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond. Commerce was not just a part of Salonica’s story; it was the city’s destiny. The Coveted City appeared at a time of heightened nationalism, wars, and massive population displacements, which were beginning to tear Salonica’s multiethnic fabric apart. Between 1913 and 1918, the city was spared no conflict. The Second Balkan War in the summer of 1913 saw the Greeks expelling most of the Bulgarian population. Concurrently, thousands of Balkan Muslim refugees, escaping the devastation in Ottoman Macedonia, camped in and around Salonica awaiting transfer across the Aegean. By the summer of 1914 their paths would intersect with Greek Orthodox refugees who were in turn disembarking at the port having fled the escalating Ottoman persecution in the coastal towns of Asia Minor. The outbreak of World War I

4

Introduction

further complicated the situation. In late 1915, as the Central Powers of Bulgaria, Germany, and Austria-Hungary advanced toward Serbia, their French and British opponents, known as the “Entente,” responded by disembarking the “Army of the Orient,” a 200,000-strong military force, in the city. Meanwhile, Jews and Greeks, the city’s two major communities, were both torn between supporters of the Entente and the Central Powers, while the European residents were split by their own national allegiances. Salonica was drifting apart.6 In these turbulent times, Nehama sought to create a unifying narrative that all could identify with, by introducing a character of broad appeal: the “Salonican merchant.” In a memorable passage, he portrayed this figure as pivotal in reversing the city’s economic fortunes in the second half of the nineteenth century and as a driving force behind its unprecedented development ever since. “The Salonican becomes bolder. He develops a taste for risk. [He] hardly need[s] any initial capital. A directory and a ream of letterhead paper are more than sufficient for [him],” he wrote. Nehama extolled the merchant’s business savvy, ingenuity, curiosity, and integrity, and made of him a model for all to celebrate and emulate. The merchant was both an emblem of modernity and the epitome of the true Salonican, embodying a spirit of unity amid the city’s diverse and challenging landscape.7 Commerce was the sole positive, inclusive identity that Salonica could embrace. Once this identity was compromised, the city and its inhabitants would face a profound identity crisis, one that has been difficult to resolve even up to the present. A few days into the Greek occupation, a Greek merchant confided to Nehama that as a Greek he was happy, but as a merchant he despaired and considered moving his business to Beirut.8 This sentiment reflected a broader anxiety: the transformation of Salonica from a thriving port city into a fortified border town was a worrying prospect, not just for the Jews but for many others, including its Greeks. Nehama himself starkly declared, “Salonica without its trade will cease to be Salonica,” a statement underscoring the deep connection between commerce and the city. Thus, when in the late 1910s Piraeus, the port of Athens, gained trading advantages and Salonica faced economic regression, resentment grew against the Greek capital.9 Commerce could simultaneously bolster and question national allegiances. While the Greek authorities were striving to make Salonica Greek, local commercial anxieties were challenging state prerogatives generating a

Introduction

5

broader configuration of contentious local identities. Salonicans felt they were in Greece but not altogether of Greece, an uncomfortable position they still inhabit today. In Ottoman and post-Ottoman Salonica, then, commerce was more than just a trade; merchants were integral to the city’s psyche and were mythologized accordingly. Despite this, their legacy was only faintly preserved thereafter, mainly in the names of those imposing villas they built in the upscale Kampanyas quarter east of the walled city—names like Villa Modiano, Morpurgo, Hadjilazarou, and Allatini. After 1991, with the collapse of socialism in the Balkans and the opening of regional borders, Salonica’s elite fostered high hopes of a commercial revival by reconnecting with the city’s natural hinterland. Concomitantly, a nostalgic progressive discourse quickly emerged, celebrating the city’s lost cosmopolitan past by reminiscing on its multiethnic commercial bourgeoisie, thereby mythologizing it anew.10 This discourse, critical of the dominant Greek nationalist narrative, contrasted the openness, mobility, and prosperity of the late Ottoman era with the closure, introspection, provincialism, and conservatism brought about by the Greek nation-state and the cataclysmic events of the twentieth century, from the Balkan Wars through the 1923 Greco-Turkish population exchange and up to the Holocaust. The commercial bourgeoisie was revered as a symbol of the last prosperous era in Salonica’s history, with its disappearance marking the onset of stagnation, if not regression, under Greek rule. Yannis Boutaris, the former mayor of Salonica, best captured this sentiment in 2010 when he lamented that the city’s current predicament stemmed from the absence of a vibrant, dynamic, and entrepreneurial bourgeoisie, true to the city’s history.11 The loss of multiethnic Salonica, in his view, was also the loss of bourgeois Salonica. Rethinking Transition: Majorities and Minorities The Business of Transition wrestles with such narratives of decline and fall by turning emphatic statements into historical questions. It asks: What became of Salonica’s multiethnic commercial bourgeoisie as it transitioned from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek nation-state? How did merchants experience the passage from imperial to national rule, react to it, engage with it, even shape it? Integration presented a formidable challenge to Salonica’s

6

Introduction

merchants. The Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 and the subsequent collapse of the Ottoman Empire in Europe dramatically altered Salonica’s business landscape. As the Serbian and Bulgarian borders moved almost to its outskirts, the city lost its extensive hinterland. Additionally, these formerly landlocked states now had access to their own ports in the Adriatic and Aegean Seas. To make matters worse, Salonica had become part of a country with numerous vibrant ports and no pressing need for yet another. Its merchants feared that much of the city’s trade would be redirected to Piraeus, Greece’s major port, and their city would at worse become a heavily fortified, militarized border town, or at best just “another Volos,” a second-rate port servicing local needs.12 Higher tariffs and more protectionist trade policies would further hinder import trade, Salonica’s lifeline. To top it all, the increased presence of the centralizing Greek state in the city posed a threat to the relative autonomy Salonica had previously enjoyed, further complicating the merchants’ integration into Greece. Much as integration presented an enormous challenge to merchants, commerce was equally prominent in the minds of all those crafting a future for post-Ottoman Salonica. At this juncture, different models of sovereignty were being advanced, with the integrated, centralized nation-state just one among several options. In 1914, for instance, there was a striking proposal to encircle the city with barbed wire and transform it into a massive, tax-free warehouse. Even as late as 1919, a French plan proposing the internationalization of Salonica was still under consideration.13 All these schemes had one thing in common: they fundamentally centered on commerce. As such, they also underscore the diverse responses, multiple perspectives, and different subject positions that the question of Salonica’s commerce elicited at a time of transition. Transition was not a given merely causing local despair and resignation, although it very much did so; it was also a process fluid enough to incite action from a variety of actors, including Salonica’s merchants. This study then unpacks transitions by zooming in on merchants and placing commerce back in the forefront of the passage from empire to nation-state. To do so, it departs from the popular identification of commerce with Jews, an identification deeply rooted in history, historiography, and public memory. Indeed, among the various plans circulating in the 1910s, many envisioned a viable future for Salonica’s Jews by advancing, to varying

Introduction

7

degrees, the twin proposals of a free port and an autonomous “Jewish” republic. Commerce and Jewishness were often seen as overlapping, leading many—both Jews and non-Jews—to believe that Jewish Salonica could only survive if Salonica remained a city of commerce.14 Such identifications underscore the strong and enduring connections between Jews, commerce, and the city. However, they have also tended to subsume commerce into a narrower discussion of Salonica’s Jews treating it as a dependent rather than an independent variable. In fact, much of the historiography makes the same presumptions in focusing exclusively on Jews and framing Salonica’s transition predominantly as a Jewish question.15 Public memory has also tended to equate the city’s fin-de-siècle bourgeoisie with affluent Jews, memorializing the entrepreneurial feats of such figures as Allatini, Fernandez, Morpurgo, Torres, and Misrahi. Astonishingly, some commentators have even contended that had Salonica’s Jewish merchants survived the upheavals of the twentieth century, then contemporary Salonica would have been a brighter, more open, and outward-looking city.16 The nostalgic and celebratory discourse on Salonica’s “lost bourgeoisie” has done much to revive the city’s Jewish past, integrating it into local memory; ironically, however, it has also produced silences of its own. Surprisingly, the greatest among these silences concerns neither the Bulgarians nor the Muslims, as one might expect, but the Greek Orthodox community in general, and Greek merchants in particular. Despite numerous “Greek” histories of Salonica, there are scarcely any that focus specifically on its Greeks, especially during the crucial late Ottoman and immediate post-Ottoman periods.17 Today, the histories of the city’s Greeks have largely faded into oblivion, more so even than those of the Jews. This is not a local particularity: virtually no urban histories of the passage from the Ottoman (and Habsburg) Empires to their successor states consider the experiences of national majorities. In the case of Salonica, this paradox can be attributed to several, at times contradictory factors. One might speculate that the enduring image of a Jewish and multiethnic Ottoman Salonica cast a shadow over its Greek Orthodox population, making the city and its Greeks a “dangerous” subject for a historiography preoccupied with national purity, clear-cut ethnic divides, and a deliberate neglect of Greece’s Ottoman past.18 Indeed, Greek nationalists early on even questioned the Greekness of Salonica’s

8

Introduction

Greek Orthodox residents: “Its Greeks do not possess the strong features that one encounters in other Greek places,” Philippos Dragoumis noted in his diary shortly after the Greek takeover in November 1912. “Generally speaking, there reigns in Salonica a certain European cosmopolitanism mixed with oriental elements, which gives birth to dissonances intolerable and repellent.”19 Throughout the twentieth century, it was the surrounding region of Macedonia, rather than Salonica, that captivated scholars and dominated efforts to affirm its Greekness. By 1939, a Society for Macedonian Studies was established in Salonica and its scholarly journal, fittingly called Makedonika (Macedonian Issues), published article after article on “Greek” Macedonia but seldom anything on the city’s past. This trend continued well into the late 1990s, with history students at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki focusing their postgraduate theses and doctoral dissertations on subjects relating to Macedonia, while Salonica itself garnered little academic interest.20 Perhaps most significantly, by casting the annexation of Salonica as “liberation,” Greek national discourse effectively denied the city’s Greeks their own history. Their Greekness was assumed to be straightforward, and their identification with the Greek state and its authorities was taken for granted. As a result, the passage from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek nation-state was perceived as a return to the national body: not as a protracted, complex process but as an instant change of sovereignty, a mere moment in (national) time. Yet, much as Greek Orthodox merchants initially rejoiced at the onset of Greek rule, they also viewed it, as we saw, with skepticism. The Business of Transition unearths the lost history of Salonica’s Greek Orthodox merchants during the late Ottoman period, charting the crooked line of their passage to the Greek nation-state. Their path, I argue, was not isolated but deeply intertwined with that of their Jewish peers. The relationship between the two groups was far more complex than just a story of mounting animosity, as current historiography often insists. Conflicts certainly existed. Yet, while the local Greek press vociferously pushed for the “economic conquest” of Salonica, Greek merchants agonized about Jewish migration, fearing its devastating impact on the local economy. Greeks and Jews often found common ground and some Greek merchants went as far as to propose plans akin to Jewish internationalization schemes. Politics further complicated these

Introduction

9

interactions. Political polarization divided Greek and Jewish merchants, not only between the two groups but also within them, sometimes empowering certain Greeks and Jews over others. In 1915, for example, prominent Jewish merchant Pepo Mallah managed to evade all accusations of speculation an enraged Greek press threw against him as he was a deputy with the governing party of Dimitrios Gounaris.21 The Greek and Jewish experiences of transition were both different and similar, diverging but oftentimes converging, too. In many ways, their stories were mutually constitutive. Consequently, The Business of Transition is more than a comparative history of ethnoreligious communities; it is a relational history of encounters, exchanges, and shifting positions within and between these two groups.22 This is, then, a study firmly placed in the “field of in between,” as Sarah Stein has eloquently defined the space of multiethnic contacts in imperial and post-imperial settings.23 However, my methodological focus on relations is not intended to offer a comprehensive history of Salonica’s commercial bourgeoisie in all its ethnoreligious diversity. Rather, it serves a distinct, double analytical imperative: first, to construe transitions anew as a shared journey, rather than a linear, predetermined shift from empire to nation-state; and second, to account for the radical realignment in power relations between Greek and Jewish merchants. For these reasons, the emphasis is squarely on Jews and Greeks, with minimum attention paid to Bulgarians, Muslims, and Dönme. Despite the fact that these groups—especially the Dönme—included wealthy individuals deeply involved in Ottoman Salonica’s business and public life, they all quickly faded away. After 1913, Bulgarian, Muslim, and Dönme merchants were absent from local commercial institutions, initiatives, and shared public spaces, having either left Salonica or turned inward, focusing on their own business matters or communal affairs at best. Transition happened without them, even if it happened at their own expense. Their impact on the changing Greco-Jewish power hierarchies was for that reason neither long nor extensive enough to merit further analysis and their occasional presence in Jewish and Greek discourses was mostly polemical, as will be seen. During the late Ottoman period, Jews formed the backbone of Salonica’s commercial bourgeoisie. They held a numerical majority, dominated all lucrative sectors of commerce, and set the tone of its public culture. The Greek

10

Introduction

Orthodox population, in contrast, lagged far behind, lacking the economic, social, and cultural capital that their Jewish counterparts possessed. However, by the final decade of Ottoman rule, they had made remarkable strides forward. Consequently, the late Ottoman Greco-Jewish balance of power was uneven yet fragile, with the Orthodox Greeks increasingly challenging the dominant position of the Jews. It was dynamic rather than fixed, and as local actors readily acknowledged, conducive to change.24 The advent of Greek rule alarmed the Jewish entrepreneurs convinced as they were that a commercial nation like the Greeks would render them redundant. These concerns were compounded by the belief that their Greek peers would soon predominate thanks to the staunch backing of the Greek state. Indeed, Greece’s annexation of Salonica set off a gradual but decisive shift, eventually reversing the ethnic hierarchy in the local economy. By the time World War  II erupted, the landscape of commerce in Salonica had transformed beyond recognition. Although Jewish presence remained robust, it had noticeably receded. Greeks, on the other hand, had ascended to prominence, leading nearly all major trade sectors.25 The once-anticipated “commercial conquest of Salonica” was complete, with the city’s commercial bourgeoisie now indisputably Greek. But how exactly had this shift happened? Existing historiography has often echoed the initial fears of Jewish merchants. It typically emphasizes the dwindling business opportunities in Greek Salonica and points to the Greek state’s policies of ethnic preference as key factors in promoting Greek entrepreneurship over Jewish.26 However, such accounts, by prioritizing the aggressive policies of the nationalizing Greek state, tend to paint a picture of gradual ghettoization, of a community “under siege.” They risk depriving Jews of their agency and depicting them either as helpless victims of state policies, or as engaged in futile rearguard battles.27 Moreover, these narratives often overlook or oversimplify the interactions between Jewish merchants and their Greek counterparts, sometimes interpreting them merely as indicators of rising antisemitism. In so doing, they follow a familiar pattern in Central and Eastern European historiography that similarly emphasizes ethnic conflict and gradual marginalization in major urban Jewish centers.28 As a result, the making of a Greek Salonica is presented as a violent process occurring at the expense of the city and without its involvement.

Introduction

11

The Business of Transition moves away from Athens and the central state, opting instead to take a closer look at local developments. It charts the changing power dynamics between Greek and Jewish merchants within the city’s urban terrain. The narrative follows these merchants as they adjust their business strategies, come together in professional associations, engage in joint initiatives, interact with other social strata, and seek a new modus vivendi. In doing so, I view the transformation of Jews from a semi-autonomous, self-governing religious community (an Ottoman millet) to a minority not merely as an externally imposed process, but as one in which Jews were actively and creatively involved. Jews, to a significant extent, sought to adapt to the new economic and social environment. Even though they ended up playing second fiddle, for Jewish merchants, becoming a minority was not about experiencing exclusion and marginalization; rather it was about negotiating a new relationship with the new majority—a relationship that was admittedly unequal, yet inclusive enough. Provocatively put, Jews became a minority of their own making.29 Thus, I move beyond viewing minority status as a mere demographic fact, or as a quasi-static legal and political category externally imposed on a given collective, an approach many works in minority studies have for long advanced. Instead, I treat minority status as a cultural construct, a dynamic process, and the outcome of on-the-ground negotiations. In short, I move from minority to the more nuanced concept of minorization.30 The Business of Transition further reevaluates the concept of “majority” by attending to Greek merchants and by considering the changing contours of Greco-Jewish relations at a time of transition. What makes a majority and how did Greeks become one? Many works on post-imperial successor states in the Eastern Mediterranean and East Central Europe either leave the question untouched or treat ethnic majorities as numerical givens thereby focusing on the pro-majoritarian policies of the new, nationalizing states.31 Similarly, in the case of Salonica, some studies have approached this question from a political standpoint, emphasizing 1912 as the pivotal moment when Salonica’s Greek Orthodox residents, previously a minor urban community, joined the majority population of a nation-state and were accordingly disproportionately empowered. Others adopt a demographic lens, highlighting the dramatic change after the 1923 Greco-Turkish population exchange,

12

Introduction

which brought 100,000 Greek Orthodox refugees from Asia Minor to Salonica making the Greeks a staggering 80 percent of the local population.32 Recent works view majority status as a public performance, a carefully choreographed spectacle of state authority reordering the city’s multiethnic public space and assigning new subject positions through public rituals, ceremonies, and pageants.33 However, all these analyses essentially rely on external factors, like political authority or forced population movements, to explain shifts in local power relations. This study, by contrast, delves into the nuances of individual and collective agency, scrutinizing changes in business practices, political initiatives, social interventions, and, eventually, urban leadership among both Greek and Jewish merchants. The onset of Greek rule and the war-ridden 1910s reshaped Salonica’s commercial landscape, impacting swiftly and heavily on the local economy, society, and politics. Numerous state policies, hastily introduced, sparked widespread reactions, protests, and even demonstrations, thereby opening up new spaces for social action, creating unprecedented political opportunities, and eventually introducing new positions of power. The Greek merchants, though numerically small and initially economically modest, found themselves in a position to capitalize on these shifts. They transcended communal boundaries, took the lead in the city’s public sphere and fostered a new urban identity which was to be embraced by a much broader and diverse range of social strata and ethnic groups, from blue- and white-collar workers to Jews. Ultimately, this study contends, to be a majority is to act and speak like one. It involves not just enforcing one’s will, but exhibiting and performing a hegemonic mentality, being capable of organizing and regulating interethnic relations, and legitimately speaking and standing for the broader interests of the city. It is to occupy the invisible, “neutral” position of the universal.34 Salonica’s transition from Ottoman to Greek rule is the story of its Greek merchants moving away from their marginal, particular place in the Ottoman city to becoming a majority by embodying the universal. Rethinking Transition: Before and After, Continuity and Change As has become clear, a main focus of this study is to show how making Salonica and its merchants “Greek” involved a reconfiguration rather than a

Introduction

13

severance of interethnic, particularly Greco-Jewish, relations. Such an approach necessitates taking a step back and rethinking what it was exactly that came before and eventually vanished. It invites, that is, a revisiting of multiethnic coexistence in the late Ottoman period and an inquiry into the cultures and hierarchies of conviviality in the great port cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. As the first part of this study argues, what preceded the transformation of the 1910s was a distinctly multiethnic and Jewish late Ottoman Salonica. Not either of the two, but both. This dual character of the city was widely acknowledged by contemporaries and is similarly recognized in modern studies that note Salonica’s dizzying ethnic diversity alongside an unmissable Jewish prominence.35 However, what still eludes scholars is the intricate relationship between these two aspects in the context of a modernizing city. How could Salonica be multiethnic and Jewish at the same time? Was this a mere question of demographics? Or were Jews important in fostering multiethnic sociability? And to what extent was multiethnicity a precondition for establishing Jewish hegemony, for creating the image of a Jewish Salonica? Historiography has acknowledged Salonican Jews’ strong sense of locality and their deep attachment to the city, a sentiment that persisted well into the interwar period.36 Yet, it is less clear whether and how Jews also figured as model citizens and exemplary Salonicans in the final Ottoman decades, at a time when new discourses about the city, its problems and its remedies, emerged alongside modern public spaces, fostering a transethnic civic consciousness and a sense of local citizenship.37 Such questions are not unique to Salonica. Across the turn-of-the-century Eastern Mediterranean and probably East Central Europe, too, specific ethnoreligious groups often distinguished themselves taking center stage in the life and legend of their multiethnic cities and shaping conviviality accordingly. Greeks in Izmir made the city “infidel,” Italians in Habsburg Trieste fashioned a supra-ethnic Triestine discourse, and Jews in Lodz gave birth to the figure of the “Lodzermensch.”38 Yet, accounts of multiethnic coexistence among the urban bourgeoisies of these and other places often swing between idealizing conviviality as a cosmopolitan utopia of tolerance and equality and criticism for its lack of depth. Either way, they overshadow the complex interplay between ethnoreligious identities and modes of coexistence, including the power dynamics and exclusions multiethnicity could nurture.39

14

Introduction

The Business of Transition examines how (and how far) late Ottoman Jews and Greek Orthodox participated outside their communal premises— in multiethnic clubs, masonic lodges, public events, and shared spaces—to understand how Jewish participation translated into Jewish hegemony. How did service to the city, not just the community, become a core part of Jewish bourgeois identity, thereby rendering Salonica a Jewish and multiethnic city in equal measure? Like the Greeks who succeeded them, the late Ottoman Jewish commercial bourgeoisie displayed a majority mentality, claiming to represent the entire city and speaking in its name. While the notions of majority and minority are typically (and correctly) associated with homogenizing nation-states and are rightly juxtaposed with the principle of difference that characterizes plural empires, multiethnic relations in imperial settings, I argue, could nevertheless both foster and obscure ethnic power hierarchies, elevating one group as a spokesman for all.40 By examining the processes of becoming a majority and a minority in tandem, understanding them as situated developments unfolding in the fields of local economy, society, and politics, and by foregrounding the active roles of Greek and Jewish merchants in reshaping their power relations, I also suggest a new periodization of Salonica’s transition. Previous studies have largely centered on the role of the central and centralizing state in advancing the Hellenization of the city. Consequently, they emphasize policies such as the reordering of urban space after a devastating fire consumed the entire downtown area in 1917; the 1923 resettlement of refugees from Asia Minor on the city’s outskirts to alter demographic balances on the ground; legal measures in the early 1920s targeting the Jewish community’s “disproportionate” political and economic weight such as the establishment of a separate Jewish electoral college and the introduction of mandatory Sunday rest; and, finally, the nationalization of Jewish communal education.41 As a result, these studies have concentrated on the 1920s and 1930s, a period marked by significant shifts in Greek state formation. In so doing, they also followed the conventional periodization dominating the broader historiography on national integration in East Central Europe, which views nationalization as a distinct feature of state-building in the new states established after World War I.

Introduction

15

Indeed, following Greece’s defeat in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, and the consequent end of its irredentist dream of territorial expansion, the Greek state turned its focus inward. As elsewhere in the “New Europe” of post-imperial successor states, Greek governments tightened their control over citizens and embarked on an extensive program of reconstruction and modernization while also seeking to integrate ethnic minorities, refugees, and other religiously diverse groups within the nation.42 In contrast, the 1910s have received scant attention in these narratives, though not without reason. The consolidation of state power in newly annexed territories was significantly delayed due to Greece’s near continuous military engagements. Moreover, factors like Salonica’s contested status, the uncertainty of Greek rule, efforts to win over a diverse population, and, above all, the presence of the Anglo-French Army of the Orient during most of World War I are also held accountable for stalling Hellenization.43 Yet, by the early 1920s, just before the population exchange would signal the end of Ottoman Salonica, there were already noticeable shifts in the city’s economic, social, and political landscape, transforming its commercial bourgeoisie. Greek merchants had made substantial economic and institutional advances, and, most importantly, had succeeded in legitimizing their urban authority, too. By contrast, emigration, shifting business strategies, and loss of communal control were pointing toward a waning of Jewish power. As this study argues, even before the influx of refugees from Asia Minor and the Greek state’s full-scale Hellenization efforts, Salonica’s most influential social stratum had largely completed its passage from empire to nation-state. This alternative chronology of transition invites a reevaluation of the continuities and ruptures between Ottoman and Greek rule. Historiography has long interpreted Salonica’s passage as a violent and abrupt break from its imperial past, epitomized by cataclysmic events such as the Great Fire of 1917, the utter destruction of the old Ottoman city, and its subsequent rebuilding according to Western principles of urbanism; or the aggressive minorization of its Jews, reversing the tolerant policies of the Ottoman state.44 This view rendered the relatively calm 1910s as inconsequential, merely the tail end of Ottoman Salonica. Recently, however, there has been a shift in the historiography of the Ottoman Empire and its successor states from ruptures to

16

Introduction

continuities, an emphasis on the persistence of empire in the time and space of the nation.45 As part of this trend, the organizational autonomy of Salonica’s Jewish community in the interwar period has been likened to that of an Ottoman millet defying the nationalizing and homogenizing logic of the nation-state.46 Even the name Salonica persisted as the city’s popular English designation well into the twentieth century, only being replaced by the Greek Thessaloniki in the 1950s.47 The population exchange, often viewed as the deepest rupture, might also be reconsidered as a form of continuity, given the Anatolian refugees’ sounds, tastes, and smells that “re-Ottomanized” the city, much to the chagrin of its native Greek observers.48 However, focusing on Salonica’s merchants reveals latent but important ruptures, albeit beyond the sphere of politics where these are usually traced. By 1919, the last significant Ottoman commercial institution, the city’s chamber of commerce, was reconstituted under Greek law, sealing a broader transformation in the merchants’ associational world.49 Merchants themselves were markedly different from their Ottoman predecessors: not only were they now Greek-led, but they were also significantly renewed, since many prominent “Ottoman” Greek and Jewish figures were gone, and newcomers and lesser-known locals had risen to power. Effectively, the commercial bourgeoisie of Greek Salonica was a new group, with losses among both Jews and Greeks. Challenging the emerging new orthodoxy in post-Ottoman historiography, I therefore point to the importance of a new set of subterranean ruptures. Unlike the tectonic shifts the older historiography had identified, these are subtler, yet consequential enough. Continuities and ruptures are, in my view, not mutually exclusive but can coexist. The passage from empire to nation-state is best understood not as a single, linear trajectory of “change” or “inertia,” but as a complex process, composed of different layers, each possessing its own distinct temporality and tempo of mutation. Rethinking TRANSITION: Merchants and Bourgeois Transitions are inherently multiple and multi-temporal, which makes positionality a crucial factor in understanding them. For this reason, ethnicity alone cannot fully encapsulate the experiences of Jews and Greeks in Salonica. Individuals from these groups occupied diverse roles as communal notables, prominent merchants, and civic men, navigating and sharing multiple

Introduction

17

worlds. For the Jewish and Greek merchants, class emerged as another key determinant, profoundly shaping their passage from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek nation-state. The Business of Transition departs from historiography’s near-exclusive emphasis on ethnicity at the expense of almost any other element of identity and delves instead into changes in class identity during the late Ottoman and early post-Ottoman periods. How were such changes intertwined with shifts in ethnic hierarchies, particularly the transition from a Jewish-led to a Greek-led commercial bourgeoisie? This transformation was not just ethnic but also entailed a significant class shift. The late Ottoman Jewish and multiethnic bourgeoisie of Salonica, this study argues, had a class identity markedly different from that of its Greek successor. As such, it experienced the transition to Greek rule not only as a shift in ethnic dynamics but equally as a transformation of its class identity, reflecting the multifaceted nature of post-imperial transitions. Class has been a recurrent theme in the historiography of the late Ottoman Empire, but in recent years interest in it has surged. Earlier works adopted a macroscopic approach, emphasizing the fragile nature of the Ottoman bourgeoisie. They attributed the empire’s Westernization largely to the expanding role of the modernizing state, and viewed ethnicity as a divisive factor, hampering the emergence of a cohesive and powerful middle class.50 Furthermore, the limited political engagement of this class in imperial affairs was frequently ascribed to the dominance of non-Muslims in it, particularly Greek Orthodox or Armenian Christians. Their embrace of nationalism and gradual allegiance to their respective nation-states were believed to have led to their growing estrangement from the Ottoman polity. As a result, some historians concluded that a truly Ottoman bourgeoisie was either absent or, at best, bifurcated, split between a Muslim component closely tied to the state and a non-Muslim one predominantly engaged in commerce.51 Approached from this perspective, and mirroring the dominant narrative in the historiography of the European middle classes, the emergence of a cohesive bourgeoisie has been closely linked with the dissolution of imperial rule and the establishment of the Turkish and other successor nation-states. In this view, nation-building was intimately connected with the formation of a national, ethnically homogeneous bourgeoisie, albeit one closely intertwined with the state.52

18

Introduction

Recent approaches have indirectly challenged the conventional view of a weak and politically indifferent Ottoman bourgeoisie by highlighting the extensive involvement of emerging urban middle-class strata in the project of producing a modern, supra-ethnic imperial identity, known as Ottomanism. Contrary to being solely proponents of secessionist nationalism, these groups displayed a wide array of attitudes toward the empire, with many actively embracing Ottomanist ideals and participating in the reformist and modernizing efforts of the imperial regime. Ottomanism was not a singular, state-driven ideological endeavor. Instead, it was a diverse and multifaceted movement that engaged both the Muslim and non-Muslim middle classes, who in turn adapted it to suit their individual needs. Engagement with Ottomanism contributed to the creation of a shared public culture, articulated around public spectacles, celebrations, philanthropic initiatives, and the press. This largely bourgeois public sphere was vibrant enough even though it remained closely tied to Sultan Abdul Hamid and the Ottoman monarchical state.53 It not only promoted the integrity of the empire but also generated new representations of the social order. It provided a platform for the performance of new social identities, actively involving the upper and middle strata and advancing core bourgeois values and modes of conduct.54 It was only with the eventual loss of legitimacy of the Ottomanist project, as the empire disintegrated amid war and ethnic conflict in the 1910s, that many among these middle classes, sometimes reluctantly, turned toward nationalism.55 In a similar vein, studies focusing on individual ethnoreligious groups and their communities during the period of late Ottoman reforms have shed light on the connection between the restructuring of the communal sphere and new, predominantly bourgeois, perceptions of society—of social ills, remedies, and the imperative of intervention to cure the ailing social body. They pointed to the emergence of a bourgeois public culture, marked by the establishment of educational and welfare institutions, the formation of voluntary associations, the proliferation of newspapers, and the organization of ever more elaborate citywide public events. As these studies have shown, the symbolic construction of the community and the delineation of its boundaries were effected through discourses and social practices that very much reflected a bourgeois worldview.56

Introduction

19

If, then, revisionist studies of Ottomanism and communal belonging have done much to reestablish the Ottoman bourgeoisie as a valid historical agent, by contrast, much of the literature on the Eastern Mediterranean port cities has romanticized it as the main bearer of turn-of-the-century cosmopolitanism.57 Port-city commercial bourgeoisies are frequently credited with creating the fascinating vibrancy characteristic of urban life in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time. They have been celebrated as exemplars of multiethnic coexistence and admired for their ability to transcend boundaries and forge mixed, even hybrid identities. Promoted as counterexamples to the monistic identities which sectarianism, nationalism, and the centralizing state had subsequently imposed in the region, their post-imperial trajectory is, for that reason, often viewed as a rapid decline, both of themselves and the cities they helped prosper. Consequently, their perceived loss has been grieved accordingly. Once derided as “Levantines” and “rootless cosmopolitans” by nationalist contemporaries, these commercial bourgeoisies were now praised for the very same reasons.58 Much as they differ, these historiographical strands in the study of Ottoman and port-city bourgeoisies, tend to treat bourgeois formation and identity somewhat uniformly across different ethnoreligious groups. Local variations are also often neglected despite the strong historical ties between the bourgeoisie and the city. Hence, embourgeoisement among Jews, Greek Orthodox, or other ethnoreligious communities is frequently portrayed as unfolding in similar ways, as an exposure to and embracement of Western mores, tastes, discourses, and social practices—whether creative and imaginative or not.59 Comparative studies that focus on ethnically different bourgeoisies and which explore intercommunal dynamics of exchange, emulation, and rivalry are lacking. Yet, there is enough historical evidence to suggest that Europe was not the sole bourgeois model to be appreciated and followed. David Angel, for example, a Jewish reformist teacher in Izmir around 1900, not only used a typical bourgeois vocabulary to condemn the moral laxity, aloofness, and laziness of Izmir’s Jews but also noted how “little they had borrowed” from their Greek Orthodox co-citizens. His observation underscores how certain ethnic groups—in this case the Orthodox Greeks—were seen as exemplars of bourgeois values, generating anxieties among others and fears that they were being left behind.60 Understandably,

20

Introduction

speaking of an “Ottoman Jewish” or “Greek Orthodox” path to bourgeois formation risks substituting one form of essentialism for another, seeing distinct ethnic paths where an earlier historiography saw a uniform and universal process. A direct correlation between specific ethnic and bourgeois identities would be both difficult to establish and analytically unproductive. As Dina Danon has shown, in the Ottoman context, bourgeois formation was not linked to a conscious interrogation of ethnic particularity or a drive toward assimilation. For that reason, Jewishness was not considered problematic. There was, therefore, no straightforwardly Jewish or Greek Orthodox way of becoming or being bourgeois.61 However, it is still possible to argue that embourgeoisement is a historically specific process occurring in particular locales, and shaped by forces that impacted each ethnoreligious group differently. In an attempt to nuance current accounts of Ottoman bourgeois culture(s) and suggest a way forward, this study identifies two different ways of being bourgeois in late Ottoman Salonica. Migration from the Ottoman Macedonian interior was crucial in forming a Greek Orthodox commercial bourgeoisie, whose economic, social, and cultural outlook was strongly influenced by their regional origins. Locality and its performance in the city made them both Greek and bourgeois. By contrast, Jewish bourgeois identity was shaped by different factors, mainly involvement in community affairs and—for the wealthy Jews of Italian origin, the so-called Italian Jews or Francos—participation in Salonica’s Italian colony. Exemplary Jewishness as well as model bourgeois comportment rested on service to the community and a strong Western orientation that made Jewish merchants the most recognizably “European” bourgeois group in Salonica. As the Greek military agent Athanasios Souliotis-Nikolaidis reminisced, “Above all, the Jews spoke French. I often happened to hear them speak it among themselves with a Jewish accent, but also with a clear desire to come across, if not as French, at least as cosmopolitans.”62 Although both Greek Orthodox and Jews used similar types of bourgeois institutions and social practices—like voluntary associations— the content and meanings they attached to their bourgeois identity differed widely. These differences subsequently influenced their public actions and the social and symbolic capital they amassed, leading to varied expressions of bourgeois identity within the multiethnic city.

Introduction

21

Salonica, like other Eastern Mediterranean port cities from Izmir to Alexandria and from Trieste to Beirut, was foremost a major commercial hub, despite the growing presence of industry. Trade was the lifeblood of the local economy, and merchants formed its core professional group, one that was numerous, attractive, and open to all. It is no coincidence that when Souliotis-Nikolaidis secretly settled in the city in 1904 to organize the Greek response to the growing Bulgarian presence there, he posed as a commercial agent selling imported sewing machines to a multiethnic clientele from a shop in Salonica’s main commercial avenue.63 Being a merchant could provide excellent coverage to a military agent like him precisely because the group’s boundaries could be extremely porous and its cohesion tenuous. Merchants exhibited intense mobility, diverse internal makeup, and clear divisions across lines of ethnicity, religion, citizenship, specialization, wealth, and institutional membership. Furthermore, as the Greek term emporoviomechanos (merchant-industrialist) aptly demonstrated, trade was often just one of many a person’s occupations and identity components.64 The merchant was a particularly fluid occupational category, making it difficult to define using quantifiable criteria. Beyond a mere profession, in late Ottoman Salonica, merchants—particularly the wealthy and prominent ones—constituted a social category endowed with a wide range of meanings and associated with a diverse set of values, varying according to the discourses through which they were spoken. In Ladino, for instance, the term merkader (merchant) often denoted a communal notable, the notavle, and the two terms were frequently used interchangeably.65 However, these attributions were not fixed but subject to contestation. In the course of World War I, for example, Jewish and Greek newspapers often portrayed merchants negatively as ruthless, unpatriotic profiteers. Yet, by 1918 the same local press would laud them as exemplary Salonicans and saviors of the city from Athenian neglect.66 The term merchant was more than just a discursive construct; it often served as a key symbol imbued with diverse and contested meanings. It was a powerful metaphor that provided a language to speak about modernity, community, nation, and the city time and again. To capture this semantic fluidity (but hopefully not be lost in it), The Business of Transition adopts a triple approach. First, it focuses on a relatively

22

Introduction

small but significant group of prominent Jewish and Greek Orthodox merchants, the commercial upper stratum of their respective communities and the city at large. These individuals were actively involved in Salonica’s commercial institutions, communal governing bodies, and ethnic and multiethnic voluntary associations, and were frequently featured in electoral lists. Their prominence is evident in a range of sources—from newspaper columns and consular reports to archives of masonic lodges, communal documents, bulletins of societies and minutes of board meetings—a testament to their visibility, extensive networks, and, hence, their power. I reconstruct the economic and social trajectories of these merchants to reveal the diverse ways in which transition was experienced and managed, as well as to assess the shifting balance of power between Greeks and Jews across various interconnected fields in order to identify the factors, beyond ethnicity, that shaped this evolving power hierarchy. At one point or another, this group stood for any one of the terms I will occasionally be using. A wealthy “merchant” could on occasion be an “industrialist,” a communal “notable,” belong to Salonica’s multiethnic “elite,” embrace “bourgeois” culture, and be a founder of “middle-class” associations. The Business of Transition examines merchants in all these roles, and so each term is expressly employed depending on the case discussed. What might therefore sometimes appear as an inconsistent usage of so many different attributes may in fact be the most appropriate way to demonstrate those merchants’ many interconnected fields of action, the smaller or broader collectives they were part of (and helped form), and the immense social power they thus accrued. That said, the usage of multiple analytical terms, however accurate, can make for confusing reading. Equally importantly, such “external” terms can also obscure the multiple meanings and complementary subject positions the notion of the merchant historically denoted, and thus the social status (contested or embraced) it granted its bearers. To highlight these, I will therefore be referring to this Greek and Jewish upper commercial stratum using a single term, namely “merchants.” Untangling and then adopting a “native” category for the subject group concerned is preferable to an external ascription such as “elite” or “bourgeoisie,” which tend to prioritize one field of action over all others (the economic, the political, or the social), and eventually fail to grasp the historicity and diversity of the

Introduction

23

merchants’ experience itself. The merchant was a historically hegemonic category which makes its usage analytically compelling. For that reason, the second part of my approach regards the discourses and cultural representations of merchants and commerce. I aim to trace the changing semantics of these terms over time and to explore how the merchants’ communal and urban authority was rhetorically both legitimized and challenged in the public domain. Finally, I complete my analysis by examining the changing landscape of commercial institutions, with a particular focus on developments in the merchants’ associational culture. In this regard, I view Salonica’s merchants as subjects constituted and reconstituted through both discourses and social practices, cultural representations, and their own agency. Discourses and practices interconnect, cultural meanings and social relations constitute a single process. What it meant to be a merchant happened where and when Greeks and Jews met, or else the production of meaning occurred where there was social interaction. Conversely, cultural discourses about commerce, the city, or the community organized interpersonal relations. They signified cross-cultural contact and shaped the symbolic content of relatedness, bringing Jews and Greeks together as, for example, “Salonicans.” The formation of identities is thus the product of culturally determined relationships. Individual and collective subjects do not exist prior to human interaction but are an outcome of it.67 This theoretical perspective informs my understanding of merchant identity and my use of the concept. In the past decades, “identity” has been heavily criticized, viewed as an analytical category either too narrow or too broad to be of any analytical utility, entrenched and free-floating in equal measure.68 In the field of business history, too, other concepts, like “networks,” “trust,” and “interests,” have been fruitfully employed.69 My own preference for identity, however, derives from its productive usage in the historiography of class, with its emphasis on anti-reductionism, its ability to designate the cultural and discursive nature of class formation, and, most importantly, its capacity to account for change—the remaking of classes, a topic which lies at the very heart of this study.70 In the case of Salonica’s merchants, I argue that social practices of distinction and concerted autonomous political action granted the group a cohesion stronger than that allowed for by a temporary convergence of interests or a pragmatic cross-ethnic coalition of individuals. That

24

Introduction

the Jewish and Greek merchants managed to coalesce, oftentimes under circumstances of acute ethnic hatred and extensive violence, especially during the Balkan Wars, is quite exceptional, a sign of group solidarity clear enough to indicate the construction of a shared identity. Concurrently, a constructivist approach to identity makes it possible to dissect and conceptualize the importance of ethnicity, class, and locality in the merchants’ group formation, important elements of their subjecthood that did not merely intersect but were in essence mutually constitutive. Above all, identity, when understood as a discursive construct, allows for the account of symbolic exclusions, facilitating a more nuanced approach to the reconfiguration of ethnic hierarchies: in other words, it makes it possible to understand how by 1919 the merchants of Salonica had become a Greek bourgeois class, although the majority were still Jews. For those reasons, this study places less emphasis on strictly economic developments than one might expect, emphasizing instead the merchants’ significant role in the city’s public life and social imaginary, and the extent to which commerce became a near-existential question for the city and its Jews once Salonica became Greek. Since commerce animated local politics and merchants actively participated in it, I am interested in understanding the changing sources of the merchants’ social power and the evolving meanings of their cultural identity. Activities such as communal involvement, associationism, and urban politics were not only instrumental in constructing Jewish, Greek Orthodox, or multiethnic collectives; they also contributed to business success by securing social peace, legitimizing merchant authority, or preserving ethnic hierarchies. Economic, social, and political power were closely intertwined and hence the Hellenization of Salonica’s merchants is here located at the intersection of business developments, shifts in associational culture, and urban politics. The merchants’ economic, social, and political weight positioned them at the core of Salonica’s bourgeoisie as key contributors to its evolving bourgeois culture. In the late Ottoman period, commercial clubs stood as some of the most recognized and respected associations, and entrepreneurs like Allatini were heralded as major philanthropists. While studies of Eastern Mediterranean port cities and their bourgeoisies acknowledge the merchants’ prominence, they often stop short of delving into the deeper significance of

Introduction

25

their importance, generally referring to a commercial bourgeoisie without further exploration.71 However, is there a specific interrelation between commerce, merchants, and bourgeois identity? The study seeks to understand what exactly made the merchants bourgeois and, conversely, how significant commerce was in the formation of a broader bourgeois identity. To answer these questions, I take a closer look at the merchants’ associational world in the late nineteenth century, exploring how new practices of sociability, such as the club, linked commerce to core bourgeois values. Why was it, I ask, that there were so few exclusive, professional associations for merchants in the city? What was the rationale behind commercial clubs being open to all professions, and why would an association as distanced from business matters as the respectable Greek Orthodox Educational Society of Salonica subscribe to the journal of the Greek Chamber of Commerce of Istanbul?72 Answering these questions aims to shed light on how commerce was culturally legitimized and the reasons behind the privileged status that prominent merchants enjoyed both within Salonica’s bourgeoisie and the broader city. By examining merchants from this perspective, the notion of a commercial bourgeoisie gains analytical depth, transcending a mere occupational descriptor to become a marker of a historically specific social formation. What became of the particular configuration of merchant and bourgeois identities once Salonica became Greek? While the study of late Ottoman bourgeoisies and their urban worlds has garnered considerable attention in recent decades, dedicated histories of their post-Ottoman successors remain scarce.73 The same lacuna is evident in the English-language historiography of post-imperial Central and East Central Europe where studies of postHabsburg bourgeoisies are hard to find. In the case of the Eastern Mediterranean, the dominant narratives typically frame bourgeois trajectories in terms of “decline,” often lamenting their economic downfall, loss of multiethnic character, and diminished local power in the wake of an expanding centralizing state.74 Another narrative thread focuses on the formation of national bourgeoisies, facilitated by state support and policies of national preference.75 Yet, these accounts tend to be overly schematic, primarily concerned with changes in ethnic rather than class dynamics and tending to overlook the agency of these groups, viewing them as reconstituted (or dissolved) largely by forces external to them.

26

Introduction

By contrast, my study aims to trace how the passage from empire to nation-state affected the merchants’ bourgeois identity, examining what it meant to be a bourgeois merchant in this new context. Interestingly, the advent of Greek rule did not immediately bring about a comprehensive suite of nationalizing policies. However, there was a swift introduction of Greek legislation on associations, leading to their mushrooming. More than 120 were established by 1922, most of them professional. Additionally, the impact of World War I and the challenges in food provisioning heightened social tensions in Salonica. Did the presence of a Commercial Association, as well as an Industrialists’ Association of Macedonia from 1916, make a difference in this context? Did the discourse of war profiteering which now spoke of classes in conflict mark a turning point? Starting with these questions, I explore how developments in associational culture and public rhetoric reshaped understandings of commerce and how merchants, in turn, reimagined and reconstituted themselves as a class along new lines. A central argument of the book, then, is that the transition of Salonica from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek nation-state involved not just a shift in the ethnic identity of its merchants, but also a profound transformation of their class identity. The merchants of Greek Salonica were a group distinct from their Ottoman predecessors, not only because ethnic hierarchies had been reversed but also because their class self-perception was fundamentally altered. Hellenization and the remaking of their class outlook occurred concurrently, making their interplay a key focus of this study. The two processes were intertwined and mutually reinforcing, and if they are examined separately here, it is only for narrative clarity. As European historiography has asserted, bourgeoisies typically have a strong attachment to the city, and urban narratives can be crucial in legitimizing their authority.76 In multiethnic contexts, like late Ottoman Salonica, this becomes more complex. As elsewhere, contests over urban space were not uncommon among different ethnoreligious groups, while the modern part of the city was predominantly claimed by its bourgeoisie to the exclusion of other social classes.77 A shared Salonican civic identity was not strong enough to sustain the coherence of a local bourgeoisie during this period. Yet, interestingly, within less than a decade of Greek rule, both Greek and Jewish newspapers were attributing the city’s vicissitudes to the neglect of

Introduction

27

the “Athenian state,” a sentiment echoed by institutions representing various social strata, including the city’s Labor Center. The Business of Transition explores this seemingly paradoxical resurgence of localism at a time of national integration. Historians of Eastern Mediterranean port cities have often overlooked the persistence, transformation, or strengthening of local identities in the post-Ottoman period. This oversight occurs despite, or perhaps because of the fact that transition to the nation-state frequently resulted in a loss of local autonomy and power along with a radical redefinition of the port cities’ relationship with their respective national capitals.78 The phenomenon of “second cities” typifies the post-imperial dynamics between Salonica and Athens, but also Istanbul and Ankara, Alexandria and Cairo, complicating narratives of nationalization and accounts of port-city bourgeoisies in the post-imperial era.79 The production of locality and its interplay with class and ethnic hierarchies form the third axis of analysis, making this book not merely the story of Salonica’s commercial bourgeoisie but more specifically, the story of a Salonican commercial bourgeoisie. From Transition to Transformation This is therefore a story fundamentally about the trajectory of two ethnoreligious groups, the Jews and the Greek Orthodox, as they made the passage from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek nation-state. Yet, it is equally a story about an occupation—the merchants—and a class—a commercial bou­rgeoisie—and, finally, about an urban community, the Salonicans. All three forms of attachment—ethnicity, class, and locality—underwent profound changes during the first decade of Greek rule, fundamentally altering what it meant to be a Jewish or Greek Salonican merchant before and after the 1910s. These processes unfolded in parallel, each with its unique dynamics and pace: while, for example, ethnic tensions intensified after the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, they paradoxically subsided during the Balkans Wars and World War I, when class relations, in turn, became more strained. My multilayered approach leads to a somewhat odd account, oftentimes challenging our preconceptions or reversing the established narrative. It associates war, for example, more with class than with ethnic conflict, and interprets the presence of the allied English, French, and Italian armies during the Great War as a factor leading to class consolidation rather than ethnic fluidity.

28

Introduction

Consequently, the emphasis is on the ebbs and flows of the period, resulting in a narrative that is less straightforward and more crooked than might be expected. Moreover, this study considers the processes of ethnic reversal, class remaking, and heightened localism as intricately interwoven. I view class, ethnicity/nationality, and locality as mutually constitutive categories and trace how their interplay evolved under different political regimes. Once under Greek rule, for example, the strong sense of Greekness characterizing Greek merchants was actually predicated on a self-victimizing perception of Salonica as being intentionally neglected by the central “Athenian” state. This perception did not undermine their Greek nationalist sentiments; instead, it reinforced them. The more “Greek” Salonicans were turning, the more “Salonican” they were becoming. While Greek nationalism was producing local identities (the “Greek Salonica”), these could, in turn, have a life of their own, significantly impacting the manner in which national integration unfolded.80 Local and national identities morphed together. As for the Jews, their primacy in the bourgeois world of late Ottoman Salonica intrigues one to ask whether there was an inherently “Jewish” aspect to the outlook of the city’s multiethnic commercial bourgeoisie. The Jews, with their economic prowess, cross-ethnic public engagement, and multifaceted Europeanness could arguably be seen as embodying the ideal bourgeois, setting a precedent for others to emulate. In a sense, to be bourgeois in Salonica was to be (like) a Jew. However, the decade following Salonica’s annexation to Greece brought significant shifts in this perception. European credentials, for example, began to be seen as a mark of national disloyalty. Meanwhile, the Greeks were at the forefront of establishing new professional associations. Jews could and would be involved in them, but could one argue that by doing so they were now embracing a new (and “Greek”) bourgeois identity, leaving the old (and “Jewish”) one behind? In other words, the passage of Salonica’s multiethnic bourgeoisie from empire to nation-state involved the complex reconstitution of several interconnected elements of the merchants’ identity. Focusing solely on ethnicity cannot fully capture the intricacy of this process, particularly since ethnicity itself was situated and, hence, shaped by a range of other factors, especially class and locality.81 The unmaking of a Jewish and the making of a

Introduction

29

Greek bourgeoisie was not just a matter of ethnic change; it also depended on reimagining the merchants as a class and the articulation of a new local discourse that repositioned Greek Salonica within the space of the nation. Transition, I argue, is as much about class and locality (and, no less, occupation) as it is about ethnicity and nationhood. It is a process concerning not only an ethnic minority but also various other social groups, regardless of how they are defined. In this light, loaded terms such as assimilation and integration, or even neutral terms like adaptation and negotiation, appear static and restrictive. They fail to encapsulate the simultaneous and overlapping shifts occurring across different levels and involving diverse constituencies. Yet, if we broaden our perspective and move beyond a purely ethnic lens, we can conceive transitions anew as wholesome transformations of identity. They affect “majorities” and “minorities,” occupational groups and social classes alike, reshaping ethnic, class, and urban self-perceptions in tandem. Hellenization was much more expansive than simply making Jews or the city Greek, and encompassed a broader range of actors beyond Jews and the Greek state. This rethinking of transitions emphasizes their comprehensive and holistic character, going some way to qualify the prevailing scholarly focus on the persistence of national indifference.82 Studies of interwar East Central Europe, particularly in the successor states of the Habsburg Empire, have highlighted the continued fluidity of ethnic and national identities. They point to the creative ways in which the bourgeois, among others, freely engaged with various majority and minority cultures to advance their personal and familial interests, social standing, and economic prospects.83 Similar strategies can be observed in Salonica both among the Jews and the Greek Orthodox. Holding foreign citizenship, receiving education in foreign language schools, or participating in the affairs of the French, German, or Italian colonies were not necessarily indicative of clear-cut national alignments, nor were they transparent statements of national preference.84 Yet, while this focus on individual strategies of adaptation in post-imperial contexts—and more broadly, on national indifference—is valuable and serves to counterbalance the emphasis on the power of the nationalizing state and its identity-ascribing mechanisms, it tends to overlook other aspects of subjecthood beyond ethnicity. Consequently, it leaves open the question whether

30

Introduction

the persistence of national indifference might coincide with more subtle transformations in class or other elements of individual and collective identities. In other words, the focus is still squarely on ethnicity. Moreover, either stressing or qualifying the role of the nation-building state can overshadow the significance of other, less evident, mechanisms in reshaping ethnic hierarchies and contributing to processes of nationalization or minorization. These include voluntary associations and other civil society institutions, shifts in business strategies, and the emergence of new cross-ethnic localist and regionalist, but not necessarily anti-nationalist, discourses. National indifference at one level could very well coexist with national involvement at another. All this makes the case of Salonica’s merchants a compelling example for discussing transitions as transformations of identity. But in many ways, it is as good as any. What unfolds in the following pages, is a story that is representative rather than exceptional. Popular discourses, both Greek and Jewish, along with some academic literature often portray Salonica, indeed celebrate it, as a unique and exceptional city, one like no other.85 Nonetheless, the evolution of its multiethnic commercial bourgeoisie exemplifies a broader, yet understudied phenomenon that unfolded across the Eastern Mediterranean and East Central Europe as these regions made the passage from the Ottoman, Habsburg, German, and Russian empires to their successor nation-states and mandates. Little is known about the post-imperial bourgeoisies of cities like Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Trieste, Alexandria, Istanbul, Lodz, Krakow, or Warsaw. Narratives of decline predominate and research tends to emphasize minorities while overlooking majorities, examining them in isolation and disregarding interethnic relations.86 Moreover, the frequent implicit association of the bourgeoisie with the nineteenth century, coupled with the pervasive assumption that the bourgeois century ended abruptly in 1914, has rendered the bourgeoisie less applicable as an analytical lens and less visible as a subject of historical inquiry for the study of transitions. By contrast, and as a result of the eruption of nationalism in those regions following the collapse of socialism in the late 1980s, ethnicity remains the sole lens scholars continue to employ. Consequently, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of how these once powerful groups handled the transition to nation-states, renegotiated their ethnic hierarchies,

Introduction

31

reconfirmed or lost their urban dominance, or saw the fundamental components of their class identity change. In short, the question remains: how did they remake themselves? Now that the study of imperial bourgeoisies has affirmed their importance, it is perhaps time to revisit the history of post-imperial bourgeoisies, too. *** To better serve these theoretical premises, the book employs three distinct narrative techniques. The main account is organized into seven chapters, bundled together into three parts. Part I covers the late Ottoman period, roughly from the establishment of Salonica’s chamber of commerce in 1882 to the eve of the Young Turk Revolution in the summer of 1908. It offers a still image of Salonica’s fin-de-siècle Jewish and Greek Orthodox merchants, first separately (Chapter 1) and then together (Chapter 2). Part II connects the last years of Ottoman rule (1908–1912, Chapter 3) to the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 (Chapter 4) and World War I (Chapter 5), viewing them as a single, cohesive decade. This somewhat unconventional grouping challenges the view of the Balkan Wars as a radical break from the Ottoman past. Not, however, in order to emphasize post-Ottoman continuities, but on the contrary, so as to make narratively evident how the years bridging Ottoman and Greek rule were essentially a time of accelerated movement. Salonica’s merchants, I argue, had already entered into a state of flux with the Young Turk Revolution. The Balkan Wars which followed, did nothing but intensify preexisting trends, rather than halt them or initiate new ones. Part II thus takes a somewhat paradoxical view arguing that change was the true element of continuity between Young Turk and early Greek Salonica. Finally, Part III brings the story up to 1919 when the city’s chamber of commerce was restructured according to Greek law and the basic class and ethnic features of Salonica’s new (and “Greek”) commercial bourgeoisie were already taking shape. To a varying degree, the narrative logic behind each chapter serves an analysis that aims at deconstructing Salonica’s merchants and showing all their different facets in operation—the workings of class, ethnicity, and locality among both Greeks and Jews. By contrast, the three extensive vignettes introducing each part are a narrative attempt to present these merchants as concrete subjects. The long portraits of Jacob Cazes, Abram and David

32

Introduction

Errera, and Joseph Misrahi are not mere illustrations intended to animate the narrative, although I very much hope they will do so. They also aspire to capture the merchants’ diverse array of activities as a lived experience, to highlight the interrelatedness of their multiple public personae as integral parts of exceptionally rich lives. They are incomplete sketches, which might capture the irreducibility of complex trajectories in times of change. Next to them, the illustrations inserted offer a third, final narrative, this time of merchant self-fashioning and refashioning. Put one next to the other, these images of eye-catching commercial letterheads and visually striking company bonds offer a glimpse at the material culture of a world in full motion. Much like the main text and the vignettes, they document the merchants’ passage from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek nation-state; but they present it while capturing all its arresting beauty.

Part I

MAKING SALONICA JEWISH AND BOURGEOIS 1882–1908

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Jacob Cazes

1906 was the year of Jacob Cazes. As Salonica’s economy was booming, his business was thriving. A successful grain and flour merchant, Cazes had adeptly branched out into the city’s lucrative import and export sector, trading in a wide array of goods, from salt to cutting-edge machinery used in aromatic soap production. Astutely diversifying his business portfolio, he also invested heavily in the flourishing real estate market to ensure financial stability for himself and gain access to essential short-term bank credit, crucial in the cash-strapped economy of Ottoman Macedonia. Cazes’ business networks were extensive, deeply embedded in the Jewish community but also extending well beyond it: he likely collaborated with the Modiano family, a Jewish financial and commercial dynasty in Ottoman Macedonia. Additionally, he partnered with prominent Dönme, including in 1897 with tobacco merchant Hassan Akif and Osman Dervich, his colleague at the chamber of commerce, to take over a struggling Jewish business. Cazes’ firm was highly regarded, featuring prominently in the second class of companies listed at Salonica’s chamber of commerce, next to numerous other thriving Jewish trading enterprises.1 At the start of the year, Cazes was already president of the Jewish community. By late February he was once again re-elected to the municipal 35

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Jacob Cazes

council, continuing a notably long tenure that had started eighteen years previously in 1888. Come April, he was also re-elected to the chamber of commerce, assuming the role of the chamber’s first secretary and working alongside his nephew, the prominent banker Jacob Modiano. Finally, in November, Cazes joined the newly formed consultative council of the powerful local committee of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. This Franco-Jewish organization had been founded in 1860 in Paris to emancipate the Jews of Eastern Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and North Africa by providing them with a European-style education locally. In Salonica, it had been active since the 1870s, working with the local elite to establish a wide network of schools where generations of young Jews would be educated. As a member of the local Alliance committee, Cazes was responsible for overseeing the extensive operations of the boys’ and girls’ schools, exercising considerable authority over the communal educational infrastructure. Moving between the municipal and communal councils, the chamber of commerce and the Alliance board, Cazes was the one crucial node in the intricate network of power spanning from the community to the city.2 His social life that year was equally busy. Like every “respected Salonican,” Cazes was involved in several of the mushrooming voluntary associations, socializing in the most prestigious clubs. Since the mid-1880s, he had been a member of the elite Cercle de Salonique, the meeting place of the city’s multiethnic bourgeoisie. He was also a key figure at the Grand Cercle, a club established in 1890 primarily by Jewish merchants but known for its social events, a highlight of Salonica’s social scene. Associational activity marked Cazes’ social calendar. In January, he attended a grand dinner hosted by the Grand Cercle, celebrating its anniversary with 80 other distinguished guests, including the elite of Salonica’s Jewish merchants. Additionally, over the year, along with other “high notables of the city,” he participated in several lectures organized by the Alliance Alumni Association, a major Jewish philanthropic organization focused on the “public good,” yet “combining the useful with the pleasant.” For Cazes, club life was more than a pastime. Clubs offered the right blend of business networking, philanthropy, and pleasure making him at once a respectable merchant, an exemplary Jew, and a bourgeois Salonican.3

Jacob Cazes

37

Cazes did much to bring the new world of Salonica about, a world he now dominated. Though he built on continuities, his success was largely due to the ruptures he boldly initiated. Born in 1845, he came from a noteworthy background. His father, Isac Cazes, was a communal notable and a wealthy merchant dealing in cotton and cereals. His older sister Fakima had been married since 1834 to Saul Modiano, a Jew of Italian origin and citizenship, who would eventually dominate the financial and commercial world of Salonica and Macedonia in the late Ottoman period. Jacob Cazes leveraged these familial ties to become a key figure in a power network that spanned business, communal governance, and city politics. By 1911 the Modianos had enough confidence in him to entrust him with representing their interests in extensive negotiations with the Ottoman authorities and the Greek-owned Banque d’Orient, following the bankruptcy of their Banque Saul. In the Jewish community, too, Cazes worked closely with his nephew, banker Jacob Modiano. The two were long-standing members of the communal council and also served together on the consultative committee and the communal assembly. Moreover, their collaboration extended beyond communal administration. Uncle and nephew crossed paths at the Cercle de Salonique and sat together on the boards of the chamber of commerce and the Grand Cercle Israélite. It seemed that business-making, communal leadership, and associational sociability were still bound by enduring, time-honored family ties.4 Yet, Jacob Cazes drew power not only because of his adherence to traditional practices but mainly due to his adoption and advancement of new business strategies and modern institutions. Breaking with the tradition of religious Jewish schooling, he attended the French-oriented Lippman School in Salonica, receiving a modern European education. Upon graduating, rather than joining his family business, he spent two decades working for Theagenis Charissis, a leading Greek Orthodox import–export firm in the city. By the early 1880s, the firm had sharply declined; Cazes, however, moved on. He established his own import-export firm, contributing to a virtual Jewish monopoly in this sector in the following decades. In the same period, he also spearheaded communal reform. In 1873, he co-founded the Club des  Intimes, Salonica’s first Jewish voluntary association, which brought together a group of young members from prominent Jewish families

38

Jacob Cazes

educated in Italian and French schools. Through the club, this group “learned to come together in order to work for the common good,” and successfully advocated for reforms by “placing itself at the forefront, showing courage, shaking off old habits, and defying the enemies of innovation.” Their efforts brought about the community’s institutional modernization, but they also ensured that club members would now rule it through control of the newly introduced council and General Assembly. Cazes did his modernizing part: he reorganized the gachmi (the funeral services committee) and reformed the gabella (the communal meat tax) in 1888. Yet, he also reaped the longterm benefits reforms brought. The radical outsider became a mainstay in communal politics from 1880 to 1912, serving uninterruptedly on the communal and executive councils, participating on the consultative committee (1910–1911), and becoming president at least twice, from 1906 to 1909 and again in 1912.5 Cazes’ instrumental role in the rapidly expanding Jewish associational world further bolstered his own standing. Although the Club des Intimes stagnated after 1884, he got involved in the Grand Cercle following the merger of these two associations in 1890. As a member of this major Jewish commercial society, he played a key role in uniting merchants and raising their public visibility as Jews and Salonicans. In 1904, the “whole Salonica” attended the funeral of the Grand Cercle’s eminent president, Joseph J. Asseo, and prominent figures like Charles Allatini, president of the local Alliance committee, and Joseph Misrahi from the communal council, delivered funeral orations. The Grand Cercle’s prominence was particularly evident in the early days of the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, when the club played host welcoming Serbian, Bulgarian, and Greek visitors to Salonica “on behalf of the city’s residents.” A year later, in 1909, the Grand Cercle merged with another significant Jewish club, the Cercle Israélite, forming the Grand Cercle Israélite. At the inaugural assembly, Cazes was elected president, a position he held for at least the next five years. Leading around 200 major Jewish merchants, he aimed to protect and advance their interests whether as merchants, by settling the exporters’ relations with unloaders and porters, or as Jews, by coordinating the activities of the main Jewish associations. Through communal reform and associational activity, then, Jacob Cazes had reshaped Jewish life in Salonica, all the while adding vital social and cultural

Jacob Cazes

39

capital to his economic prowess. He was a merchant, communal notable, and bourgeois Jew, all at once.6 In the same years, Cazes was also active in molding Salonica’s new culture of conviviality. Back in the 1860s, he had learned the trade at a Greek Orthodox firm, much like Saul Modiano, his brother-in-law. Among merchants, ethnic coexistence occurred in the workplace taking the established form of a master–apprentice relationship. By the century’s end, however, Cazes would engage with his Greek Orthodox peers in entirely new ways. Sitting on the board of the chamber of commerce and its various committees, he collaborated with the few Greek Orthodox merchants like Georgios Kirtsis and Pericles Pesnikidis to enhance trade conditions in Salonica whether by establishing a local commodity exchange or addressing the importers’ “fair complaints.” Time and again he represented the broader interests of the “commercial corps” to the competent authorities, dealing with issues such as municipal import duties, disembarkation tariffs, and handling charges, or proposing schemes for municipal duties on imported goods on behalf of “the mercantile community.” In times of tension, as president of the Grand Cercle Israélite, Cazes worked alongside representatives of Greek Orthodox and other ethnoreligious associations to foster coexistence, devising plans to form a cross-ethnic Union of Peace and Solidarity. His involvement at the Cercle de Salonique, where he rubbed shoulders with Greek Orthodox merchants like Pericles Hadjilazarou and G. Georgiadis, further exemplifies his role in the new bourgeois culture of interethnic sociability. He celebrated key events with them, from the club’s twenty-fifth anniversary to the Greek Orthodox New Year, and the three of them, together with other club members, even envisioned a “Union of the Greek and Jewish Communities of Salonica . . . to advance the bonds of friendship and mutual esteem between the members of the two nations.” As new commercial and social institutions were established, novel shared spaces emerged for the merchants to manage. Cazes capitalized on his own experience in his youth, and through his role in the chamber of commerce and various clubs he helped develop new codes and patterns of coexistence. He formed new cross-ethnic collectives, while ensuring his interests as a Jewish merchant were also served. His actions on behalf of Salonica and its merchant community complemented his communal authority, further enhancing his stature.7

40

Jacob Cazes

Jacob Cazes, and many other Jews like him, stood at the center of numerous overlapping circles they themselves had helped draw: the circles of commerce and associations, of community and the city. This centrality granted them unprecedented power by making their Jewish, merchant, Salonican, and bourgeois identities indistinguishable from each other. Thanks to them, late Ottoman Salonica was at once a multiethnic city, a city of commerce, and a bourgeois project, too. And for those very reasons, it was also “their” Jewish city.

ONE

Merchants, Jews, Greeks

The long reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid (1876–1909) was a period of unprecedented change for Salonica. The city’s economy developed rapidly as the arrival of railway lines and steamship navigation contracted space and time, bringing the city closer to Europe and equally to its ever-expanding hinterland. Within a few decades, import and export trade had multiplied manifold and an increasingly diverse array of imported manufactured consumer products catered for the progressively sophisticated needs of an expanding body of consumers both in the city and the surrounding region. From shop windows to beer drinking, the West was infiltrating every corner of the city’s public space. Clubs and societies of all sorts and purposes, from sports to philanthropy, introduced new patterns of sociability, forms of leisure, and notions of public service. Meanwhile, the Western powers made their presence more visible, be that through the mooring of their battleships in the harbor, their educational institutions, the benefits foreign citizenship offered, or even the role their consuls played in Salonica’s social life. Representatives of Britain, France, Italy, and Austria-Hungary, among others, emerged as considerable local players next to an expanding Ottoman state. At the same time, as part of the broader Ottoman reform project, communal institutions were reorganized, lay participation in their governance 41

42

Chapter One

expanded, and new social services were introduced to cater for and control the communal body. Finally, the presence of nationalism was increasingly felt as the Balkan nation-states of Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria were battling for the hearts and minds of the Christian populations of Ottoman Macedonia. These tectonic changes were impacting a city in demographic flux. Between 1840 and 1912, Salonica’s population tripled, rising from 50,000 to about 160,000. The city welcomed people of every religious creed from the Ottoman Balkans, the Eastern shores of the Aegean Sea, across the Mediterranean, and beyond. Above all, Salonica attracted internal Christian migrants from the Ottoman Macedonian hinterland, be that the numerous Greek Orthodox small traders and commissioners arriving from the interior, or the equally plentiful Macedonian-speaking Slav manual workers thronged into the appositely called Kilkis mahala, a neighborhood in the western end of the city named after this predominantly Slavic Macedonian town. Like many other ports of the Eastern Mediterranean, late Ottoman Salonica was to a considerable extent a demographically new city, its multiethnicity as much the recent outcome of migration flows as of established Ottoman diversity. The “Babel of the Mediterranean” was a city of migrants, too. Amid these shifts there emerged Salonica’s Jewish and Greek Orthodox merchants. Both groups were initially characterized by internal diversity that made group cohesion anything but a given. Jewish merchants were fundamentally split between those holding Ottoman citizenship and the Italian Jews or “Francos,” a small but wealthy cluster of merchants who had arrived in Salonica in the mid- to late eighteenth century.1 Greek Orthodox merchants, in turn, were mostly recent immigrants from Ottoman Macedonia. Yet, by the first decade of the twentieth century both groups were cohesive enough, each one dominating its respective communal sphere having managed to reshape its community’s ethnic identity. While Greek Orthodox merchants prided themselves as “Greek Macedonians,” Jewish merchants fashioned instead a multilayered identity that tied Jewishness to Europe. “Europeans” in Salonica: The Jews According to the Ottoman official annal of 1897, 38 out of Salonica’s 66 most important commercial houses were Jewish. In contrast, commercial houses headed by Muslim or Greek Orthodox merchants counted for no more than

Merchants, Jews, Greeks

43

10 apiece. Jews dominated every single trade, controlling both the established and the newer, more dynamic business sectors. In manufacturing, 13 of Salonica’s 43 industrial units belonged to Ottoman Jews, whereas Jews of foreign citizenship owned many of the 17 establishments run by “Europeans.” Similarly, in finance, 12 of the city’s 19 most important bankers were Jewish. Whatever the metrics, Jews were the indisputable masters of the local economy.2 Jewish predominance was so indisputable that it passed as natural—the logical outcome of their own demographic weight and long involvement in commerce. Yet, it was relatively recent and the result of a radical reversal of ethnic hierarchies in the marketplace. Less than 50 years previously, from the mid-1830s to at least the mid-1850s, Jews and Greek Orthodox Salonicans were equally involved in the import and export trade with Europe, the most profitable economic activity in the city. In 1839, the British consul counted 10 Jewish and 11 Greek Orthodox commercial houses among the city’s 48 major establishments, and in 1851 the French consul gave a similar estimate. However, less than 20 years later, in the late 1860s, Greek Orthodox merchants were clearly on the retreat and Jews, by contrast, on the rise, soon to establish themselves as the driving force behind Salonica’s rapidly expanding economy.3 Late Ottoman Jewish merchants were also a diverse collective. While well-established Italian Jewish merchants like the Allatinis tapped into their existing social and economic capital to expand into a business empire, others, like Ottoman Jew Jacob Cazes, were newcomers starting from scratch.4 Moreover, as these two examples show, this new group was also internally divided across citizenship lines, comprising Jews of Ottoman as well as foreign nationality. Securing its cohesion in a period of accelerating social mobility was therefore a challenge, only facilitated by the dense web spun by Jewish merchants connecting several terrains, from the community to the city. Active participation in communal affairs, sustained involvement in the local institutions of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, and, finally, close association with the Italian migrant community of Salonica brought the major Jewish merchants closer together. Such multiple engagements were instrumental in turning them into a cohesive group with a plural yet distinct class and ethnic identity.

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Merchants were a staple component of all communal elites in Salonica. Nowhere, however, were communal institutions more instrumental than in the case of the Jews in bringing them together. This was the case particularly with foreign Jews, and especially with the key group of wealthy Italian Jewish merchants. Although spared pecha, the general communal tax, they were still required to contribute toward the amount paid to the Ottoman state as well as that supporting the various communal welfare institutions. Thanks to this provision, taxation integrated the Italian Jews into the communal fiscal fabric mitigating the divisive effect of citizenship and facilitating the forging of a single community-bound merchant elite. Meanwhile, the direct taxation of commercial activities helped foreground the “Jewish merchant” as a distinct (fiscal) category in the communal imaginary. Beginning in 1744, all importers and exporters, foreigners included, paid 1 percent of their turnover as a direct communal tax. A century later, in 1856, the general reformist drive sweeping all communities during the Ottoman Age of Reforms animated several Italian Jewish merchants to establish the communal foundation Chesed Olam with the purpose of financing communal reforms and supporting the community’s indigent and jobless. A self-imposed tax of ten paras for every parcel these merchants imported or exported would provide Chesed Olam with the necessary income.5 Several shared tax obligations, then, grouped the wealthy merchant importers and exporters together while setting them apart from the community’s other taxable groups. Commerce, not just wealth, determined their distinct fiscal relationship to the community, while, in turn, bespoke communal taxes or community-related contributions established who belonged to the group. Ethnic and professional identities intertwined and so being a member of the Jewish community and an importer or exporter became two mutually constitutive categories. You were the former by being the latter and vice versa. While the Jewish community’s unique taxation system helped demarcate the category of the Jewish merchant more clearly, the merchants’ own involvement in the community’s administrative institutions offered them ever-expanding opportunities to act collectively. From 1875, communal restructuring, the curtailment of rabbinic power, and greater lay participation in communal affairs—which the Ottoman reforms promoted—had worked to their advantage, and so, by the turn of the century, their presence in all

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main governing bodies was widespread. Wealthy merchants predominated in the small group of household heads able to pay pecha, the communal tax (less than 10 percent of the population), and they were thus eligible to vote for the community’s principal legislative body, the 70-strong General Assembly. Prominent merchants also featured among the 17 members of the executive council and repeatedly served as presidents starting in 1875 with the legendary Saul Modiano. Finally, several others, such as Nico Saltiel and textile trader Elie Benuziglio, were among the nine members of the economic council which handled the community’s economic affairs with the Ottoman authorities.6 However, the fact that only Ottoman subjects paid the pecha excluded those wealthy Jewish holders of foreign citizenship from participating in any of the community’s governing bodies, creating a rift between them and their Ottoman peers. Establishing the council of foreigners (also known as the consultative council) redressed the potentially divisive consequences of this provision. The council, whose six members were elected by the General Assembly, made possible the integration of the most prominent Italian merchants like Jacob Modiano, the son of former president Saul Modiano.7 Although a consultative body, its role was far from symbolic. On the contrary, the high status of the merchants involved, their economic stature and social influence, indicates that in practice, the council complemented the executive council exercising real, even if oblique, authority on communal matters. Merchants were also involved in the numerous communal welfare foundations mushrooming in the last third of the nineteenth century. Before then, such foundations were few and far between and mostly managed by community employees. Yet, as the case of Matanot Laevionim—Salonica’s most celebrated soup kitchen—neatly illustrates, by the turn of the century merchants had gained full control. Established in 1901, the Matanot began its life as a private initiative of members of the Bikur Holim fraternity. Soon, however, the communal authorities took over and by 1908 they were appointing the board and supporting the foundation with an annual subsidy of 750 francs. The board of Matanot now included several representatives of prominent Jewish merchant families and so too did the executive committees of many other major communal welfare establishments. The names

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Allatini, Modiano, Fernandez, Misrahi and Saltiel appeared everywhere— from the historic Bikur Holim and Talmud Torah to the newly founded Hirsch Hospital.8 Being run by committees, welfare establishments, old and new, were not just significantly widening the communal space; they were also transforming it into a privileged field of social intervention and the exercise of authority for Jewish merchants. As the Jewish community grew, their power grew with it. Communal institutions were therefore instrumental in securing the cohesion of Jewish merchants and consolidating their power. Contrary to the case of Istanbul, Italian Jews in Salonica were neither pushed into nor sought to form a separate community.9 Moreover, the merchants’ wide participation in all communal bodies prevented a splintering of the community’s upper stratum along occupational lines. Unlike the merchants in the Greek Orthodox community of Izmir, for example, Jewish merchants did not have to compete with a “bureaucratic bourgeoisie” which drew its power from monopolizing the management of all educational and welfare foundations.10 By contrast, the institutions of Salonica’s Jewish community became a mechanism of integration, bringing together the different sub-ethnic and occupational strands of its bourgeoisie while also upholding the authority of its merchants. Jewish merchants were not the only ethnoreligious group to engage with communal affairs; Greek Orthodox merchants were also heavily involved in their own community. Still, Jewish merchants stood apart. Singling out the (import–export) merchant as a taxable subject was a Jewish particularity— the taxation system of the Greek Orthodox community did not classify taxpayers this way.11 Moreover, the number, status, and longevity of those Jewish merchants participating in the various electoral lists, governing bodies, communal assemblies, and welfare committees, far surpassed that of their Greek Orthodox peers. In 1902 alone, five of the seventeen seats in the executive council were taken by members of the Modiano family making community governance a near family affair. Similarly, Joseph Misrahi was an all-rounder, serving as member of the executive council in 1902 and again in 1911, as president of the Hirsch Hospital in 1910, and, finally, as a member of the administrative council of Talmud Torah in 1911.12 Jewish merchants were major pillars of communal life.

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Among the Greek Orthodox community, in contrast, other professions were equally represented in communal bodies—doctors, lawyers, even journalists. In 1911, the Εlders’ council—the community’s foremost governing body—included merchants Konstantinos Platsoukas, Georgios Tourpalis, and Konstantinos Papageorgiou, but also journalist Ioannis Kouskouras, doctor Dimitrios Rizos and lawyer Kostas Kammonas. The leading figures of major Greek Orthodox associations were similarly diverse, and so, during the 40 years of its existence, the Educational Society of Salonica counted just two merchants among its presidents, but three doctors, one lawyer and one landowner.13 Finally, teachers and professors, too, like the philologist Petros Papageorgiou, enjoyed a high status quite disproportionate to their limited wealth, their symbolic capital boosted by the importance Greek nationalism attributed to education as a means of Hellenizing Ottoman Christians in Macedonia and fulfilling Greece’s irredentist dreams.14 Within the Jewish community instead, the merchants were the main holders of such symbolic capital, credited as they were with communal reform and the reawakening of Salonican Jewry. In the early 1870s, merchant graduates of the local Alliance school founded the Club des Intimes with the support of several other major Italian Jewish businessmen. The club worked systematically for the reform of the community and pressured successfully for the greater involvement of its members in communal governance. As a result, by 1875, the first lay communal council had been established, while the reformist rabbi Avraam Gattegno replaced Ascher Covo as the community’s religious leader. In the decades to come, this power struggle was memorialized as a clash between progressive reformers and a reactionary conservative establishment signaling the “rebirth” of the community. In his memoirs, Sam Levy praised the enlightening work of the Club des Intimes whose translations of classical historical and fictional texts “compensated for the rantings of false rabbis and other insipid speechifiers.” Similarly, Joseph Nehama viewed the club as representing the “enlightened part of the population,” and went on to narrate its struggle as an epic victory of a “pioneering” and “bold” avant-garde over “old customs” and the “enemies of the new.” Thanks to the club’s reformers, he argued, a “beneficent awakening” had “eradicate[d] the Jewish population from the disastrous apathy it had plunged into until then.”15 Such triumphant narratives moved the merchants

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to the center of communal memory. The struggle for the community and the subsequent rebirth of Salonican Jewry became a “usable past”: they offered historical depth to the merchants’ control of communal institutions and legitimized their present and future authority.16 By attributing all progress of Salonica’s Jewry to the merchants, these narratives made the community part of their collective self-fashioning. They lent credence to their self-portrayal as reformist Jews and modernizing businessmen and thus secured their ideological dominance. So widespread and uncontested were these narratives that by the early twentieth century, it was widely assumed that commerce was the key qualification for ascending to communal office. “Today, it is better to have leaders competent not only in age and commerce, but also in other matters of superior interest to the community,” mentioned the Ladino-language publication La Nasyon (The Nation) in 1911, indirectly critiquing the dominant belief that commercial success was enough to make one an able communal leader.17 Commerce had become the distinctive feature of the communal elite, but as such, it had also made communal politics integral to the notion of the model Jewish merchant. If a communal notable was usually a merchant, then a prominent merchant was also understood to be someone involved in communal affairs. In a period when intense disputes between competing factions had turned the Greek Orthodox community into a contested terrain, the multiple ways Jewish merchants identified with their own eventually turned the community into a key mechanism of group cohesion, ideological dominance, and social power.18 Moreover, in the early twentieth century, Jewish merchants actively participated in numerous voluntary associations. This involvement fostered a bourgeois form of Jewishness that united merchants as bourgeois Jewish men. The Association des  Anciens Élèves de l’Alliance Israélite Universelle (Alliance Alumni Association) constitutes an exemplary case in this regard. The association was established in 1897 by a group of seven graduates, spurred on by the Boys’ School director, Joseph Matalon. Within a mere decade, its membership swelled to 300, and having secured its own dedicated venue, it earned recognition as one of the city’s most important and active Jewish societies. Unlike exclusive, socially homogeneous associations such as the Grande Cercle Israélite, the Alumni Association brought together

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Jews from various social strata. Its active members hailed from the emerging middle and lower-middle ranks of merchants and commercial employees, whereas the honorary committee, honorary members, and benefactors included some of the most important Jewish merchants, such as Jacob Modiano, Charles Allatini, Moise Morpurgo, Joseph Misrahi and Jacob E. Sides.19 The association’s stated aim was to care for the community. Solomon de  Botton considered the association’s aspiration to become “a young Alliance within our great community” as a “legitimate ambition.” Joseph Nehama, too, identified the importance of “elevat[ing] the community,” as one of the association’s driving principles. And in 1908, the honorary president, Jacob Modiano, enthusiastically rallied those present in the annual General Assembly to proclaim “Long live the Community! Long live the Alliance! Long live the Alliance Alumni Association!” Strengthening “fraternal solidarity” among the association’s members held significance only to the extent that it benefited both the members themselves and the “entire community.”20 Consequently, the association was highly active in financially supporting communal schools, contributing to the construction of the Hirsch communal hospital, and participating in collection drives for communal purposes. It played a prominent role in communal ceremonies and events related to “Jewish philanthropy,” while its brass band helped “expand a taste for good music within this community.” Finally, members of the association took the lead in establishing a federation of all Jewish philanthropic societies in the city.21 Almost all of the association’s broader activities then were legitimized as serving the “communal interest,” and were portrayed as the members’ contribution to it. These practices, and the rhetoric accompanying them, reconstituted the Jewish “community” as a collective subject with critical needs to be catered for rather than a governing institution only. The appeal to the community and the desire to contribute to it made the merchants’ public action meaningful. Next to their control of communal institutions, the “community” as an imagined body served as the primary symbolic realm for fostering their shared Jewish identity. In this respect, the community also played an integral role in significant milestones in the lives of Jewish merchants, including births, circumcisions, coming of age, engagements, marriages, and, notably, deaths. These occasions were marked by substantial donations to various

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Figure 2.  Letterhead of the “large haberdashery store” of Aélion & Bajona, 1910. Source: Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 180, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece

communal welfare institutions, often accompanied by public announcements in the press. Based on the frequency of such announcements, this practice was more prevalent among Jewish than among Greek Orthodox merchants. For instance, the Amar and Salem families donated 590 francs to various communal philanthropic institutions to celebrate the marriage of their children, Saul Amar and Flora Salem. Similarly, Jacob E. Sides and J. Aélion contributed to no less than nine communal philanthropic foundations, including the Hirsch Hospital, Talmud Torah, and Matanot Laevionim.22 These philanthropic gestures symbolically bound the donor’s family to the community, turning private events into public affairs. They contributed to the family’s acceptance and integration into the larger group, establishing a distinct “Jewish” profile for the family and elevating its male head to the status of a (Jewish) “citizen philanthropist.”23 For elite Jewish merchants, communal benefaction was a social practice that set them apart as a distinct social group precisely because it placed them at the heart of the community as its most devoted members.

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By bringing them together as Jews through various public ceremonies and rituals, the community simultaneously ensured their social recognition and public approval.24 Next to the community, the Alliance was the second major institution bringing merchants together through a dense and extensive network of social activities organized around and in support of the schools. These activities offered a precious social glue, but they were also key in shaping the merchants’ Jewishness—this time, though, by tying them more concretely to Europe and the West. Commerce held an exceptionally prominent place in the curriculum of the Alliance boys’ schools, a somewhat Salonican particularity. Statutorily, the Alliance aimed to awaken the Jews of the East and pave their path to modernity by offering them a standardized Western-type education. However, in the case of Salonica, further attention was also given to “local needs” as defined by the organization’s local committee of mainly Italian Jewish merchants. The result was a curriculum tuned toward commerce to a higher degree than the central committee of the Alliance in Paris wished. Thus, ever since their establishment in 1873, the boys’ schools introduced their students to the core commercial terms and skills. Furthermore, in 1879 young Jews would be taught “notions of commerce” (in Italian, for two successive years), and “commercial geography” and accounting in French. Finally, almost 30 years later, in 1907, the three final grades at the Moise Allatini School were publicly examined in Ottoman commercial law, commercial calculus, accounting and bookkeeping, political economy, and commercial geography.25 This commerce-centered curriculum was subsequently adopted by more than 20 independent Jewish schools shaping the intellectual and professional formation of every educated Jewish merchant in the city. As an Alliance inspectors’ report observed in 1908, “the influence of the Alliance from an intellectual, moral, and social point of view is enormous. Almost all commercial employees, the greatest part of merchants, [and] hundreds of employers have received their primary education at our schools.”26 In a period of commercial boom, the Alliance schools significantly contributed toward the group coherence of Jewish merchants. Their graduates expanded the merchants’ ranks, facilitating their numerical predominance, and provided

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them with a shared intellectual capital and value system, thus strengthening their unity and distinct outlook. For the major merchants in turn, the Alliance further helped them consolidate their position. Everywhere an Alliance school was founded, a local organization was also set up to promote the Alliance ideals and attract supporters among the local Jewry. At the core of each local organization lay its governing body, the comité local (local committee), which catered for the school’s smooth operation and, especially, its budget.27 In Salonica, the local organization in general and the local committee in particular, were successful in bringing the prominent Italian and Ottoman Jewish merchants together. Initially, the committee was mainly made up of Italian Jews, who were the strongest supporters of the Alliance project in the city. In fact, it was virtually controlled by the Allatini family, with Edward, Charles, and Hugo serving as members and Moise as president in 1879. However, about 30 years later, in 1906, it included a significant number of influential Ottoman Jews as well, such as Nico Saltiel, Emmanuel Carasso, and Abram Mallah.28 The committee provided these merchants with an organizational platform to unite as a group especially in its early years. During a time when they were still striving for representation in the community’s governing bodies, their involvement with an international Jewish organization not only gave them recognition beyond the city but also elevated their local status. The committee closely collaborated with rabbis and communal notables and eventually gained control over the entire community’s educational system. It became a significant force in community affairs, serving as a second, alternative power center thanks to its remarkable stability and longevity. Crucially, it did not rival the formal community structure but rather complemented it, thereby enhancing both its cohesion and the influence of the merchants within it.29 Above all, the significant impact of the Alliance on the ethnoreligious identity of Jewish merchants can largely be attributed to its promotion of the French language. French became the main language of instruction for many aspiring young Jews, its widespread adoption giving rise to a unique dual culture, where French and Ladino coexisted in daily life.30 This unique role of French among the Jews eventually turned it into a symbol of ethnic distinction. The Alliance’s educational system might have challenged the central role of religion in shaping Jewishness by offering a secular education

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in a foreign language. However, this did not lead to the dilution of Jewishness. On the contrary, the introduction and spread of French contributed to the formation of a more secular, yet equally resilient, ethnic identity. As noted by Aron Rodrigue, “French became domesticated, Judaized, Hispanicized. Speaking French on a daily basis became yet another ethnic marker in the local context. Ethnic boundaries shifted and accommodated French and Western ways, and emerged strengthened.”31 While French served as the lingua franca of multiethnic urban elites across the Eastern Mediterranean, somewhat counterintuitively it also helped Jewish merchants in Salonica distinguish themselves from their non-Jewish peers. Besides the community and the Alliance, “Italy” constituted the third major axis around which the kaleidoscopic identity of prominent Jewish merchants revolved. Italian Jews were the city’s most renowned businessmen and formed the core of the Jewish merchant elite. Families like Allatini, Modiano, Morpurgo, Fernandez, Torres, Errera and Misrahi, were fully integrated into communal life yet were also somewhat distinct, often referred to as Francos. Their separate status was not solely due to their legendary wealth, despite having the two most significant business conglomerates in the empire’s European territories among them—the Allatinis and the Modianos. Nor was it tied to the memory of their Italian descent alone, or even their possession of Italian citizenship, as some, like Moise Misrahi and his sons Henry, Joseph, and Lazare, had renounced it in favor of the more powerful French one.32 Rather, what truly defined their Italianness was their attachment to Italian culture and their sustained involvement in the life of Salonica’s Italian community. In this respect, Italian education played a critical role. In the early 1860s, prominent Italian Jewish merchants came together for the first time with the aim of modernizing Jewish education, leading to the establishment of the Italian commercial school in 1864. This initiative, known as the Scuola Commerciale Filarder, preceded the first Alliance school by several years and was a collaborative effort spearheaded by David Morpurgo and Moise Allatini, who also served as the school board’s president. Importantly, all students enrolled were Jewish.33 Similarly, the school’s annual prize-awarding ceremonies further evidenced its Italo-Jewish character. These were carefully orchestrated public rituals, where Jewish merchants-cum-notables would be seated alongside the Italian

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consul, the events commencing with the Italian national anthem, and, in a delicate balancing act, concluding with a deacon of the chief rabbi singing the sultanic anthem in the Jewish style. Through these performative acts, a modern Italian national identity was intricately connected to an established Jewish one, subtly yet unequivocally affirming the legitimacy of the Western model of Jewishness advocated by the school. The movement to establish the Scuola politicized the notion of “Italy” and endowed the group of Italian Jewish merchants with a political identity rather than merely a social one. As “Italians” they were modernizers, united in challenging communal authority and advocating for a new and unprecedented version of westernized Jewishness.34 Even when the school came under the administration of the Italian government in 1870, Italian Jews continued to be involved in its board and provided financial support when needed, underscoring its enduring importance in their self-perception and perhaps in their legacy as well.35 While Italian language and education played a critical role in shaping the perception (and self-perception) of Italian Jewish merchants as a modernizing elite within the community, their active involvement in Salonica’s Italian colony expanded their influence transforming them into cultural mediators. By the turn of the century, the president of the colony was a local Italian Jew, Jacob Modiano.36 In addition, members of prominent Italian Jewish families held positions in all major Italian associations, spanning philanthropic, cultural, humanitarian, and even ultra-nationalist organizations. Chevalier Charles Allatini led the Italian Beneficent Society, chevalier M. Morpurgo headed the local branch of the cultural association Dante Alighieri, Dr. M. Modiano was president of the Italian Red Cross, and E. Misrahi of the nationalist Italian Naval League. Italian Jews were also active participants in the colony’s social life, often taking on leading roles by organizing, for instance, “(Italian) colony banquets” to celebrate the Italian king’s birthday.37 Similarly, Italian Jewish merchants made substantial donations to local Italian welfare institutions, particularly to the colony’s hospital. Their contributions enabled the purchase of the hospital’s property, while its foundation in 1893 was only made possible through a favorable loan in which the major Italian Jewish financial institutions of Salonica participated, including the Banque de Salonique and the credit establishments of Allatini and Modiano. Italian Jews also helped cover its operational costs. Notably, in 1906

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and 1907, a garden party in support of the hospital was hosted at Villa Allatini and organized by Messrs Morpurgo and Nogara. Finally, a year later, the Errera brothers financed all the necessary work to provide fresh running water to the hospital from their estate on the outskirts of Salonica.38 These performances of Italian identity, spanning language, philanthropy, and more, served as a means of fostering social cohesion, consolidating political power, and attaining public visibility for the group of Italian Jewish merchants. Active participation in the associational world of the Italian colony also ensured privileged access to Italian consular authorities, along with assistance and protection when needed. Furthermore, their involvement in Italian educational institutions, exemplified by the Scuola Filarder, provided them with a solid foundation to engage in Jewish affairs and attempt to reshape the community itself. Much like their commitment to the Alliance, their attachment to Italy represented a fundamental pillar of their multifaceted identity, contributing to a broader and more inclusive sense of Jewishness with various points of reference. It therefore comes as no surprise that upon Levy Nahmias’ passing in 1904, the Jewish newspaper Journal de Salonique hailed him as “one of the most influential members” within both the Jewish community and the Italian colony. Moreover, Italy bestowed upon Italian Jews a unique and privileged symbolic link to the West, unrivaled by any other group in Salonica, to the extent that families such as the Allatinis and Misrahis were often referred to as “distinguished European families” in the local non-Jewish press.39 Finally, the Italian Jewish merchants’ sustained engagement with the life of the Italian colony provided them with an additional field of action beyond the community, thereby strengthening their standing in the city. In all these ways, then, “Italy” played a pivotal role in shaping an elite social group that ended up possessing not only significant economic capital but also a distinctive cultural capital. To be an Italian Jew was to be European and upper class. Overall, as the twentieth century approached, a complex network of activities brought Jewish merchants together shaping their unique profile and solidifying their power. Communal institutions, the local Alliance mechanism, and, for Italian Jews, active participation in the life of Salonica’s Italian colony were the three primary arenas for identity formation and the legitimization of their authority. This resulted in a redefinition of their

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Jewishness, an expansion of its points of reference, and a broadening of its meanings. The “community,” the “Alliance,” and “Italy” now played integral roles in shaping their ethnic identity while simultaneously empowering them as a class. Class and ethnicity intertwined to create a new bourgeois identity that was distinctly Jewish. The multifaceted identities of Jewish merchants often led non-Jewish observers to refer to them—especially the Italian Jews—as “Europeans,” and at times derogatorily as “Francos.” Internalizing such common, deprecating designations, Jewish nationalist scholars like Simon Dubnow similarly critiqued the Jewish merchants’ “superficial cosmopolitanism of the Levantine type.”40 Indeed, the Jewish merchants’ use of Ladino, Italian and French, their embrace of French culture and Western customs, possession of various citizenships, and active participation in the life of the Christian Italian colony while remaining loyal to their community of origin, challenged established identity norms. However, their identity, no matter how kaleidoscopic, was neither hybrid nor plural; on the contrary, it was unmistakably Jewish and this was not in spite of, but rather because of the array of cultural referents it encompassed. Next to religion, the widespread adoption of Western languages, like French, and sustained engagement with non-Jewish communities, such as the Italian colony, further set Jewish merchants apart from their Greek Orthodox (and Muslim) counterparts. Europeanness became closely associated with Jewishness, evolving into a fundamental axis of ethnic differentiation among the upper merchant group. The West was identified with Jews to the same extent that bourgeois Jews had identified themselves with it. “Macedonians” in Salonica: The Greeks After the advent of the railways, the Greek community grew as migrants from all parts of Macedonia and Epirus formed numerous small Orthodox colonies in the city. . . . From each village, a commission agent came to Salonica, charged by his compatriots to purchase, sell, and ship back. . . . The agent adhered to strictly localist criteria, hiring only employees and servants from his own small place of origin. Around him and thanks to him, a small colony formed. When fortune favored him, he transformed himself into a merchant, established substantial commercial enterprises,

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and passed on his middleman post to a compatriot. In this way, minuscule colonies were formed in Salonica, remaining faithful to their birthplace, and organizing annual balls and festivals in the city in favor of the school or the church of the village. However, they all integrated into the Salonica Greek community, participating in its administration, and contributing to its prosperity through their donations.41

Writing as early as 1917, Joseph Nehama perceptively noticed how important immigration was for the formation of Salonica’s Greek Orthodox merchant milieu. After all, like many turn-of-the-century Eastern Mediterranean port cities, Salonica owed its spectacular demographic growth as much to the unprecedented influx of newcomers as to the increase of its own native population.42 Between 1877 and 1912, burgeoning economic opportunities attracted aspiring Orthodox Greeks and, to a lesser extent, Slavs from the Macedonian hinterland to the city, whereas the continuous political upheaval in the region brought in Muslim Turkish refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eastern Rumelia, and Thessaly (territories recently ceded to Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Greece respectively), and even pogrom-fleeing Ashkenazi Jews from Russia.43 However, by singling out the Greek Orthodox immigrants, Nehama further pointed to the enduring importance of locality in shaping this group’s distinct experience in the city. Originating from the towns and villages of Salonica’s hinterland, these traders quickly rose to the community’s merchant elite. Yet, in many ways their identity was actually regional, as their attachment was to “Macedonia” rather than Salonica itself. The Greek Orthodox merchants of late nineteenth-century Salonica were, by all accounts, a new social formation as they were distinct from their predecessors in terms of both business outlook and geographical outreach. In the 1840s, the Greek Orthodox elite comprised about a dozen merchants, most of whom were natives of Salonica. Among them were powerful business families like Tattis, Rogkotis, Charissis, and Abbott who prospered by dominating the lucrative export trade of grain, cotton, and silk. Others operated as local agents for London-based Greek Orthodox commercial houses like Rodokanakis, established during the 1830s.44 However, their dominance began to wane by the mid-1860s. The advent of steam navigation, the retreat

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of overland trade networks, and a lack of funds exacerbated by the absence of credit institutions sealed their fate. The disintegration of the London-based Greek trade networks and the broader withdrawal of Western European Greek commercial houses from trading Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean agricultural products, including those from Ottoman Macedonia, further hastened their fall.45 By the closing years of the nineteenth century, no descendants of these once-dominant families featured among Salonica’s major Greek Orthodox entrepreneurs. The void was largely filled by Greek Orthodox migrants from the hinterland, whose migration to the city was spurred by changes in the Macedonian economy during the concluding decades of Ottoman rule. Beginning in the 1860s, the advent of railways, the shift to market-oriented industrial crops such as cotton, tobacco, and poppies, and the steady influx of remittances from migrant peasants bolstered the purchasing power of the local population and fueled an appetite for consumption rendering Macedonia a booming market. At the same time, the region was becoming ever more intertwined with Salonica. As the city evolved into the preeminent railway junction in the Ottoman Balkans, established commercial centers in the interior like Serres and Prilep declined, at best becoming satellites of Salonica. Moreover, the city’s spectacular population growth fueled a vibrant local market for Macedonian agricultural products, while in turn, an inland demand for manufactured goods largely stimulated the expansion of its industry.46 Last, Salonica now boasted a sizable and diverse consumer base, modern infrastructure, unique credit facilities, modern commercial institutions, relative public safety, and an accessible labor force. These factors established the city as a dynamic marketplace and an appealing space for capital investment for every aspiring merchant from the Macedonian hinterland regardless of ethnicity.47 However, the rise of Salonica to regional supremacy was particularly appealing to the Greek Orthodox population of Ottoman Macedonia, for additional reasons both economic and political. During the last third of the nineteenth century, the scant investment opportunities in their native areas prompted some to move with their accumulated capital to Salonica, where many from their communities had already settled.48 Ethnic antagonisms, too, significantly influenced their investment strategies. Aiming to enhance

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the economic autonomy of their pro-Greek communities and secure a stronger position in regional trade vis-à-vis their arch ethnic adversaries, the Bulgarians, they directed their investments toward Salonica.49 Greek Orthodox emigration and capital transfer were therefore a calculated response to the rapidly evolving economic and political landscapes of Ottoman Macedonia. Ironically, Salonica’s regional dominance over Macedonia ultimately led to the radical renewal—or better, “Macedonization”—of its own Greek Orthodox merchants. The newly arrived merchants swiftly eclipsed the city’s dwindling Greek Orthodox commercial elite, ascending to economic prominence within the community. Yet, locality continued to shape their business strategies in the city. Launching a successful business venture in Salonica often required leveraging the social and cultural capital intrinsic to a migrant’s place of origin. Macedonian merchants working as commission agents and wholesale traders in Salonica often relied on local networks established in their home villages. This was the case for Nikolaos Krallis from Krushevo who had spent his youth conducting overland caravans and transporting goods across the Balkans. Upon relocating to Salonica, he transitioned into commerce, becoming a well-known commissioner representing merchants and retailers from the interior. Evidently, his success owed much to those old trade contacts he had initially established during his caravan conductor days back in Krushevo. In the same way, social prestige acquired in one’s place of origin also played a significant role. Zissis Verrou, an emerging colonial goods merchant, was the elder son of Ioannis Verrou, a well-respected merchant, notable, and community elder from the Macedonian town of Siatista.50 This esteemed lineage aided Verrou in establishing himself among compatriots in Salonica and in doing business with those back in Siatista. For these emigrating Macedonian merchants, then, local status and networks represented a significant social and symbolic capital which they maintained, even nurtured, in Salonica. In fact, the extent of these local connections among Greek Orthodox merchants was so profound that they handled nearly the entire trade with the Macedonian hinterland. Consequently, while Jewish economic dominance was cemented through control over the lucrative import and export trades, Macedonia became an integral part of Greek Orthodox business ventures in the city.51

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Figure 3.  Letterhead of the cotton spinning mill of Loggos, Kirtsis and Tourpalis in Naoussa, 1911. Source: Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 183, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece

Paradoxically, the most dynamic group of those migrant merchants primarily invested in Macedonia, not Salonica. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, leading merchants from the Greek Orthodox industrial town of Naoussa in central Macedonia were making a noticeable mark on the Salonican market spearheading noteworthy endeavors like the Anglo-Hellenic Company of Salonica in 1908, and the aptly named Naoussa Brewery in 1912.52 Nevertheless, the flow of capital and capitalists between Naoussa and Salonica was not unidirectional. Entrepreneurs from Naoussa often invested modestly in Salonica, establishing smaller ventures that complemented their Naoussa operations. The profits accrued in Salonica were then typically reinvested in their primary Naoussa establishments. Thus, Georgios Tourpalis, son of Mitsi, relocated to Salonica in 1880 at the age of 21 and early in his career. He soon succeeded in commerce, yet he invested modestly and predominantly in real estate, directing the bulk of his profits back to Naoussa. In 1887, he acquired shares in the cotton spinning mill of Billis, Tsitsis & Co., Naoussa’s second-largest industrial entity; and in 1902 he funded 83 percent of the Mitsi Tourpali stake in the restructured “Loggos & Tourpalis” firm.53 Even landmark investments in Salonica often veered toward Naoussa. At the turn of the century, the consortium of Grigorios

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Tsitsis & Co., Loggos & Tourpalis set up Salonica’s inaugural steam-powered cotton gin factory, the second of its kind in the whole of Ottoman Macedonia. While this ambitious venture was grand in scale, processing large quantities of cotton imported from Asia Minor, its main aim was to ensure a consistent supply of cotton gin for the consortium’s textile factories in Naoussa.54 Investing in Salonica, no matter how substantial, was primarily geared toward supporting operations back in central Ottoman Macedonia. For the younger generation of Naoussa entrepreneurs, migrating could be an early step in their careers. However, their native town—not Salonica—often became or remained the epicenter of their business pursuits, even more so than before their relocation. Such was Naoussa’s allure that even budding entrepreneurs from Salonica itself, sidelined by acute Jewish competition in the city, found it attractive to collaborate with Naoussa industrialists, investing heavily in this much safer Greek Orthodox haven. In 1907, four prominent Salonican merchants—Pericles Hadjilazarou, Konstantinos Aggelakis, Athanasios Makris and Konstantinos Hondrodimos—partnered with Naoussa’s industrialists Ioannis and Konstantinos Lamnides to launch Eria, the first vertical fleece production unit in Ottoman Macedonia. In a similar vein, in 1911, the Salonican rope trader Toskas picked none other than Naoussa as the location for the region’s first rope-making factory.55 While the most dynamic Greek Orthodox merchant group may have resided in Salonica, the true foundation of its economic might was located elsewhere. While locality deeply influenced the business strategies of Salonica’s Greek Orthodox merchants, it also shaped their social life—perhaps more tangibly so. A plethora of local associations determined the modes of socializing within Salonica’s Greek Orthodox community. By 1911, at least six associations had been established, all serving migrants from central and western Macedonia. The earliest was a brotherhood created by natives of Korisos in 1896 and the most recent at that time was the Siatista Association of Salonica, inaugurated in 1911. In the intervening years, immigrants from Kastoria, Kozani, Debar, and the region of Halkidiki set up their respective organizations.56 Such local associations were prevalent in many Eastern Mediterranean port cities, from Patras and Piraeus to Alexandria and Izmir. However, in Salonica, they were a unique feature of its Greek Orthodox

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community.57 The first Jewish local association, the Association of Thessalian Jews, was formed much later, in 1917, despite the considerable influx of Jews from Thessaly following the region’s incorporation into the Greek state in 1881, and of Ashkenazi Jews escaping Russian pogroms.58 Similarly, even though numerous Muslim refugees from places like Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eastern Rumelia, and Thessaly had found shelter in Salonica in the late nineteenth century, there is no evidence of any Muslim local associations. It appears that the city’s migrant communities expressed their spatial identities in ethnically diverse manners, rendering local associations—and by extension, locality—a distinctively Greek Orthodox attribute. In booming Eastern Mediterranean ports, it was common for merchants to be on the boards of such local associations. However, Salonica stood out. Unlike places like Piraeus, it was not just emerging traders who were temporarily involved until their social ascent.59 Rather, local associations were frequently led by established Greek Orthodox merchants, such as Konstantinos Hondrodimos, president of the Siatista Association, K. Kontis from the Korisos Brotherhood, and interestingly, textile merchant Ioannis Tornivoukas who headed the Kleisoura Association despite his father departing Kleisoura long before Ioannis was born.60 Their participation emphasizes the unique importance of local associations in Salonica, which can be attributed to ethnic tensions both in the city and the hinterland. Given the intense Greco-Jewish economic rivalry and Jewish dominance in major commercial sectors, trading with the hinterland became vital for Greek Orthodox merchants.61 Leading a local association offered them invaluable status back in their hometowns and a competitive edge in its market, especially considering the adversities they navigated in Salonica. Above all, the fierce Greco-Bulgarian conflicts in Ottoman Macedonia made the formation of local associations among Greek Orthodox migrants not just essential but a patriotic duty. Thus, the Korisos Brotherhood in Salonica aimed to reinforce the Greek identity of its village amid the advancing Bulgarian influence.62 A December 1908 report from the Greek Consul General in Salonica highlighted the strategic importance of these associations: the newly formed Debar emigrants’ Brotherhood can greatly help detach their deceived fellow villagers in Salonica from the sway of the

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Bulgarian Exarchate [i.e., the separate Bulgarian Christian Orthodox Church]. Furthermore, this brotherhood can have a positive impact in the Debar province proper. Many Christians from Debar travel to Salonica in winter, either for work or en route to other Greek areas. The brotherhood can properly guide and educate these individuals, so that they become useful advocates of the Orthodox faith and Greek ideals [when they return to] Debar.63

In a similar vein, fundraising activities fostered a sense of local patriotism among the immigrant community. Affluent migrant merchants from Siatista rallied to reconstruct the historic church of St. Demetrios in their hometown. As the Greek Orthodox newspaper Nea Aletheia reported: On Monday, the most prominent Siatistans of our city [met] . . . and discussed about the metropolitan church of Siatista which was burned to the ground. After a warm and moving speech by the presiding [Metropolitan of Sisania Ierotheos], a donations list was opened, and right away the sum of 300 liras was collected. Currently, the committee is going around the shops of Siatistans raising funds.64

Collection drives like this or the one initiated by Bitola-born merchants to “honor the veteran teachers K. Papanaoum and K. Ktenas,” were often orchestrated to pay tribute to esteemed “compatriots,” or to ensure the survival of the hometown’s foundational elements, specifically, the Greek Orthodox church and the Greek school.65 In doing so, they curated a revered local pantheon, nurtured a local memory, and thus helped foster a community of locally conscious citizens among Salonica’s migrants. In essence, these efforts elevated locality to “pride of place.” Over time, significant individual donations ensured that benefactors would remain eternally linked to their birthplaces. Prior to 1880, prominent merchants primarily directed their benefactions to the Greek Orthodox community of Salonica, financing the construction of modern communal welfare institutions, such as the Chariseio home for the elders and the Meliteus Orphanage, bequeathed by Theagenis Charissis and Ioannis Papafis respectively.66 For these and other merchant philanthropists, Salonica and its Greek Orthodox community were the focal points of their postmortem

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commemoration. However, by the century’s close, the benefaction landscape had markedly turned toward the benefactor’s hometown. Thus, although Georgios Kirtsis was an influential member of several communal welfare institutions in Salonica, his attachment to Naoussa did not waver. He financed the construction of both an aqueduct and an impressive clock tower, and in his 1906 will, he made provision for Naoussa’s Greek communal schools to be funded from the steady revenue which his vast real estate holdings in Salonica would generate.67 Through such acts of generosity, the memory of the migrant benefactor became indelibly intertwined with his hometown’s urban landscape, transforming the village or town into a living testament to individual accomplishments—a personal site of memory.68 Among migrant Greek Orthodox merchants, locality was the backdrop for key rites of passage, marking milestones from marriage to death. It also gave substance and value to migrant sociability, framing a discourse of public duty and providing a realm in which citizenship could be enacted. Crucially, these performances of locality cultivated a trans-local identity. They led to the formation of a symbolic village within Salonica, forging a community of sentiment that acted as a bulwark against the city’s anonymity.69 Instead of merely being a nostalgic recollection, locality was continuously re-enacted in so many different instances and in such diverse ways that it eventually became a fundamental facet of Greek Orthodox middle-class life in Salonica itself. While local attachment was particularly strong among Greek Orthodox merchants, it actually existed within a broader regional identity introduced at the same time, that of “(Greek) Macedonia.” Historically, the terms “Macedonia” and “Macedonian” were sparingly used, typically by outsiders, to denote a loosely defined geographical area. In the eighteenth century, Habsburg border officials occasionally used Macedonia to record the diverse origins of incoming Balkan merchants, but they did so broadly and imprecisely. Meanwhile, as the correspondence of the Pondicas family from Salonica indicates, long-distance Greek Orthodox traders from the region identified themselves as “Salonicans,” “Christians,” or “Vlachs,” favoring local, religious, or ethno-linguistic descriptors over regional ones.70 Late nineteenth-century Ottoman officials also opted for the descriptor “three vilayets” to define the region avoiding the term Macedonia altogether.71

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The rediscovery of Macedonia in the second half of the nineteenth century owed much to Greek nationalism. From the 1850s, Greek historical discourse integrated the Hellenistic and Byzantine eras into the nation’s past, presenting an unbroken history of Greece stretching from antiquity to the present. In this recast narrative, the ancient Macedonian kings Philip II, Alexander the Great, and their successors, were no longer perceived as the first conquerors of Greece; instead, Macedonia and its conquests were celebrated as an intrinsic part of Greek history. Interestingly, by emphasizing Greece’s historical continuity, or else, by unifying national time, Greek nationalist historiography also made possible the unification of national space.72 “Ancient” regions under Ottoman rule, like Macedonia, Epirus and Thrace, could now be re-envisioned as distinct, yet inherently Greek territories.73 Furthermore, the discourse of Greek nationalism post-1850 began recognizing the Greek language and culture as pivotal assimilative tools. Thus, the Hellenization of the “unredeemed” Christian Orthodox population in the European regions of the Ottoman Empire was imagined less as a revolutionary uprising and more as a “spiritual struggle,” to be effected by spreading Greek-language education in areas outside the contemporary borders of Greece.74 This twin evolution in Greek nationalist thought catalyzed the emergence of educational associations with a regional rather than a local or national focus. The trend was particularly evident in Istanbul, where in the early 1870s the Greek Literary Society spearheaded the establishment of four such regional associations: the Epirus, Thrace, and Thessaly Educational Associations, as well as the Macedonian Educational Brotherhood in 1871. The momentum quickly extended to Ottoman Macedonia proper, facilitating the creation of Macedonian educational organizations in cities like Serres (the Macedonian Educational Society, 1870) and Salonica (the Educational Society of Salonica, 1872).75 Despite its name, the Educational Society of Salonica was distinctly Macedonian in its outlook. Right from the start, it operated far beyond the city, eventually adding “the Macedonian interior” to its 1881 statute as an official area of activity.76 Moreover, the association’s upper-class membership successfully bridged the divide between native, “old” Salonicans and the city’s newer arrivals. By 1910, nearly half of its nine-member board consisted of successful merchants and professors from western Macedonia, such as

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Nikolaos Maou from Kleisoura, Alexandros Krallis of Krushevo, Vasileios Manos from Bitola, and the affluent Dimitrios Serefas of Siatista.77 Finally, the association’s social standing also owed much to its “Macedonian” credentials. As the Athenian journalist Eustratios Eustratiades remarked in 1903, the society was preeminent, having “for 29 years . . . offered to Macedonian nationism [ethnismo] the utmost intellectual services. . . . It is the Parnassus of Macedonia,” he evocatively declared, drawing a parallel with Athens’ renowned literary society.78 Indeed, the Educational Society played a pivotal role in molding Macedonia into a distinct Greek space. Committees were established that journeyed through the region to gather first-hand information about the land, collect antiquities, document local customs, and draft reports on educational and other Macedonian issues. Importantly, emphasis was laid on employing statistics whatever the information-gathering activity might be. Through these initiatives, there was a conscious effort to rationalize and categorize the vast diversity of Ottoman Macedonia making it more relatable and discernibly Greek.79 Similarly, the society’s public discourse sought to foster a Greek “Macedonian” identity among its affiliates and enthusiasts. Members proudly recognized themselves as “true Greeks, true Macedonians, descendants of illustrious forebears,” while their shared commitment to “Macedonian progress” further solidified their bond, making them see Macedonia as their “common fatherland.” Friends of the society were similarly addressed as “distinguished Macedonians,” and its benefactors were extolled as “magnanimous sons of Macedonia.”80 The consistent use of the “Macedonian” title thus generated a sense of camaraderie, producing an imaginative bourgeois world of male equals out of a socially uneven, geographically dispersed, and, above all, politically torn membership. During a time of profound internecine strife within the Greek Orthodox community in Salonica, the Educational Society and its promotion of a Greek Macedonian identity emerged as a cohesive force, especially prominent in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.81 By the dawn of the twentieth century, Macedonia became even more deeply ingrained in the lives of Salonica’s Greek Orthodox merchants, moving beyond business strategies and associational life. From 1904 to 1908, the tensions between Greek and Bulgarian guerrilla groups intensified in

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the region as the two sides sought to advance their irredentist aspirations by using whatever means necessary to secure the allegiance of the largely nationally indifferent Christian Orthodox residents. During this period, numerous Salonican merchants became actively involved in what they termed the “Macedonian Struggle.” Prominent figures such as the renowned tobacco merchant Konstantinos Tornivoukas, flour mill proprietor Nikolaos Papageorgiou, and shipping agent Ioannis Emiris, first took roles in the Greek consulate’s “defense center” in Salonica and later joined the Salonica Organization led by Greek military agent Athanasios Souliotis-Nikolaidis. Others, like the respected communal notable from Naoussa, Konstantinos Platsoukas, worked closely with the Greek consul. Many more, like Nikolaos Manos, an emerging commission agent from Kozani, acted as spies, whereas the three sons of the merchant-industrialist Lazaros Vogas from Bitola joined armed factions, and Zissis Verrou from Siatista ingeniously leveraged his trade connections to smuggle arms into his hometown.82 For all these merchants, Macedonia literally became a cause worth fighting for. Furthermore, numerous middle- and upper-class Greek Orthodox residents of Salonica symbolically re-enacted the fight for Macedonia by venturing on excursions to the hinterland. Hiking and day trips did more than tie the appreciation of nature to a moderate patriotism or make a visit to the land an essential part of bourgeois regional identities, as was the case elsewhere in Europe.83 These outings were loaded with nationalistic undertones, with hikers singing songs for (Greek) Macedonia, visiting and banqueting in Greek Orthodox villages, and upon return, conducting ordered parades through Salonica to enthusiastic public acclaim. What might have started as simple daytrips were militarized, evolving into “campaigns of conquest,” public demonstrations asserting a Greek claim over Macedonian land.84 At the turn of the nineteenth century in Salonica, the formation of a Greek Orthodox commercial bourgeoisie was not purely a local or organic development. As in many Eastern Mediterranean port cities, it did not result from the continued dominance of already established merchant families, or the multi-generational rise of lesser-known ones.85 Instead, this group primarily comprised merchants who had only recently migrated to the city. However, unlike other ports, the city was not the primary locus of their identity. In Istanbul, for example, wealthy Orthodox Greeks played

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an important role in the formation of an interethnic, Istambuliot “community of philanthropists” and were widely recognized for their charitable action. Their cross-communal involvement turned the entire city into a field of social intervention and gave their identity a distinctly urban flavor. Meanwhile, in Izmir, the influx of Greek Orthodox migrants cultivated a perception of the city as diachronically Greek reinforcing these migrants’ Greek identity. Settling in “Greek Smyrna,” amplified their national sentiment.86 In Salonica, however, the situation differed. Here, the Greek Orthodox immigrants’ business strategies, financial capital, familial expertise, and life course consistently tied them back to their roots. These ties seamlessly integrated Salonica with their place of origin, consolidating both into a singular unified space, “(Greek) Macedonia.” (Greek) Macedonia had a unique and multifaceted impact on the composition and identity of Salonica’s Greek Orthodox merchants, influencing them economically, socially and ideologically. For this group, Macedonia became the dominant frame of reference, shaping even their perception of Salonica itself. While late Ottoman Jews revered Salonica as the “Madre de Israel,” and many Muslims celebrated it as the “city of [Young Turk] freedom,” each highlighting the city’s intrinsic Jewishness or Ottomanness, Greek Orthodox merchants viewed it through a regional lens.87 To them, Salonica was the “capital of Macedonia,” its “head,” “the spiritual citadel of the entire Macedonia,” tasked with “educating as perfectly as possible the future toilers of Macedonian prosperity.”88 While Greek Orthodox merchants had made roots in the city, their making extended far beyond the city’s boundaries. Forged by economic shifts, migration, and irredentist narratives, their lives straddled two domains: Salonica and the Macedonian hinterland. This group was not only inscribed into space; on the contrary, it was spatially produced. As they settled in the city, the Greek Orthodox migrants did not just become Salonican traders; rather, they eventually evolved into Greek Macedonian merchants.

TWO

Merchants, Bourgeois, Salonicans

In late Ottoman Salonica Jewish and Greek Orthodox merchants articulated their identities in their own distinct, if not starkly contrasting ways. Jewishness was broad and multilayered, situated at the crossroads of community, the Alliance, and “Italy.” On the other hand, “Macedonia” almost solely defined the Greek Orthodox merchants. Despite these differences, both groups achieved ethnic cohesion through similar means, namely, active participation in numerous philanthropic, educational, local, and leisure associations. Such associations represented a groundbreaking form of merchant sociability. They first emerged in the 1870s but by the turn of the century, they had come to define the city’s social landscape. Societies like the Alliance Alumni Association or the Educational Society of Salonica turned into principal sites for constructing the new ethnoreligious identities of Jewish and Greek Orthodox merchants. Yet, one other type of association proved equally important in the formation of their class identity. Greek Orthodox and Jewish merchants socialized in clubs—commercial and other, inside and outside their communities. The Jewish Grand Cercle Commercial and the Greek Orthodox Nea Lesche (New Club) were prominent features of Salonica’s associational 69

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landscape, whereas the multiethnic Cercle de Salonique was a landmark of the modernizing city, its imposing building overlooking the quay around the corner from Salonica’s busiest square. The rise of clubs was intimately tied to the making of a fragile yet visible merchant bourgeois class. Clubs brought Jewish and Greek Orthodox merchants closer together by cultivating a new culture of bourgeois sociability. They were also instrumental in (re)defining the meanings of commerce and the new, proper characteristics of its practitioners. Finally, they promoted the merchants’ ideological dominance over the lower strata. Clubs thus helped forge a distinct class identity that had commerce at its core, and which made merchants Salonica’s bourgeois par excellence. However, this bourgeois identity was neither supra-ethnic nor cosmopolitan. Rather, it was Jewish. Even though Joseph Nehama rightfully argued that “every respectable Salonican . . . without distinction of religion” would have been a club member, clubs and clubbability eventually advanced a certain ethnic hierarchy between Jews and Orthodox Greeks.1 Multiethnic coexistence and Jewish public prominence were tightly interwoven making Jews Salonica’s preeminent bourgeoisie. In so doing, they consolidated as much a Jewish primacy in the modernizing city as they helped establish a bourgeois dominance over it. Salonica was a city of commerce, a multiethnic city, and a Jewish city, too. That the three were woven so tightly together owed much to its merchants, and to its Jewish merchants above all. “Clubbing” in the City Before the 1870s, merchants from different communities mingled daily in the bazaar and did business with each other in the market of the Frankish Quarter. Both places were critical in regulating interethnic contact. Here, commercial transactions turned into cultural exchanges, transforming the bazaar and the market into hybrid spaces of cultural syncretism, fostering integration by framing merchant coexistence.2 Apprenticeship played a somewhat similar role. In the 1870s, young Jews like Jacob Cazes and Saul Modiano apprenticed and then worked for long stretches of time in prominent international Greek Orthodox commercial houses. The scion of a prominent wool and grain trader, Jacob Cazes did not join the family business but worked instead for 20 years at the renowned Charissis firm prior

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to opening his own import and export business in 1880. Saul Modiano, in turn, spent years apprenticed to Vlastos before embarking on banking and real estate.3 Apprenticeship was therefore not practiced solely within closed kinship or ethnic networks. Rather, it could cut across ethnic lines. Participation in esteemed international trade networks, like those of Charissis and Vlastos, endowed the apprentice (and future merchant) with the necessary good reputation while also furnishing him with the necessary first contacts.4 As a result, apprenticeship sustained a form of coexistence based on two pillars: the intensely personal relationship between master and apprentice; and the interdependence and cooperation between Jewish and Greek Orthodox merchants. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, this form of coexistence waned due to the decline of local Greek Orthodox commercial houses. The concomitant emergence of an expansive clerical class also led to the replacement of the master–apprentice with the employer–employee model. Consequently, Jewish apprentices in Greek Orthodox commercial houses gave way to Greek Orthodox employees in Jewish businesses. This shift is exemplified by the careers of some of the most important Greek Orthodox merchants of the time. Young Zissis Verrou started as an employee of the Allatini company in Udovo, before becoming a merchant of his own in the mid-1900s. Similarly, Konstantinos Hondrodimos began as an employee of the same company in Skopje and Salonica.5 This development led to a change in the nature of interethnic bonds. The once hierarchical yet intimate connections bringing together masters and apprentices were formalized, losing their long-standing, personal character and becoming more ephemeral and impersonal. In this new employee-based system, there were fewer opportunities for integration into existing commercial networks or for forging new ones. As a result, the role of the workplace in strengthening relations among the city’s merchants was likely more limited than before. Moreover, the advent of modern education, combined with the need for higher qualifications to harness the city’s growing business opportunities, led to a devaluation of the practical, experience-based knowledge which apprenticeship offered. This shift rendered formal studies based on systematic, “scientific” instruction more essential leading to the proliferation of new commercial or commerce-oriented schools.6 However,

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their role as a meeting place for emerging young merchants was minimal. Communal and local private schools catered predominantly to ethnically specific groups: Jewish, like the French-Jewish Commercial School, the private Jewish Altcheh Commercial School, and the commercial gymnasium; Greek Orthodox (the Stefanos Noukas and Athanasios Konstantinidis secondary modern schools); Muslim (the Terakki and Feyziye high schools); Bulgarian (the Bulgarian Commercial School); and Vlach (the Romanian Commercial School). The public Ottoman commercial school (Ticaret Mektebi) and various foreign schools offering courses in commerce, such as the German School, the Italian Umberto Primo Practical and Commercial School and those of the French Mission Laïque, hosted somewhat more diverse student bodies.7 Still, Jews predominated. They constituted the entire student body of the Italian commercial school and formed an overwhelming majority in the French schools. In the Lycée Classique, 106 out of 147 students were Jewish; in the Cours Secondaires, 114 out of 167, and in the École Annexe, 97 out of 105. In those establishments, there were far fewer Greek Orthodox students: in 1908, just 197 attended Ottoman and foreign schools at all levels, compared to 1,397 enrolled in community schools.8 Attendance at foreign commercial schools was discouraged, as some were accused of serving foreign interests. In 1889, for instance, the Greek Orthodox newspaper Pharos tes Makedonias (Beacon of Macedonia) attacked the Italian commercial school, labeling it a suspect and dangerous instrument of Italian propaganda. Moreover, communal regulations linked participation in electoral procedures with a ban on those eligible voters whose children attended “foreign proselytizing schools.” Additionally, most Greek Orthodox merchants came from outside Salonica and seem to have received their education in their places of origin. Stavros Grigoriadis, born in Izmir, completed his studies at the renowned Baxter School there, before moving to Salonica in 1908. Similarly, Zissis Verrou was educated at the town school of Siatista and the gymnasium of Tsotyli in western Ottoman Macedonia. No prominent Greek Orthodox merchant appears to have completed his studies in Salonica.9 The city’s foreign schools, particularly the commercial ones, seem to have primarily catered to the Jewish student population and likely did not serve as major spaces of interethnic coexistence among future merchants.

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Associations filled the gap, but they were not of the kind one would expect. Commercial associations were non-existent and professional associations a rarity in the otherwise rich associational landscape of Salonica. The single exception was the Syndicat des compagnies d’assurance contre l’incendie (Association of Fire Insurance Companies) which was established quite late in 1901 and included almost as many foreigners as locals on its board.10 Instead, Jews and Orthodox Greeks cultivated their merchant and bourgeois identities around an entirely different form of institutionalized sociability, the club, and in particular, the commercial club. Established in 1873, the multiethnic Cercle de Salonique was one of the city’s first voluntary associations, while the similarly cross-ethnic Club Commercial (founded around the turn of the century) became the merchants’ primary hub. Jews and Greek Orthodox also had their own commercial clubs: Jewish merchants founded the Grand Cercle Commercial sometime in the 1880s, whereas the Greek Orthodox merchants trailed behind in establishing the New Club in 1901.11 All four clubs held a prominent place in Salonica’s associational world for a number of interrelated reasons. For starters, their longevity was remarkable. There was something of a club epidemic at the time, with the newspapers noting that “countless associations are born and die so quickly that no one ever notices their disappearance,” yet these clubs remained active and visible over many years.12 Their status, however, was more than a matter of endurance. All of them were also symbols of the “progress” which the city and its ethnoreligious communities had made. Thus, foreigners and locals alike considered the Cercle de Salonique as the epitome of an emerging civic and urban identity. Western observers, in particular, who enjoyed measuring the “progress” of the Ottoman Empire by gauging the number and importance of its bourgeois institutions, viewed the Cercle as clear proof of Salonica’s steady Europeanization.13 Some sent postcards of it back home; others frequented it to socialize with local “society” and get a good sense of local issues. For all, the club was the unquestionable go-to place every time tumultuous events unfolded on the streets below. Hence, when the Austrian fleet entered Salonica’s harbor in May 1903, British journalist Frederick Moore raced directly to the Cercle’s “wide balcony” to witness it.14 The Cercle, then, was the preferred observation point for foreign visitors in every sense of the term. As for the city’s residents, the local press kept them well-informed of

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the Cercle’s activities by regularly publishing extensive accounts of anniversaries, celebrations of religious holidays, and lavish dinners held in its hall. Newspapers treated such events as examples of “proper” social behavior for all to emulate, even if their reportage also turned them into spectacles for public consumption.15 Either way, such celebratory reporting projected a formidable image of the Cercle that was further augmented by its social exclusivity and the grandeur of its building along the Quai. The power and stature of Salonica’s bourgeoisie was there for all to see. The Club Commercial was similarly instrumental in structuring the marketplace. Founded by major import merchants (among whom Jews predominated) and presided by the Dönme businessman Ahmet Kapancı, it represented the upper commercial echelons of the three most significant ethnoreligious groups of the city. In response to intense competition—the “merciless war” among merchants—the club aimed to standardize business practices. It set limits on customer credit, specified interest rates for late payments, determined brokers’ commissions, set discounts for early invoice settlement, and unified weekly currency rates, all measures designed to “put an end .  .  . to abuses that hurt the merchants’ interests.” The Club Commercial also developed plans for the creation of an arbitration committee which would help keep peace within the merchant community by expediently resolving any commercial disputes threatening to tarnish a member’s reputation.16 Interestingly, the club molded Salonica’s major merchants into a collective not by organizing their group interests and representing them against the Ottoman state and its economic policies, but rather by promoting practices of self-regulation. Despite its relatively limited scope for action, the club played a significant role in bringing merchants together. The basis of the club’s life was the regulation of competition, with membership contingent upon agreeing to binding rules governing commercial transactions. This approach provided a solution that not only aimed to prevent economic conflicts but also facilitated discussion of business matters. Consequently, the Club Commercial emerged as the quintessential space where merchants gathered as colleagues, not as competitors. Limits on competition allowed merchant club members to form a collective, blending social interaction with discussion on wider commercial issues. The local press recognized these efforts and praised the club’s “salutary influence,” even dubbing it the market’s

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third institutional pillar, alongside the commercial tribunal and the chamber of commerce.17 Not only were the chamber of commerce and the club closely aligned in influence and objectives, but they even joined forces in late July 1908 to celebrate together the proclamation of the Ottoman constitution. The merchants were the only professional group in the city to parade through the streets, underscoring the club’s ability to present the “commercial world” as a unified and influential group.18 The Jewish Grand Cercle Commercial and the Greek Orthodox New Club were similarly important in the communal domain. Their prominent place in city guides and commercial directories showcased to the outer world the economic vitality, institutional modernity, and superior bourgeois values of their respective communities. The Grand Cercle was especially prestigious, with its key events also serving as highlights of the city’s social season; the banquet it hosted for a hundred guests on the occasion of its anniversary in 1906 received particularly extensive coverage in the local Jewish press.19 More crucially, the two clubs played a key role in the symbolic construction of their communities. By the late nineteenth century, communal space was increasingly constituted through associational action rather than religious authority or administrative mechanisms alone. In this context, both commercial clubs engaged in numerous community-focused activities. Following the devastating fire of 1890, the Grand Cercle collaborated with the communal council and the local Alliance committee to provide housing for the thousand destitute fire-stricken Jews left homeless. Similarly, in 1908, the New Club donated a substantial 125 Ottoman liras—amounting to a third of the value of its property—toward the construction of the Greek Orthodox community’s high school.20 Through such initiatives, commercial clubs impacted on the community landscape. They turned it into a ground for bourgeois philanthropic activities, further solidifying the merchants’ role as pivotal community builders. Communal, bourgeois, and merchant identities were being brought closer together. Both clubs also consolidated the ethnic identities of the Jewish and Greek Orthodox merchants, albeit in different ways. The Grand Cercle aimed at protecting the collective commercial interests of its members. However, in the process, it also provided Jewish merchants with a new means of expressing their Jewishness within the marketplace. Jewishness was no longer solely

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determined by participation in an ethnic trade network as was the practice so far. Now, it could also be constituted through institutionalized collective action. Jewish merchants could express their Jewish identity in terms of shared interests, not solely because they trusted each other in business on the basis of their religion. Furthermore, the Grand Cercle actively encouraged a spirit of benevolence among its members, positioning the merchants as guardians and benefactors of their coreligionists.21 In both the realms of business and philanthropy, then, the Grand Cercle fostered a renewed and more potent sense of Jewish unity. By contrast, the New Club cultivated a far more militant sense of Greekness through systematic efforts to collectively strengthen Greek Orthodox merchants and reinforce their business position. In 1904, the club established a special committee labeled the Commercial Tutoring Center of the New Club of Salonica. This center was responsible for researching the commercial and productive sectors of the Ottoman Empire, operating a statistical office, and providing information and recommendations to the club’s members. It also undertook the publication of a commercial bulletin. The center’s primary goal extended beyond merely facilitating access to “scientific” commercial information for “Greek merchants.” As the Greek Orthodox newspaper Pharos tes Thessalonikes highlighted, the center aimed to “realize the decades-long dream of every Greek merchant: to restore commercial solidarity and mutual aid, on which the tremendous progress of commerce in flourishing societies is based today.”22 Furthermore, the New Club played a crucial role in aligning local Greek Orthodox and Greek state business interests. This was exemplified by its successful advocacy with Georgios Streit, the board director of the Athens-based Banque d’Orient, which led to the appointment of Cleon Hadjilazarou, a prominent Salonica notable, as the deputy director of the bank’s Salonica branch.23 Prefiguring the role it would assume after the Balkan Wars, the New Club was already acting as a mediator between “Greek” Salonica and the national center. Among the Greek Orthodox merchants of Ottoman Macedonia, the club was known for its policies of national preference. It favored those merchants who actively espoused Greek irredentism, providing them with favorable reference letters and backing their business ventures.24 By scrutinizing a merchant’s national allegiance as much as his business reputation,

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the New Club aimed to define the standards for both business conduct and proper national comportment. In essence, it endeavored to establish and promote a new normative identity, that of the “Greek merchant.” However, the club’s aspirations extended beyond merely “advancing Greek trade.” Its goal was also “to belong to all [Greek Orthodox] Salonicans irrespective of their occupation.” Thus, although initially introduced as the Commercial Club, the name was quickly modified to the broader New Club, indicating that its mostly prominent merchants sought to represent the entire Greek Orthodox community.25 Similarly, the Jewish Grand Cercle Commercial was often simply referred to as the Grand Cercle. Both clubs went beyond simply associating ethnicity with commerce; they also wove commerce into the fabric of ethnic identity. They bridged communal and business pursuits, asserting that to be a good Jew or Greek Orthodox also required being a good merchant. Commercial clubs not only shaped communal belonging but were also instrumental in delineating the characteristics of a burgeoning bourgeois identity. They helped define the markers of bourgeois status by reorganizing the spaces, temporalities and social practices of their members. “At the New Club, members discuss political, social, commercial, and recreational matters, as in all clubs,” observed Dimitrios Chatzopoulos. In the same vein, the Cercle de  Salonique aimed to offer means “for its members to gather and entertain themselves.”26 The very articulation of these seemingly self-evident statements underscores the novelty of the club and its transformative role in creating a new, defined space for exclusively male sociability, separate from both the domestic realm associated with women and the more egalitarian setting of the coffeehouse. Similarly, the club also introduced a distinct time period for individualized, productive leisure away from work—time dedicated to polite conversation, reading, and dining. This reconfiguration of space and time was marked by the gendering of key social practices. The clubs’ private facilities provided an environment suitable for members to meet, creating a familiar, semi-public, and exclusively male gathering space. The physical presence of women was rare and their appearance, when it occurred, was explicitly defined, and limited. Women were generally excluded from intra-associational activities, participating only in public gatherings primarily as wives or daughters of

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male members. Their involvement was often seen as essential only for the success of glamorous events like balls and banquets, where their presence added to the events’ prestige.27 Furthermore, the club played a pivotal role in redefining certain activities as masculine. Reading books at home was historically a practice associated with the private sphere and the bourgeois culture (and cult) of domesticity; it was often linked to the female pursuit of self-improvement, or, at worst, idle pastimes. In contrast, the popular activity of reading newspapers and journals in the club’s library, coupled with ensuing discussions, repositioned reading as a performance of masculinity. Designated club facilities like the reading room, library, and restaurant turned gentle discussion, solitary reading, and dining into emblems of male refinement and gendered hallmarks of male virtue.28 The club thus emerged as the crucible for shaping a new kind of individual. The New Club, for instance, admitted only men of “higher education” and “impeccable behavior” as members. These men, it was expected, would collaborate to strengthen “moral solidarity among [themselves],” and to support “every educational and charitable work which would promote the progress of the land.” Club membership became a seal of a man’s respectability and high culture. It testified to his understanding of the balance between work and leisure and marked him as a civic-minded individual, attuned to public concerns. The moral and cultural values conveyed by the club, combined with the social ties it nurtured, inculcated in its members a collective bourgeois identity.29 This identity also informed the merchants’ self-fashioning. As previously mentioned, in Salonica, merchants crafted an occupational identity not through professional associations, but via clubs that incorporated a variety of upper-class professions. None of the four clubs discussed were founded strictly on the basis of representing a single profession. This is evident not only in the Cercle de Salonique, where members ranged from businessmen to painters and from landowners to musicians, but also in those clubs explicitly labeled as commercial. The New Club’s diverse membership, for instance, comprised “almost all Greek merchants” but also lawyers and high school teachers, and it was even statutorily open to “scientists” and other “high-ranking civil servants.” In 1908, its council included the director of the Bank of Athens Georgios Chrysafis, the deputy director of the Bank

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of Mytilene Lalas, the merchants and industrialists Tasko Giannoulis and Georgios K. Tornivoukas, but also Dr.  Svoronos.30 This occupational diversity was not merely incidental; it was intentional. Mixing professions prevented monotony, adding vibrancy to club life. Moreover, including respected professionals like teachers, lawyers, doctors, and state officials elevated the club’s moral standing. To do otherwise would have inevitably jeopardized the merchants’ esteem, as bourgeois culture often associated commerce with the degenerative power of money rather than superior moral values. For the merchants, having a club dominated by their own professional interests was seen as detrimental. Overemphasizing business matters during leisure or importing business rivalries into the club venue could threaten its very existence. Thus—especially in commercial clubs—while business topics were discussed, they were approached with decorum and civility. Engaging in such discussions allowed merchants to showcase their ability to handle business concerns while adhering to bourgeois etiquette. Discussing trade matters in commercial clubs required that merchant members curtail intense economic rivalries, focusing instead on the “common interest.” Essentially, it encouraged viewing each other not as competitors, but as peers. Core bourgeois values thus shaped the essence of commerce and bonded its practitioners together.31 The relationship between commerce and bourgeois identity was mutual. While bourgeois culture impacted on the merchant’s conduct, commerce played an equally pivotal role in shaping the essence of a club and influencing the bourgeois outlook of its members. In a burgeoning port city like Salonica, the significant wealth and demographic presence of merchants meant that associations largely depended on their substantial participation on both the material and physical levels. By 1887, of the 111 members of the Cercle de  Salonique with identified occupations, at least 58 were associated with commerce, industry, and services, among them representatives from all major Jewish and Greek Orthodox business dynasties.32 Although in theory the club occupied a third space distinct from both home and the market, business discussions were integral. The absence of a stock market, combined with the need to further ethnic-specific economic goals or manage interethnic economic competition, transformed clubs into ideal venues for merchants of every community: they became sites for building consensus in the city’s

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complex economic landscape. Moreover, these clubs were magnets for some of Salonica’s most distinguished non-merchants. Figures like British consul Blunt, landowner Baron Frederic Charnaud, prominent state officials, foreign diplomats, lawyers, doctors, and rentiers were members of the Cercle de Salonique. Likewise, eminent Greek Orthodox professionals, including the likes of Dr. Dimitrios Zannas and lawyer Grigorios Karipis, were active in the New Club.33 This broad appeal beyond merchant circles reflected a widespread positive valuation of commerce during the late Ottoman period. Media discourses frequently linked commerce to the broader issues of economic advancement and imperial power. Commerce was heralded as “the nucleus of the nations’ prosperity,” and its growth was applauded as “the best omen for the security and well-being of the country.” Such praise bound commerce to Ottomanism and imperial loyalty. Moreover, a historicist and evolutionist narrative portrayed commerce as a long, “beneficent influence on the fortunes of humanity,” as a vital force that, alongside education, had finally “raised [humans] to perfection.”34 Shot through discourses of human progress, commerce was credited with advancing the spread of civilization. Notably, other discourses similarly aimed to validate Islam by emphasizing its positive impact on the expansion of trade. As the Ottoman Turkish newspaper Sabah argued, in an attempt to challenge orientalist perceptions of Islam as barbarism: “Wherever Islam has penetrated, it has fostered the development of commerce thereby securing its logical outcomes: civilization and wellness.”35 Commerce was making possible the integration of the Muslim world into the narrative of civilization-as-progress, placing Islam at the forefront of human advancement. Such a positive view of commerce in the late Ottoman Empire extended beyond society and culture and into human character. Commerce was lauded for molding an individual’s (that is, a man’s) moral and intellectual outlook. It served a cathartic and regenerative role, cleansing “the young spirit from arrogant selfishness,” and replacing it with the core social values of thrift, diligence, and hard work. As such, commerce was a crucial tool for the “moral development of man.”36 Furthermore, commerce could refine one’s intellectual capabilities, as evidenced by initiatives like the New Club’s Office of Statistics, established in 1912. By championing data collection and the use of statistics, commercial clubs introduced a culture of the archive and

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numerical analysis into business practice. This not only bestowed a scientific aura upon commerce, but also linked it to the era’s most esteemed qualities of (male) rationality and social improvement.37 Finally, in a period marked by acute ethnic antagonisms in the region, commercial matters drew the attention of broader middle-class strata beyond the confines of commercial clubs or merchants alone. A notable example of this was the Greek Orthodox Educational Society of Salonica, which not only subscribed to the Greek journal Οιkonomike Epitheoresis (Economic Review), but also organized business-themed talks as part of its annual lecture series. These events, the Greek Orthodox newspaper Aletheia noted approvingly, “drew not only those from commercial circles but also other eminent members of our society,” helping to foster a more expansive middle-class Greek Orthodox public.38 Such endeavors reflected a broader shift in nationalist and communal thinking, signaling a rising preoccupation with economic matters among national and communal elites. Turn-of-the-century discourses in the Ottoman Empire and neighboring Balkan Christian nation-states viewed national integration and ethnic survival as dependent upon economic strength rather than cultural dominance alone. In Athens, both intellectuals and statesmen moved away from an irredentist discourse emphasizing the proliferation of Greek-language schools and educational associations among the “unredeemed Greeks” and stressed instead the importance of economic expansion. Achieving economic dominance in Ottoman Macedonia was viewed as more crucial to Greek ascendancy in the region than either expanding the existing network of Greek schools or supporting communal welfare establishments.39 The Greek consuls in Salonica had recognized the importance of strengthening Greek Orthodox commerce in Macedonia. They understood that securing economic self-sufficiency for Greek Orthodox merchants was a necessary precondition for engaging in any “economic war against hostile elements” and advancing Greek strategies. As a consular report reflected in 1907, “Since most consumers are not Greek, if our foreign competitors gain dominance in the commerce and industry of Macedonia, there can no longer be any talk of our claims to it.”40 Among the city’s Greek Orthodox public, these views manifested as anxieties about the community’s future. A revealing article in Aletheia on “our commercial activity here” detailed widespread concerns about

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the community’s diminishing commercial influence: reporting on a public lecture, it noted that a worrying public, [t]hirsty for intellectual food on important and practical matters .  .  . anxiously waited to hear the reasons [our community’s] flame of glory had burned out, and [why the community] remains today outside the commercial paradise like a fallen Adam. It desired to know why it had lost its commercial position in Salonica’s market and wanted to find out how to reclaim its bread, which had lately slipped from its hands and was now feeding foreign stomachs.41

Communal pride was tied closely to commercial success. Parallel sentiments were echoed among the Jewish community. A vocal westernized youth, influenced by the prevailing European culture of despair, increasingly perceived wars as chiefly economic battles. They warned that Jewish over-reliance on commerce endangered the livelihood of the community, especially since all surrounding ethnic groups were “envious” of Jewish success and sought to “conquer” “their” dominant economic position.42 Among leading Greek Orthodox and Jewish community circles, then, commerce became intrinsic to survivalist narratives, irredentist ideas, and self-understandings of Greekness and Jewishness. Consequently, in public perception, commercial associations like the New Club and the Grand Cercle Commercial were on a par with their communities’ foremost charitable and educational institutions. They were prominently mentioned in all leading city guides and directories, featuring alongside such esteemed establishments as the Educational Society of Salonica, the Charitable Brotherhood of Salonica, Matanot Laevionim, and the Alliance Alumni Association.43 All this indicates that in late Ottoman Salonica, “commerce” was more than a social practice or a discourse; it was a value incapsulating all the essential tenets of male bourgeois identity. Commerce was about embracing science and scientific method, higher education, and the superior Western civilization. It meant showing interest in public affairs, or else, practicing citizenship in a period of autocracy. And it signified a commitment to both the Ottoman state and one’s specific ethnoreligious community. As a result, the patent importance of all things “commercial” made membership of a commercial club almost imperative, even for those not directly involved in

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commerce. Bourgeois identity had become deeply interwoven with a specific profession. Commerce was de rigueur. To top it all, this “merchant” bourgeois identity professed a kind of universality. Clubs were an integral part of a larger web spanning philanthropic, educational, alumni, and athletic associations, with members often involved in more than one. Since these associations predominantly attracted members from the city’s upper and middle strata, they created a cohesive, uniform public space inside which bourgeois men could move freely. Intriguingly, this space was perceived as egalitarian precisely because it was premised on gender and class exclusion: once women and the lower classes were sidelined, bourgeois men could view and treat each other as equals. This dominance of upper- and middle-class societies in Salonica’s associational world meant that the bourgeoisie in particular and the middle class more broadly could now stand for the larger public as a whole. In fact, the cultural logic informing bourgeois associationism rested on the belief that associations were championing a broader communal or city interest. The New Club statutorily aspired to support “all educational and public benefit works,” whereas the Alliance Alumni Association fashioned itself as a “society designed for the public,” primarily aligned “with the public good.” Likewise, its president, Joseph Nehama, emphasized that the association was not a partisan entity but rather worked for the “common progress.”44 Whether on a community or city scale, then, association members perceived themselves as bearers of “universal social virtues.” They and the middle class they formed, came to identify with “public opinion” and to regard themselves as “a pinnacle of moral achievement whose values structured all of society.”45 Middle-class identity had taken up “universal” characteristics: it stood at the apex of human progress, a near-anthropological model to be emulated by all. Jews and The City Salonica’s associational world was largely shaped by Jewish merchants. Numerically speaking, Jewish associations surpassed those of any other ethnoreligious group, with the Orthodox Greeks lagging far behind. Moreover, Jewish presence was strong in all multiethnic associations, whatever their type. In the Cercle de Salonique in 1867, out of 142 members, at least 67 were local Jews. Similarly, Jewish insurers formed a majority in the Association

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of Fire Insurance Companies. Sports associations like the Lawn Tennis and Sporting clubs were founded and led by members of the consular body, but they were bolstered by the involvement of eminent Jewish entrepreneurial families, such as the Allatini, Modiano, Saias, Torres, and Fernandez. Jews also sustained a flourishing freemasonry. The city’s numerous masonic lodges had a remarkably strong Jewish membership—in the case of Lodge Veritas, there were 100 Jews compared to just four Orthodox Greeks and seven Muslims in 1910.46 Furthermore, middle- and upper-class Jews set the tone in the city’s public culture. The Ottoman authorities, European missions, even Muslim societies frequently engaged Jewish music and theater groups for their public events. In 1906 alone, the brass band of the Alliance Alumni Association participated in the sultan’s birthday celebrations and in the award ceremony for the city’s French High School. In that same year, the Société Philodramatique Israélite gave a theatrical performance for the benefit of the Dönme association Tesshil-i-Tahsil (Facilitation of Education) to aid the poor students of the Feyziye School. Moreover, Jewish associationism also fostered multiethnic contact as a supplement to community building. Esteemed European and Ottoman officials were regularly involved in Jewish associational life, delivering lectures or attending significant events. A case in point is the 1905 lecture cycle of the Alliance Alumni Association, which saw French teachers speak in the presence of the French consul and the Ottoman director of public education.47 Occasionally, some societies even transcended communal boundaries altogether. This occurred in May 1907, for instance, when Caritas—a Jewish-dominated Italian women’s philanthropic association—organized a “grandiose” fundraising event open to all Salonicans, regardless of religion or ethnicity. The significant funds raised were almost equally distributed among the poor students of all of the city’s educational institutions, including the “Turkish” (sic), Italian, Greek, Jewish, Catholic, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Romanian schools.48 Salonica’s multiethnic associational culture owed much to Jewish merchants and other community members. However, instead of merely using this cross-communal sociability to solidify their own standing, Jewish merchants transformed it into a means of broadening their influence and eventually establishing their hegemony. Contrary to Paul Dumont’s assertion, Jewish power was not grounded in appropriating multiethnic organizations

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like Lodge Veritas, reorienting their scope and adjusting their activities to serve Jewish commercial interests or support communal welfare.49 Rather, as the case of the Association of Fire Insurance Companies suggests, Jewish hegemony was ultimately secured by lifting overtly ethnic identification. Within the association, Jewish insurers were undeniably dominant, with 14 out of the 20 identified representatives being Jews, including some of the greatest business names in town like Moise Morpurgo, Gino Fernandez, Elie A. Torres, and members of the Amar and Modiano families. Yet, the board’s composition was much more balanced, comprising two formidable Italian Jews (president M. Morpurgo and secretary S. Modiano), a Greek Orthodox member (G. Karvonides), and two Western Europeans (vice-president V. Rose and member K. Campbell).50 This diversity showcases the interplay between Jewish economic power and multiethnic coexistence, revealing how Jewish merchants built their authority not through exclusion but through inclusive multiethnic associationism. Specifically, including Western Europeans like Campbell and Rose secured access to vital information channels while further evidencing the Jews’ favorable disposition toward Western powers. Similarly, the presence of a Greek Orthodox insurer, G. Karvonides, acknowledged the economic significance of the local Greek Orthodox community while providing a buffer against the aggressive economic nationalism of Greek irredentism. Moreover, the unity of the two Italian Jewish board members, due to familial ties connecting the Morpurgos with the Modianos, ensured the association’s policies aligned with their individual interests. In essence, the association served as a platform for particular “Jewish” business interests to be decolorized and then reframed as the “general interest” of a broader professional group, the insurers. Thanks to its mixed council, then, the Association of Fire Insurance Companies enabled Jews to influence an entire professional sector. Far from diminishing their power, the practice of multiethnic associationism actually amplified it, leading to a more nuanced yet more robust form of Jewish dominance. Specific “Jewish” interests thus aligned with wider professional concerns. Eventually, both were tied to a profound attachment to Salonica. At the dawn of the twentieth century, Salonica stood out as a “Jewish city,” with Jews constituting nearly half of its population. This demographic reality found its way into various, otherwise conflicting statistics, and was a

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subject of interest in travel guides and travelogues.51 Visitors from abroad, Jews and non-Jews, could not help but remark on the city’s diverse population, yet they consistently underscored the Jews’ dominant presence in the urban landscape. Notably, Irby and Mackenzie characterized Salonica as “the curious instance of a city historically Greek, politically Turkish, geographically Bulgarian and ethnographically Jewish.” In 1876, the correspondent of the Jewish Chronicle hailed it as “a Citadelle of Judaism,” while 30 years later, the reporter of the Athenian newspaper Skrip noted disturbingly that “the Jewish state began here.”52 And when the Greek nationalist journalist Christos Christovasilis visited the city, he humorously observed: Jews! Jews! Jews! . . . Jews in front, Jews behind, Jews to my right, Jews to my left, Jews here, Jews there! Everywhere Jews! So much my imagination was Judaicized that even the sea appeared to my eyes as a Jewish siren. The floating boats became Jewish, the sun Jewish, and the sky Jewish. Not even the distant Olympus, standing at the end of the Thermaic Gulf like an immeasurable Titan, could escape this transformation. In that moment, it appeared to me as the sacred Jewish mountain of Chorev.53

The external gaze of travelers and census takers alike predominantly associated Salonica with its Jewish population, portraying it as a multiethnic, yet unmistakably Jewish city. During this period, Jews were instrumental in molding Salonica’s identity and image. However, the influence of the city in crafting their own ethnoreligious identity was not so pronounced. The Salonican aspect of Jewish self-fashioning remained subtle. Jewish middle and upper strata did not lay any symbolic claims to Salonica’s past. Public speeches or other undertakings did not foster a sense of local pride by appropriating the city’s memory and associating it with its Jews.54 In the years up to 1912, there is a noticeable lack of historical publications by Jewish men of letters or of societies focused on local history or Jewish folklore. Unlike Greek Orthodox intellectuals, Jews were not among the local amateur archaeologists, and the extensive Jewish cemetery did not attract scholarly attention.55 Moreover, it appears that the secularization of bourgeois Jewish identity caused a retreat from earlier symbolic appropriations of the city.

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In the more distant past, Salonica had been inscribed in the religious topography of Judaism as the “Mother of Israel,” however this appellation no longer appeared in the French-language press or publications of the time. The absence of Jewish Salonican “spatial stories” may stem from the precarious nature of these narratives, which did not fit into or challenge broader nationalist discourses and the symbolic topographies these create.56 The lack of a crystalized Jewish national movement and of a serious rival that could challenge the Jews’ dominant position in the city (be that Greek nationalism or the Ottoman state seeking fuller local control) restricted the political benefits that promoting the image of Jewish Salonica could offer.57 The term concitoyen (fellow citizen), as used in the public discourse of Jewish merchants, illustrates the limits of equating Jewishness with being Salonican. This term had been customary since 1879, often used interchangeably with “coreligionists.” “Gentlemen and dear fellow citizens”: this is how president Moise Allatini began his address at an annual assembly of the local Alliance committee.58 Thus employed, “fellow citizens” delineated the ethnic and class-specific body of the assembly and, by extension, the middle- and upper-class Jewish strata, aligning them more closely with the broader urban populace. The term also informed Jewish merchant identity, emphasizing citizenship and the associated responsibilities, and turning the merchants’ narrow communal engagement into a wider contribution toward the city’s welfare. The universal discourse of political rights, championed by the Alliance, facilitated a link between Jewishness and the city, making the social endeavors of Jewish Salonican merchants meaningful. Yet, the term fellow citizen was not exclusively reserved for Jewish middle and upper strata: it had a broader scope and could also encompass Salonicans from diverse ethnic backgrounds with similar social standing. In March 1904, announcing the death of Levy Nahmias, the Journal de Salonique noted the significant loss, stating he “leaves a great void in Salonican society,” having “earned the merit of his fellow citizens and compatriots” (note the juxtaposition). Similarly, the newspaper’s reference to the Greek Orthodox Ladies’ Charitable Society, as one of “our [sic] useful institutions,” revealed a transethnic sense of urban identity within Jewish (middle-class) public opinion.59 While Jewishness and Salonicanness shared much common ground, they were not entirely synonymous.

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Indeed, before 1912, Salonica did shape the ethnic identity of Jewish merchants but primarily through a variety of social practices, not discourses. These merchant-specific activities effectively blended Jewish space and time with the space and time of the city. The practice of settling outstanding credits was typically carried out on Friday afternoons, while the observance of the Sabbath on Saturdays brought a quiet stillness to the port.60 Moreover, the wide array of public activities orchestrated by Jewish associations fostered a palpable Jewish presence. Their venues and gatherings, celebrations of Jewish holidays, philanthropic bazaars in municipal gardens, collection drives on city streets, and theater and music shows organized for the city’s destitute, all symbolically appropriated the public space of the city, resignifying it as Jewish. This extensive “Judaization” of Salonica led to a melding of local and Jewish identities, gradually transforming Salonica into a (Jewish) homeland. During collection drives, young Zionist Leon Amariglio often encountered retorts such as “What Palestine are you talking about? This is Palestine!”, revealing the profound local attachment of his coreligionists.61 The intertwining of urbanity and Jewishness was also cultivated through a rhetorical identification of Jewish public actions as contributions to Salonica. This identification manifested through the consistent and extensive participation of Jewish groups, like the brass band of the Alliance Alumni Association, in public events organized by state authorities and other ethnoreligious groups.62 Such participation demonstrated that the Jewish band saw itself—and was seen by others—as a vital part of the urban cultural tapestry, rather than a symbol of Jewish dominance. The performance of Jewishness was also a manifestation of Salonicanness. At times, Jewish localism could even be fiercely aggressive. In 1911, for instance, the all-Jewish board of the newly founded American Chamber of Commerce in Salonica staunchly opposed the United States consul’s suggestion that they should join the main organization, the American Chamber of Commerce in Istanbul. Responding with “great keenness and unanimity,” the board believed that such an affiliation would force Salonican firms (including theirs) to transact with American businesses through general agencies in Istanbul, thus bringing them under these agencies’ control. The commercial houses of Salonica, the board asserted, were not merely extensions of Istanbul ventures; they were significant independent entities that

Figure 4.  Share issued by the Société Anonyme Ottomane Industrielle et Commerciale de Salonique, 1898. Source: Private Collection of Yannis Megas

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operated autonomously. Consequently, the board vowed to persist as an autonomous body or choose instant dissolution over affiliation. An exasperated American consul later noted that these merchants harbor “the same feeling[s] with regard to Constantinople that they have for Hamburg and other European cities,” and believe that Salonica is “as truly a capital as Constantinople, and in no way [a] tributary to the former city.”63 For these and other Jewish merchants, then, their ethnic, professional, and local identities were mutually constitutive. Their deep involvement in multiethnic professional organizations and championing of wider interests broadened their Jewishness, granted it a supracommunal dimension, and eventually intertwined it with the local economy and the city at large. To be a Salonican was to be a bourgeois Jewish merchant. Philanthropy and benefaction made this identification even stronger. In the last third of the nineteenth century, emerging middle-class discourses on the modern city, its problems and its remedies, began to permeate the local press. These discourses recast Salonica as a legitimate field of social intervention, paving the way for Jewish philanthropic initiatives that transcended the narrow bounds of the community.64 Guided by these concerns, merchant and modernizer Moise Allatini, generously donated to all ethnoreligious communities throughout the 1870s. Eventually, his philanthropy earned him the revered title of the “Father of Salonica.” When he passed away in 1882, Orthodox Greeks joined the Jews to mourn the loss of the “good angel,” while lengthy obituaries across all local newspapers hailed him as the “great benefactor of our city.” A testament to his popularity, his funeral procession brought together dignitaries and crowds from all communities, traversing Salonica in its entirety. A portrait commissioned in his honor became the “common possession of the entire city” and was venerated as a religious “icon,” further solidifying his posthumous sanctification. Following in Moise’s footsteps, the Allatini family came to symbolize civic duty, public virtue, and unwavering commitment to Salonica, and were honored accordingly. In 1898, to mark the inauguration of his new country house, Charles Allatini, son of Moise, made significant donations “to the city’s poor.” By 1904, the funeral of Maurice Allatini, Moise’s grandchild, drew “thousands of people of every nationality [who] considered it their duty to attend.” In a profound gesture of respect, students from the

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Noukas Greek Orthodox private high school paused their studies and came out of their classrooms to honor his memory.65 And in May 1908, during the inaugural ceremony for the Hirsch Hospital, Henri Mallah would laud Dr. Moise Misrahi, the man behind the endeavor and a member of a business dynasty, using similar language, proclaiming “all the Salonican population would forever be grateful to you, Doctor,” for Misrahi was a man who had “served this city and humanity commendably.”66 Through their widely appreciated philanthropic endeavors, Allatini and his followers forged a strong connection between the Jews and the city, making Salonica a pivotal backdrop for the production of Jewish identity, akin to the community. The philanthropic endeavors of the Allatinis and other eminent Jewish merchants together with their subsequent memorialization intertwined bourgeois Jewishness with the archetype of the exemplary citizen. This fusion strengthened the position of Jewish merchants within the city and the empire at large. It underscored the integral role Jewish philanthropy played in the Ottomanist project of modernization and socio-cultural transformation, and spotlighted the capability of Jewish merchants “to effectively [promote] the principle of respectability among the lower strata of other communities, hence subtly implying that other ethnoreligious elites were incapable of taking up this task,” and fulfill their duty to their coreligionists.67 This elevation to the status of Salonica’s model citizens meant that for Jewish merchants, the city became a core element of their ethnoreligious identity. Their Jewishness was a civic identity making them Salonica’s bourgeoisie par excellence. This strong urban attachment was bolstered by the Jewish merchants’ capacity to cross boundaries due to the multiple allegiances that bourgeois Jewishness afforded. Moise Allatini, for example, was of Italian Jewish origin. He, along with other eminent Italian Jews were active members of Salonica’s Italian colony, leading its main associations and donating generously to its welfare institutions.68 The Italian ties of these elite merchants, combined with the francophone education provided by the Alliance, did more than just facilitate socializing with French, Italian, and other European entrepreneurs and diplomats residing in Salonica. They made such interactions integral to Jewish bourgeois identity allowing Jews to weave an expansive social network that spanned the entire city.

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Intriguingly, this Jewish bourgeois identification with Salonica was not contested by non-Jewish elites; rather, it was accepted and even subtly encouraged. As previously mentioned, in the early 1900s, the brass band of the Alliance Alumni Association was a visible feature at numerous citywide public events. Its services were not only extended to but also “appreciated” by “different institutions in the city,” a sign that Jews were not alone in viewing the association as a civic rather than merely a communal institution.69 The band came to be highly regarded as an integral component of local public culture and not as a powerful symbolic manifestation of Jewish power and a claim to shared urban spaces. Similarly, during the celebrations in early August 1908 marking the reinstatement of the Ottoman constitution, prominent Jewish clubs such as the Cercle des Intimes, Grand Cercle Israélite, and the Alliance Alumni Association extended a warm welcome “with banners and music” to Christian Orthodox travelers from Greece visiting Salonica, even facilitating their accommodation.70 In adopting the role of hosts, members of these associations fashioned themselves as the recognized masters of the city. Jewish claims to urban primacy were particularly compelling precisely because they were perceived as acts of non-partisan civic engagement and tacitly accepted as such by many. Apart from the Greek Orthodox community. Compared to the Jews, the Greek Orthodox middle and upper strata engaged with Salonica’s public life in a markedly different way. Their involvement was limited, lacking the interethnic connections of the Jews and their deep attachment to the city. For a start, only a few Greek Orthodox merchants participated in any of the city’s multiethnic associations. Within the Cercle de Salonique in 1887, of the 142 identifiable members, merely 18 were Greek Orthodox, and just nine of them were merchants. Lodge Veritas boasted as many as 150 members within the first four years of its establishment, but only four were Greek Orthodox, and strikingly, none were merchants. This pattern continued in Salonica’s chamber of commerce where just a handful of Greek Orthodox merchants and industrialists held membership. Moreover, Orthodox Greeks were skeptical, if not suspicious, of multiethnic sociability. In 1903, none participated in a fencing tournament hosted by the Italian consul, and the Greek Orthodox soccer club Omilos Philomousson occasionally opted out

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of local championships.71 The media also played a role in fostering these attitudes. A concerned and suspicious Greek press warned Greek Orthodox women about the dangers of “socializing with foreigners” and castigated the tendency toward “so-called European civilization” in associations like the Lawn Tennis Club. “Cosmopolitanism,” warned Aletheia, “should not be part of the modern Greek character considering the damages it has brought to us so far.”72 This hesitancy to engage with multiethnic associations led to the creation of exclusively Greek Orthodox versions. In 1899 Omilos Philomousson was established, followed by the New Club in 1901, and the masonic Lodge Philippos in 1907.73 All three dramatically enhanced Greek Orthodox associational life by taking it beyond the established domains of philanthropy and education. However, they did so by essentially replicating multiethnic associations already in existence, namely, the Lawn Tennis Club, the Cercle de  Salonique, and the masonic lodges mushrooming in the city. Such systematic mirroring suggests that Orthodox Greeks were forming a parallel, yet separate, space for social interaction, distinct from the broader cross-communal one which multiethnic associationism was building. It is therefore no coincidence that Lodge Philippos chose to belong to the Greek section of the Grand Orient de France rather than the Ottoman one.74 In late Ottoman Salonica, Greek Orthodox sociability was basically insular and introspective. It emulated broader bourgeois trends and institutions but was primarily aimed at Orthodox Greeks alone. In short, it took the form of a subculture.75 Several reasons underpinned this. The Greek Orthodox community was demographically small, making up just 12 to 13 percent of Salonica’s populace. Even the most liberal Greek estimates, like the 1912 statistic from the Greek consulate, counted just 27,100 “Greeks” among 205,000 inhabitants, a mere 13.2 percent.76 Additionally, as previously discussed, almost all of the leading Greek Orthodox merchants were newcomers, lacking ties to the established local commercial elite. Meanwhile, ethnic friction with Bulgarians and economic pressure from the Jews nurtured phobic sentiments and defensive attitudes, generating a siege mentality. Up until the turn of the century, the growing involvement of Jews in new business areas was altering market

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dynamics. It caused concern among Greek Orthodox merchants and sparked extensive discussion in the Greek-speaking press about the fortunes of Greek Orthodox commerce. “The Jewish element has started to predominate in many commercial sectors in Serres, consistently collaborating with Jewish capitalists and owners of commercial firms in Salonica. We draw attention to this issue with our coreligionists,” warned Pharos tes Makedonias in 1886, thereby labeling Jewish merchants as a “national” threat.77 Similarly, toward the end of the 1880s, an Austrian initiative to establish a chamber of commerce in Salonica raised serious concerns among Greek Orthodox merchants about their ominous future in the city’s market. Both the Greek Orthodox community and the Greek consulate vehemently opposed the Austrian endeavor but this led to confrontations with the powerful Jewish (and Dönme) merchants who in turn supported it.78 Finally, the infiltration of Greek nationalism into the city further alienated the Greek Orthodox from the other communities. In 1891, an attempt by the Greek state to set up a Greek chamber of commerce in Salonica was thwarted by the fierce reaction of the Ottoman authorities and Jewish merchants, who also had the backing of the Austrians.79 More crucially, in 1904, the actions of the (Greek) Macedonian Committee, led by the young Greek officer Athanasios Souliotis-Nikolaidis, turned Salonica’s market into one of the many fronts of the Greek “Struggle for Macedonia.” Although this was a bloodless battle, it had significant implications, complicating the relations between the Greek Orthodox community and all other ethnicities. To begin with, the committee secured support from several of the most prominent Greek Orthodox merchants and effectively launched an “economic war against the Bulgarians.” Moreover, part of its strategy also involved obliging Greek Orthodox shopkeepers to display large Greek-language signs, so that the Greek character of Salonica’s market would be reinforced to such an extent that, as Nikolaidis proudly declared, “Salonica would appear to foreigners, and to us, more Greek than before.”80 Thus, taken together, all these factors contributed to a “minority mentality” that placed multiple symbolic barriers in the way of cross-ethnic socializing, propelling a shift toward ethnic entrenchment. Indeed, in mid-1908, the Journal de Salonique hastened to underline the worrying existence of “an exclusivist spirit that manifested itself among various confessional groups who wanted

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to isolate themselves, commercially speaking.”81 Ultimately, Greek Orthodox merchants remained detached from Salonica’s multiethnic associational life for two reasons: an intentional preference to distance themselves, and a belief that joining from a weaker position would inevitably result in dependency, not dominance, in contrast to their Jewish counterparts. The development of a Greek Orthodox subculture was organically linked to the limited participation of Greek Orthodox merchants in the city’s social life with the two phenomena sharing common roots. *** Much historiography on Salonica and other Eastern Mediterranean port cities considers the existence of a lively interethnic associational life and citywide civic action as fostering a supracommunal public sphere of equals, eventually paving the way for the formation of a relatively cohesive “cosmopolitan” upper class that transcended ethnic lines.82 Critics of the concept of “cosmopolitanism” do not deny this, but point out that it was predominantly confined to the elites.83 Late Ottoman Salonica, however, does not fit into this description of bourgeois cosmopolitanism. On the contrary, multiethnic associations and cross-communal initiatives played a key role in fixing ethnic hierarchies and redefining Jewish identity. The city’s merchants and their various clubs, both commercial and otherwise, were instrumental in the production of a bourgeois sociability that had commerce at its core. By the early twentieth century, commerce was more than a mere occupation. Club life had elevated it into an emblem of bourgeois culture and values, thus rendering Salonica’s merchant elite as a paragon of society and an example for all to follow. Yet, this particular formulation of class was inextricably tied to Jewishness. Sustained involvement in multiethnic sociability broadened the scope of action and strengthened the bond between the emerging Jewish upper and middle classes and the modernizing city. For many years, the demographic dominance and economic prowess of the Jews had nurtured a mutual association between them and Salonica: Jews were as much Salonicans as Salonica was Jewish.84 By the early twentieth century, however, the dynamics of bourgeois associationism had taken this relationship a step further, transforming Jewishness from a mere urban affinity to a distinct

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civic identity. Whether through brass bands, drama groups, merchant associations or private benefactions, bourgeois Jews spoke “Salonican.” They publicly performed Jewishness as Salonicanness, and in doing so they turned multiethnic coexistence into a vehicle for Jewish expansion. Modern Salonica was essentially a cosmopolitan and Jewish city and could not be one without the other.

Part II

MAELSTROM REVOLUTION AND WAR 1908–1918

ROMANI A

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BORDERS BEFORE THE FIRST BALKAN WAR, 1912

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BORDERS AFTER THE SECOND BALKAN WAR, 1913

Map 2.  Border changes after the First and Second Balkan Wars

Abram and David Errera

There was something for everyone at the department store of Abram and David Errera. Established by their father, Guedalia, in 1849, the company had grown into the largest of its kind in the Ottoman Empire, dealing in every imaginable and sometimes unimaginable merchandise, from soaps and perfumery to builders’ hardware, electrical novelties, toys, and travel essentials. According to the dry description of the US consul, the two brothers, Abram (born in 1862), and David were general merchants involved in both the wholesale and retail trade; yet, for the locals, the firm “Fils de G. A. Errera & Cie” was so much more: it was a flagship department store and a landmark of the modernizing city. Above all, it was a meeting place where customers from Salonica and further afield could immerse themselves in the world of manufactured goods with all their senses. They could touch, smell, listen to and marvel at the latest European goods, from bric-a-brac to roller blinds. The firm played a pivotal role in Salonica’s commerce, serving as one of its principal importers. The Erreras brought to the city vast quantities of merchandise from England, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Belgium, and Italy, with an annual value exceeding 1.5 million US dollars. Once undocked at the harbor, most of these goods were then distributed to the Macedonian hinterland and sold to retail traders in the 99

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towns and villages of the interior. The firm catered to the needs and shaped the taste of a growing number of consumers, which might have even included those Albanian brigands who, in July 1912, intercepted a consignment of 26 cases of samples en route from Salonica to Tirana. One wonders whether they would have found some of the items to their liking and kept them for themselves. Abram and David Errera, serving as the general directors of the company, managed a workforce of as many as 150 employees, controlled assets worth 40,000 liras in 1905, and engaged in a business with an impressive turnover of 700,000 US dollars in 1910. They also controlled much of the tobacco trade in Ottoman Macedonia and operated a large factory manufacturing woolen products, such as socks, flannels, and shawls. Among the firms in the city, they ranked second only to the Allatinis’ Commercial Company of Salonica, enjoying a solid reputation and hence easy access to credit from both Jewish- and Greek-owned banks. The firm even operated a branch in Izmir, bringing the European and the Asiatic parts of the empire closer together and showcasing the entrepreneurial prowess of Salonica’s merchants across the Aegean Sea.1 In July 1908, just like the majority of their fellow citizens, the two brothers enthusiastically supported the Young Turk Revolution initiated by the Committee of Union and Progress and warmly welcomed the proclamation of the Ottoman constitution. David, the more actively involved of the two, had already been closely associated with revolutionary politics. He had been engaged in progressive multiethnic circles, initially joining the masonic Lodge Macedonia Risorta in 1902, and later transferring to Lodge Veritas in 1904. With the triumph of the revolution, both brothers wasted no time in showcasing their enthusiasm and unwavering loyalty. Abram, who had been serving as a board member of Salonica’s chamber of commerce since 1906, helped set up the impressive parade of the city’s commercial community, bringing together Jewish, Greek Orthodox, and Muslim merchants as a single professional collective to celebrate the restoration of the constitution. A few days later, the firm of Fils de G.A. Errera prominently featured in a long list of leading individuals and major companies that had provided financial support to the Committee of Union and Progress. In so many ways, this was their revolution.2

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The months and years that followed proved them wrong. Time and again, the two brothers and their company found themselves thrust into the midst of unprecedented upheavals, confronting unexpected challenges from every direction. Early in 1908, Greek Orthodox merchants established the Anglo-Hellenic Company, an import and wholesale venture, which quickly rose to become the first significant non-Jewish trade house in Salonica. The company attracted a sizable number of primarily Greek Orthodox clients, posing a threat to the Erreras’ dominant position. Ethnic antagonism, once on the fringes, was now creeping into the heart of the local economy, inching dangerously close to the Erreras’ doorstep. Meanwhile, less than two months after the revolution, their own employees participated in a strike wave that swept through Salonica in September 1908. Their department store shut for two days, and the strike ended peacefully. However, this brief episode triggered a series of bitter disputes and enduring mistrust that eventually spilled over to affect the entire Jewish community. In early 1909, a section of the increasingly vocal Jewish press launched a fierce campaign against the Erreras, relentlessly accusing them of withholding promised pay raises. In response, prominent Jewish merchants (and, incidentally, some notable Muslims, too) publicly denounced these allegations and expressed their support for the brothers. Galvanized, Abram and David took legal action against Le Progrès, the Jewish newspaper leading the attacks, on charges of defamation. They lost the case. The court upheld the newspaper’s actions, “citing its services to the working classes and their interests,” as the Greek Orthodox press noted. Within a year, the Errera department store had shifted from the advertisements to headlining the political pages of local newspapers as it became a public stage on which larger dramas played out. Abram and David found themselves entangled in a broader social conflict that was widening the gap between the upper and lower Jewish strata, while testing their own communal authority and public standing. The revolution they had initially hailed was rapidly eroding the established ethnic and class hierarchies in Salonica, casting doubt on their dominant positions as Jews and merchants within both the community and the city at large.3 What followed was equally unfathomable but considerably more challenging to address. In October 1912, the unexpected Balkan Alliance of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria attacked the Ottoman Empire

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from all directions. Catching everyone by surprise, Balkan troops swiftly defeated the imperial army in several decisive battles, rapidly advancing deep into Ottoman territory. Within a month, Ottoman rule in Europe had effectively come to an end. Fortunately for Salonica’s elite, the city largely escaped major damage. The Ottoman commander arranged for the city’s surrender to the Greeks, and on October 26, 1912, Crown Prince Constantine and his troops peacefully entered Salonica. The transition could not seem smoother. However, for the Erreras, the ensuing days and months only brought a series of mounting problems for their business operations. Without seeking permission, the Greek army immediately requisitioned two of the firm’s buildings in Salonica’s commercial district to house cavalry and infantry units for months at a time. This occupation resulted in significant damage to property, with doors broken, windows shattered, and all walls damaged as the warehouses were transformed into stables and dormitories. Exasperated, Abram and David Errera sought assistance from the British consul. After all, they had already leveraged British protection in June 1912, during the Italo-Ottoman War, when they strategically incorporated their firm under the British Companies Act of 1908 to prevent its closure owing to their Italian nationality. This time, however, despite their efforts and the company’s British registration, the Greek authorities were slow to respond, and the Erreras never received any compensation for the damage incurred.4 Beyond Salonica, the Serbian authorities in control of the occupied district of Skopje refused to clear merchandise transferred there by the firm’s agents. In early 1913, they also imposed a “war contribution” duty on all goods imported from other regions. Adding to their troubles, in mid-March 1913, a representative of the Erreras who was returning by rail with money collected from customers in the Skopje district, was arrested at the (now) border station of Gevgelija, along with five other agents from Salonica-based business firms. All six were charged with attempting to transport Serbian small coins from the occupied territories and were forced to spend the night at the station. They were then summarily sent back to Skopje under military guard, “being made to perform the journey standing in a goods truck under circumstances of considerable indignity,” as reported by a disgruntled British consul. They were finally able to return to Salonica only after three days

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had passed. Conducting business with the Macedonian hinterland, which formed the core of the Erreras’ commercial empire, was rapidly becoming an impossible task.5 With difficulties continuously mounting ever since the outbreak of the Young Turk Revolution, the situation appeared increasingly dire. However, during the same period, the Errera brothers became more deeply involved in public and political action than ever before—both within and outside the community, in the city and well beyond it, as Jews and also as merchants. Upholding a family tradition of philanthropic work dating back to the 1880s, in 1908 they financed the construction of a pipeline that brought fresh running water to the Italian hospital from one of their properties on the outskirts of Salonica. In 1912, they made a substantial donation of over 10,000 piastres to the Jewish community’s Hirsch Hospital and participated in a lottery to support the Greek Orthodox nursery. Meanwhile, during those years, their involvement in public affairs also intensified, taking on a clearer political dimension. Around 1908, Abram Errera became a member of the recently established Jewish Cercle des Intimes, quickly rising to its presidency by February 1910. His leadership role reflected his dedication to the club’s mission of strengthening the Jewish community by ensuring the well-being of its lower strata and protecting them from ethnic competition in the labor market. In 1910, Abram also served on the first board of Banka Popolara, a Jewish cooperative bank that was jointly initiated by the Cercle des Intimes and the Cercle Commercial Israélite with the aim of supporting struggling small Jewish businesses. Abram recognized that the changing circumstances called for new initiatives if he was to maintain both his privileged status and the dominant position that Jews held in Salonica. And yet, as president of the Cercle des  Intimes, Abram found himself drawn ever more deeply into communal strife. By 1912, he had become entangled in a two-front war against the Zionists on one side and the overwhelmingly Jewish Socialist Workers’ Federation on the other. Instead of promoting communal unity, his actions were inadvertently deepening divisions.6 The Balkan Wars did not halt Abram’s involvement. Instead, they increased it, this time as a merchant operating beyond the confines of the Jewish community. As a major importer with a broad customer base across the former Ottoman Macedonia, his company faced an impending

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economic catastrophe when, in late 1912, Serbian and Bulgarian authorities unilaterally imposed customs duties on all merchandise entering their occupied territories from Salonica. The newly erected borders also made it nearly impossible to collect outstanding debts from his clients, many of whom now resided in another state. Abram vehemently protested this situation, aligning himself with other import merchants, both Jewish and non-Jewish. As expected, he signed and submitted petitions. However, he also leveraged his position as a board member in Salonica’s chamber of commerce to reach out to numerous chambers of commerce across Western and Central Europe. He conveyed the demands of Salonica’s “commercial world” and exerted pressure on the European powers convening in London to determine the fate of the post-Ottoman Balkans. All to no avail, however. The new borders were here to stay.7 Five years of revolution and war had brought about profound changes in the world that Abram and David Errera had helped build and thrived in. Their once-dominant positions as Jews and as merchants faced challenges on all fronts—within the community, the city, and the local economy. During this period, their exposure in the public eye transformed them from visionary merchants to exploitative and untrustworthy employers, from exemplary citizens to ethnic rivals, and from communal leaders to ideological adversaries. The road ahead looked even bleaker. In December 1914, the two brothers temporarily closed their manufacturing unit due to a lack of orders. Six months later, on June 3, 1915, Abram attended his last board meeting at the chamber of commerce, marking the end of his nine-year service to the institution. Within the following two years, David decided to leave the city for good and relocate to Milan. Finally, in August 1917, their department store was consumed by the devastating Great Fire of Salonica.8 One might detect a sense of despair, resignation, and inevitability in these events, but such a characterization would not do justice to the Erreras. Their journey during the Second Constitutional Period and through the Balkan Wars reveals two brothers who grappled with the challenges of their time. They deeply immersed themselves in local politics and strove to shape the realities on the ground from various interconnected positions: Abram as the president of the Cercle des Intimes, a member of the cooperative bank, and a

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board member of the chamber of commerce; David as a freemason; and both as import traders and elected members of the communal council. A time of cataclysmic changes propelled them further into politics than ever before, as Jews but equally as merchants. The outcome was not to their liking; but it is their bold actions that help us better understand how indeterminate such an outcome truly was.

THREE

Revolutionary Hopes, Merchant Fears

July 23, 1908, was a day like any other in Salonica, only hotter. “I’m being grilled alive,” a local lamented voicing his discomfort. “The heat overwhelms me, the fire consumes me, and I cannot extinguish it.” Meanwhile, life in the city carried on its usual course. The Journal de Salonique devoted its front page to an in-depth discussion of the temettu tax on estimated business profits, a topic that impassioned “the commercial body of our city, that is to say, all of Salonica.” On the same page, the paper’s social column “Echoes of the City” reflected the day-to-day life of bourgeois Salonica, announcing the departure of Madame Samuel Modiano, Miss Elda Modiano and Mr. Edmond Modiano, the “wife and children of the great banker,” to Vienna. For those remaining in Salonica, there was, however, something exciting to look forward to: Mr. Delmarre, the renowned “eccentric comedian” from Paris, was scheduled to make his much-anticipated debut at the Café Alhambra the next day. “Let it be known,” the paper enthused, “There are pleasant evenings ahead.”1 Indeed, there were, and more eccentric than one could ever imagine. Earlier in the summer, a meeting between the British King Edward VII and Czar Nicholas II in the Baltic port of Reval reconfirmed the settling of Anglo-Russian disputes in Central Asia, further improving relations between the two powers. In Salonica, a group of officers in the Ottoman Third 106

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Army Corps panicked. The meeting, they feared, paved the ground for an Anglo-Russian intervention in Ottoman Macedonia and the eventual partition of the land. These officers had already joined the Committee of Union and Progress, the most important faction of the Young Turk movement, in 1905. Like others, they aimed to overthrow Sultan Abdul Hamid’s autocratic rule, reinstate the liberal constitution of 1876 and usher in sweeping reforms in a last attempt to end ethnic strife in Macedonia and avert the further shrinking of the empire. The Reval meeting catalyzed their actions. In July 1908, Majors Ahmed Niyazi, Ismail Enver, and Eyub Sabri secured the tacit collaboration of Field Marshal Hayri Pasha and organized guerrilla bands in the mountains of Macedonia. The mutiny then spread like wildfire, first engulfing the Third Army in Salonica, then the Second Army in Edirne, and, finally, the troops sent from Izmir. Isolated and outmaneuvered, Abdul Hamid conceded, reinstating the constitution on July 24, 1908.2 Salonica was entranced. “The most beautiful dream has been realized,” proclaimed Journal de  Salonique, rushing to add that “this extraordinary event, unique in the history of the Ottoman Empire and in the history of the world, has been accomplished in our city.” In the streets, local pride met cross-ethnic fraternization. Muslims, Christians and Jews, Ottoman subjects and foreign nationals, were embracing each other, rejoicing in a “national celebration like no other in life.” Crowds of Salonicans, regardless of religion, were “united in the same sentiment, sharing the same thought and clapping their hands in unison.” Marching through the city’s main avenues, “they shouted from the bottom of their hearts and with the same passion the now imperishable cries of ‘Long live the Fatherland! Long live the Ottoman nation! Long live freedom of conscience!’” Meanwhile, at the newly christened Constitutional Square, a crowd of “20,000 men [sic] gathered on the ground, balconies, windows, and even roofs, forming a single body, a single mind.” When evening came, the streets were illuminated and until late at night people joined together in vibrant celebrations everywhere—at Café Cristal, the Olympos Palace, and Café Alhambra, no less. Monsieur Delmarre, the Parisian comedian, missed his own performance but still managed somehow to attend the show of his life.3 The next day, July 25, 1908, carefully choreographed processions took over from the crowd’s spontaneous celebrations. The local chamber of commerce

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and the multiethnic Club Commercial joined forces to celebrate the proclamation of the constitution by organizing an imposing parade. The “commercial corps . . . without any distinction of nationality,” marched through Salonica’s principal avenues before ending up at the newly renamed Liberty Square, the city’s main meeting point. There, speeches were delivered by the chamber’s secretary general Ibrahim Hikmet bey; two eminent Jewish merchants and council members, Moise Morpurgo and Jacob Cazes; the Jewish economic reporter Ascher Salem; and, finally, the Jewish lawyer Moise effendi Cohen, who would later become better known as Munis Tekinalp, the prominent ideologue of Turkish nationalism.4 Parades of this kind, organized by the city’s various ethnoreligious communities, had filled the streets all day long as Jews, Orthodox Greeks, and Armenians, (though significantly not Bulgarians), marched in order. The elaborately ornate floats of the Armenians and the evening torch races of the Orthodox Greeks turned those parades into public spectacles, a means through which Salonica’s communities sought to affirm their presence in the newly available public space. Demonstrating the key role of associations in Jewish communal and city life, Jews had organized their own march, not as a “community” but through the cooperation of the eminent Jewish associations Cercle des Intimes, Grand Cercle, and the Alliance Alumni Association.5 Importantly, the merchants of Salonica were the only occupational group to parade as such. By summoning up their members, the chamber of commerce and the Club Commercial made the economic predominance of the merchants and their prominent place within the local power structure visible. At the same time, though, the distribution of speakers symbolically reasserted the merchants’ internal ethnic hierarchy: the hegemonic role of the Jews, the unusual power of the small group of Dönme and the institutional invisibility of the Greek Orthodox merchants. These manifestations thus constituted more than public expressions of a unified popular will, of an Ottoman brotherhood organized around the empire’s ethnoreligious communities; they were also symbolic representations of the city’s existing social order—of its ethnic arrangements, certainly, but also of its class hierarchies. This was, however, a symbolic order that would soon fade away. For in the four years that constituted the Second Constitutional Period in Salonica, between 1908 and 1912, the class and ethnic hierarchies the chamber of

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commerce and the Commercial Club represented were to be seriously shaken. International and empire-wide events had a profound, albeit indirect, impact on local society and politics resonating through Salonica’s streets and marketplaces. On October 6, 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, a territory it had administered since 1878 but which remained formally Ottoman. A day earlier, Bulgaria had declared its full independence, ending the Ottoman Empire’s nominal suzerainty over Eastern Rumelia. By late July 1909, the island of Crete—another autonomous region—unilaterally announced its union with Greece, marking the last phase in the 50-year-old Cretan Question. These developments sparked widespread public outrage and an unprecedented popular mobilization across the Ottoman Empire. In Salonica, a vigorous and militant boycott movement emerged, initially targeting Austria-Hungary and subsequently the Kingdom of Greece and Greek nationals within the empire. Lasting from October 1908 to October 1911, the movement was particularly popular among the lower classes. It took politics to the streets, transforming stevedores and port-workers into guardians of the realm, everyday consumers into committed activists, commercial products into symbols of loyalty or betrayal, and merchants into friends or foes. Salonica’s marketplace became a stage where the dramas of international diplomacy were re-enacted fueling class and ethnic conflict across the city.6 Concurrently, strikes multiplied and in May 1909, the Socialist Workers’ Federation was formed. Spearheaded by Abraham Benaroya, a Bulgarian Jew from Plovdiv, the federation further politicized the city’s diverse laborers seeking to give voice and agency to yet another marginal social stratum. Even women became increasingly visible in the public sphere, attending packed theaters to listen to officials of the Committee of Union and Progress, and publishing Kadin, one of the empire’s first women’s periodicals.7 Salonica had entered the era of mass politics. By then, the emergence of new social groups, notably commercial employees, had begun to complicate class relations. At the same time, the end of Hamidian autocracy catalyzed the flourishing of an unfettered press, the mushrooming of mutual aid societies, and the proliferation of voluntary associations.8 Taken together, these new social groups, modes of politics, and institutions for social intervention made managing and maintaining social consensus increasingly difficult. The ever-changing urban landscape was

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challenging the class and ethnic identities of Salonica’s merchants in unprecedented ways, in particular its Jews. Their authority within both their community and the city at large was no longer stable or given. To maintain it, they would have to act, but the outcome would be far from clear. A House in Disorder: The Jews In mid-August 1908, the Alliance Alumni Association seized the new opportunities for associational activity the revolution offered and founded the Syndicat des  Commis et Employés de  Salonique (Clerks’ and Employees’ Union of Salonica). Over the course of the following year, another newlyestablished Jewish association, the Cercle des Intimes, would also go ahead and declare itself to be a “true protector of the working class.”9 Much like the older Alliance Alumni Association, the Cercle des Intimes brought the Jewish upper- and middle-class strata together: its members were mostly aspiring Alliance graduates, while its council included eminent merchants and community notables such as chevalier Jacob Modiano, Dr. Moise Misrahi, lawyer Emmanuel Salem and merchant Joseph Misrahi. Moreover, these two societies were closely connected, with Modiano, Moise Misrahi, and Salem also serving as honorary members and major benefactors of the Alliance Alumni Association. The continuities between these associations and across time were hard to miss.10 However, the specific concern of both societies for the fate of employees and workers was entirely new; in fact, it was indicative of a broader shift in Jewish bourgeois sensibilities. Previously, only the poor—a different social category altogether—had attracted the attention of the emerging Jewish upper strata who, perceiving them as a social problem, departed from earlier, religious understandings of charity and penury. Articulating a new discourse on poverty as a moral and social issue, they embraced philanthropy in order to secure communal stability, legitimize the new social hierarchies, and maintain their power. The proliferation of Jewish philanthropic societies and welfare institutions during the late nineteenth century, culminating in the establishment of the Hirsch Hospital in 1908, reflected the widespread diffusion of this particular worldview within Salonica’s Jewish community.11 “Pensez aux pauvres” stated the characteristic postcard of

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Matanot Laevionim, depicting a group of grateful young children being served at a soup kitchen. Social consensus now rested on a representation of social order in which the “poor” and the “destitute” had been discursively constructed as a distinct social group. Philanthropy thus constituted a necessary element of bourgeois identity. The image of the philanthropist, ideally personified in the figure of Moise Allatini, now symbolized the epitome of bourgeois achievement. For that reason, any concern for employees was not a targeted action, but part of broader associational functions which aimed to help them as individuals, not as a group. Τhe Alliance Alumni Association, for instance, also served as a network for employment opportunities. It functioned as a job agency, assisting unemployed members, both merchants and commercial employees, in finding work within the city or exploring employment prospects abroad. “This,” Secretary Solomon de Botton argued addressing the General Assembly in 1906, was “mutual assistance practiced in the least costly manner, mutual assistance without overhead costs. This, you will agree, is true solidarity.”12 However, in the wake of the Young Turk Revolution, the focus was radically shifting from the generic “poor” to specific occupational strata and trades at the lower end of the social ladder. Over the past decades a set of long-term social transformations and new cultural discourses had been converging to bring these new (and old) professional groups to the center of bourgeois attention. To begin with, the Western-style education provided by the extensive local school network of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, limited as it was to offering only primary instruction to the poorer Jewish population, eventually resulted in an extensive lower-middle class with real but clearly narrow prospects of upward social mobility.13 In addition, the expansion of commerce rather than industry in turn-of-the-century Salonica, together with the historical lack of an extensive and lucrative Jewish artisanal sector, ultimately confined the job opportunities of this educated lower-middle class to the commercial sector. “Commerce is the only outlet available for the activities of educated youth. Our students, upon completing their studies, seek occupation only in business. Trying to combat this trend would, for the moment, be a chimera,” admitted Nehama in 1907. And he continued:

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In recent years, following a profound economic transformation, the commercial activity of our city has increased considerably. Commercial houses have experienced significant growth. This has resulted in a high demand for employees. . . . Hence, commercial schools became a necessity. The Italian School added a section on “commercial skills” to its elementary courses. The Giraud School, which was languishing, regained public favor thanks to its commercial curriculum. The German School and the Franco-German School, two institutions that devote a large part of their program to commercial education, saw an increase in their number of students.14

Many graduates of these schools turned into commercial employees. However, given that most were Jewish and were also overwhelmingly employed in Jewish commercial firms, every labor dispute could now easily develop into intra-communal strife. The emergence of this new stratum thus posed a potentially serious threat to communal cohesion. Attention to its livelihood was therefore imperative for maintaining the established social order. Parallel developments also brought the artisans to center stage. Worried bourgeois Jews increasingly perceived them to be under threat and viewed their survival and expansion to be vital for the entire community. In the late nineteenth century, Greco-Jewish economic rivalry at the fringes of the artisanal world caused alarm among the communal elite. In 1890, Greek Orthodox craftsmen, primarily goldsmiths and blacksmiths, declined to hire Jewish apprentices graduating from the Alliance’s new technical school. They feared such a move would upend the established ethnic division of labor and threaten their long-standing monopoly in these trades, particularly at a time when their dominance was increasingly precarious due to European competition.15 At the same time, local Jewish reformers were attributing a much higher value to manual work. Adopting a Western discourse on labor, they condemned petty trade as unproductive lauding instead the “healthy toil and the blessing of sweat.” In lectures and articles, they argued that only manual labor would help Jews “sever Israel’s chains of servitude.” More mundanely, they also aspired to diversify a dangerously one-dimensional job market and to provide the community’s lower strata with an alternative outlet besides peddling and small trade. “What our community needs,” underlined Joseph

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Nehama, “is to have an ever-increasing number of skilled producers.”16 However, the dominance of Orthodox Greeks in the handicraft sector meant that the reorganization and expansion of the Jewish labor market could only occur at the expense of Greek Orthodox artisans and craftsmen. Therefore, in this instance, too, class relations within the community were closely linked with ethnic relations between the communities. Most importantly, such views were linked to an understanding of inter-communal relations as inevitably antagonistic, as an economic war where one either prevailed or perished. As members of the Alliance Alumni Association argued, “inevitable battles will be waged on the political and economic fronts.” “Individuals and peoples do not fight anymore but in the field of the economy. Whoever does not wish to remain among society’s crippled has to measure his strength, frequently consult his abilities, and, above all, compare himself to others.”17 Thus framed, the fate of the guilds and that of the employees was now becoming crucial for the very survival of the Jewish community itself. All the aforementioned social processes resulted in a reshuffling of the priorities of the Jewish bourgeoisie. Within an increasingly complex and competitive economic landscape, commercial employees and artisans supplanted the “poor” and the “needy” as the primary focus of bourgeois concern. It is therefore no coincidence that the organization of the first Jewish handicraft exhibition by the Alliance Alumni Association aligned well with the members’ ongoing references to new social categories, such as the “commercial proletarians.”18 To secure their future and maintain communal peace, the worried bourgeois and educated middle strata responded by attempting to guide and control Jewish employees and guilds. Social harmony within the community now passed through the regulation of labor relations—specifically, the dynamics between employer and employee. This was the mission which the Cercle des  Intimes and the Alliance Alumni Association (via its Clerks’ and Employees’ Union) set out to accomplish. Initially, the association envisioned the Clerks’ and Employees’ Union as a multiethnic organization open to all “without distinction of race and religion.” According to Nehama: The Alumni Association, utilizing the freedoms granted to Ottoman citizens by the constitution, is organizing a union of clerks and

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employees in Salonica. Once this union is firmly established, the Association plans to organize a workers’ union. Thus, it will foster bonds of solidarity among the city’s diverse populations, which have so far been hostile to each other.19

The Alumni Association believed that Jewish interests could be better safeguarded through the management of broader multiethnic collectives rather than exclusionary practices. The union exemplified yet another instance of the “majority mentality” prevalent among the Jews of Salonica, a mentality that was hegemonic and therefore open. Indeed, one of the union’s first acts was to propose to Muslim employers that the day of rest be moved from Friday to Saturday even for Muslim employees since in a city where Muslims were only the third largest group and business was chiefly conducted by Jews, “this day [Saturday], the market is practically closed.”20 Soon, however, the union lost all its multiethnic pretenses, due to zero non-Jewish participation, and became the mouthpiece of Jewish employees rebranding itself as the Syndicat des Commis et Employés Israélites (Jewish Clerks’ and Employees’ Union). Importantly, Albert Nahmias, the president of the union, also served on the board of the Cercle des Intimes, the new force for a more assertive form of Jewishness, which the union now seemed to embrace as well.21 The union’s principal aim was to uphold communal peace in two main ways: by aiding the institutional organization of a new and volatile social group, the commercial employees; and by introducing them to respectable bourgeois politics. For its leaders, employee interests lay in discipline, moral and intellectual improvement, and the achievement of harmonious labor relations.22 The union condemned strikes and dismissed the idea that employer–employee relations were inherently conflictual. “The Union’s purpose is not in any way to revolt against the employers,” reassured Journal de Salonique. As the interim committee informed the readers of the paper, employers had nothing to fear. In fact, they would be the first to benefit, as the union aimed to instill in its members a love of duty and the ambition to honor their professional obligations. “Union does not mean strikes,” they declared. “The concept of a union does not imply war. . . . Far from it. The Union will bring discipline to commercial employees. This will have the dual

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benefit of morally uplifting the employees and enabling them to better fulfill their duties.” For this reason, the committee was convinced that employers would look favorably upon the union and called on them to provide moral support. This way, the union could adopt “a wise course of action and contribute to the welfare of an important segment of the population without prejudicing any particular interest.”23 For all those reasons, the union’s actions were primarily regulatory. It essentially arbitrated labor disputes within Jewish commercial establishments, intervening in the fall of 1908 to end the employees’ strike at the Errera and Orosdi Back department stores. “We must point out a commendable gesture from the union committee on this occasion,” the Journal de Salonique favorably mentioned. “As soon as they were informed of the event [the strike at the Errera store], the union engaged some staff members to update all the store’s records and put the shelves in order, which was promptly carried out.”24 Furthermore, the union established a labor office to serve the mutual, common interests of Jewish employers and employees.25 In all these ways, then, it aspired to integrate the employees into the existing political framework while securing the primacy of Jewish merchants, both in Salonica’s multiethnic market and within the community. Undoubtedly, the union’s establishment owed much to Jean Jaurès’ humanistic socialism and Masonic ideas, as evidenced by Nehama’s correspondence. As president of the Alliance Alumni Association and a member of the local masonic Lodge Veritas, Nehama had requested statutes of similar French unions from the Grand Loge d’Orient in Paris.26 However, the driving force behind the Alumni Association, the parent organization of the Commercial Employees’ Union, remained “Jewish solidarity” and service to the community.27 Yet, while the discourse of Jewish solidarity had shaped the association’s actions ever since its establishment in 1897, by 1908 its meanings were clearly evolving. The new initiatives it now informed, such as the Employees’ Union, indicated a transformation in the Jewish social imaginary, the representation of social hierarchies, and a shift among members toward a more class-based understanding of their duties as Jews. Artisans received similar attention. In 1908 the Alumni Association established a new Division of Apprenticeship with the aim of producing “good Jewish workers” and improving the intellectual and moral capacities

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of the “Jewish working class.” “In the communal order, it is primarily the working-class element that concerns us,” stressed its president in 1910. A year earlier, the Alumni Association had also organized a public exhibition of Jewish artisanal products.28 However, it was the Cercle des Intimes that made care for the Jewish guilds its principal raison d’être. The Cercle was established in early 1908. It emerged as a reaction of a significant portion of Alliance graduates to the old communal elite’s indifference toward the living conditions of the lower Jewish strata and their failure to confront increasing Greek Orthodox economic aggression. This led to the adoption of the name “Nouveau Cercle des Intimes,” a nod to the original Club des Intimes and its legacy of successful communal modernization and unwavering reformist zeal. The Cercle attracted members from the broader middle class, yet it was guided by representatives of prominent Jewish bourgeois families (like Modiano, Errera, Amar, Aélion, and Tiano), whereas its honorary members included notables such as chevalier Jacob Modiano, Dr. Moise Misrahi, lawyer Emmanuel Salem, and merchant Joseph Misrahi.29 Following the Young Turk Revolution, the Cercle transformed into the primary representative of communal interests, effectively replacing the communal council. Its mission was to contribute to the “moral and material improvement” of the Jewish population by uniting workers and advocating for the interests of Salonica’s Jews. Despite its varied activities, the Cercle primarily focused on protecting Jewish artisans and workers by reorganizing and coordinating them. In its journal La Nasyon, articles appeared on working-class welfare under the series “For the good of the workers,” emphasizing workers’ “independence” and critiquing the belief that insufficient pay was the only labor issue and strikes the only solution. “All union members” and all workers “without exception” were encouraged to attend conferences addressing “the most crucial worker concerns.” During public celebrations, guilds united under the Cercle’s banner, with Cercle members actively participating in guild councils. Efforts to establish a guild federation were pursued, and an evening school for workers was founded. A “guilds’ commission,” led by Maurice Modiano was also formed.30 Furthermore, an ambitious project to create a cooperative bank (Banka Popolara) to serve the credit needs of the countless Jewish small

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Figure 5.  Share issued by the Commercial Company of Salonica, 1895. Source: Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki

traders nearly materialized, with plans drawn up for initial capital of one million francs and the founding shareholders’ assembly taking place in late October 1910. Finally, in the critical tobacco manufacturing sector, the Cercle mediated labor disputes between Jewish workers and employers. In 1909, it spearheaded the establishment of a permanent committee of communal notables, whose arbitration was accepted by major Jewish tobacco companies like Herzog and the Commercial Company, as well as their workers. This initiative aimed to prevent “grave incidents of the recent past” and “resolve issues arising between capital and labor.” For the Cercle, workers were to be treated with discipline, yet also with sympathy and respect, as they were “like our good brothers.”31

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All these discourses and initiatives represented a departure from the existing philanthropic practices of providing relief to the poor. They indicated a growing concern for the fate of the lower classes and constituted an attempt to deal pre-emptively with emerging social conflicts by introducing and regulating new social actors. The revolutionary conjuncture made this both possible and necessary. In the first months of the revolution, recurrent demonstrations and strikes, the anti-Austrian and anti-Greek boycotts, as well as the general elections, rapidly opened the field of politics to the masses. Inside the Jewish community, social peace now depended on the social inclusion of the Jewish popular strata, which it was hoped would be effected through a reasoned defense of their professional interests under bourgeois guidance. Enjoying the symbolic and material support of the communal elite as well as that of the press, the Cercle des Intimes and the Alliance Alumni Association sought to do just that, and in the process reconfirm the legitimacy of the existing social order and secure the power of elite merchants and the educated middle class over these new political subjects.32 However, the project proved stillborn. Early on, in October 1908, the Clerks’ and Employees’ Union fell short of its arbitrational role and failed to dissuade the personnel of Orosdi Back, a leading Jewish department store, from striking. Less than a year later, the union even responded positively to the call of the Socialist Federation to sign a petition of all labor associations against the new anti-trade-union law—a clear sign of autonomy from its bourgeois patrons.33 As time passed by, the attitude of the commercial employees seemed to be getting more radical rather than deferential. The Cercle des Intimes faced similar challenges in its attempt to organize and control the guilds, particularly from 1909 onwards due to the emergence of the Socialist Federation. Historiography may have overemphasized the federation’s role in the development of a working-class movement in Young Turk Salonica.34 Notably, the federation was completely absent from the port, a critical arena for class relations in the city, especially during the antiAustrian and anti-Greek boycotts. However, its establishment profoundly impacted intra-Jewish politics. The federation’s consolidation as a significant trade union force hinged on diminishing the Cercle des Intimes’ influence among the lower strata. Indeed, in its first year, between 1909 and 1910, the federation effectively challenged the Cercle’s control over the councils of key

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Jewish unions and guilds, successfully winning them over. This started with the largest Jewish labor association of tobacco workers which was led by a Cercle-affiliated tobacco merchant. Even symbolically, the federation’s separate celebration of the constitution’s restoration, with slogans like “Long live the future workers’ party,” “Long live the Socialist Party of Salonica,” and “Workers of the world unite,” indicated a shift away from a political stance that merged class politics with communal and ethnic Jewish power. What followed was a feud-like rivalry between the two organizations for control of the lower strata which reached a peak in May 1911 when the federation openly accused the Cercle of being behind the arrest of four of its leaders by Ottoman authorities. By this time, however, the socialists had already ousted the Cercle’s representatives from the boards of several unions and guilds, winning significant support. The Cercle’s influence among the lower classes waned and its consensual politics of harmonious employer–employee relationships was rejected in favor of a more confrontational approach.35 During the same period, internal divisions further impaired the Cercle’s efforts. In April 1910, the association split as personal feuds coalesced with ideological divergences. In the past year, there had been increasing dissatisfaction among many members of the Cercle regarding the club’s increasingly friendly stance toward the Alliance. Those staying behind continued to remain ideologically close to the assimilationist views of the Alliance while those departing founded the Nouveau Club (literally New Club, not to be confused with Nea Lesche, the Greek Orthodox New Club) and embraced Zionism. Both societies shared the same social profile. Much like the Cercle, the Nouveau Club drew its most prominent cadres, like David Matalon, Leon Recanati and president Jacques Asseo, from the merchant elite, whereas most of its members were also Alliance graduates. However, the conflict between the two associations was relentless, taking the form of a “bitter war” which even included street fights.36 The split and the ensuing conflict were illustrative of Zionism’s deep impact on the class politics of the Jewish community. After the revolution, the Zionists took advantage of the freedom of the press and the right of association to reach beyond the narrow French-speaking Jewish public by financing several Ladino publications and establishing numerous societies and committees. Already in early 1909, Moise Benghiat, the director

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of the Alliance’s local elementary school, reported in panic to the organization’s headquarters in Paris that, “Today, with the freedom of assembly and the freedom of the press, Zionist committees are being established everywhere.”37 Zionists thus managed to appeal to the “masses” and the “petite bourgeoisie” as Nehama would call it, namely, the literate but disenfranchised lower-middle strata of commercial and communal employees, clerks, and shopkeepers. The Nouveau Club fashioned itself as a movement against the communal establishment and thus managed to win them over. At the same time, Zionism divided the educated middle strata (Nehama’s moyenne bourgeoisie) of merchants, journalists, teachers, and other professionals, and made some inroads into the commercial bourgeoisie. Most importantly, Zionists repeatedly attacked the upper-class supporters of the Alliance’s educational work by deriding them as assimilated, Europeanized non-Jews. The criticism of the Zionists was mainly directed against the Alliance schools, which they condemned for alienating young Jewish children from religion and for turning them into “bad Ottomans, bad Jews, and bad sons.” Zionism thus further politicized the lower-middle strata, split the middle ones (to follow Nehama’s terminology), and also discredited the hitherto exemplary Jewishness of the elite. By adopting cultural Zionism, the Nouveau Club and other organizations like Bene Sion did not simply transform the “Jewish solidarity” of the Cercle des Intimes into a proto-national identity.38 On the contrary, by devaluing the hitherto exemplary Jewishness of the bourgeoisie, they in fact challenged its hegemony. Whereas the politics of the Cercle des Intimes aimed at integrating the lower strata into the existing social and ideological order and by doing so secure communal cohesion, Zionism managed to challenge both these objectives. Mass politics in the Second Constitutional Period proved an increasingly difficult terrain to tread for the Jewish merchant elite and its fellow travelers, the educated middle strata. Ongoing socioeconomic transformations and the new possibilities for collective action the new regime offered widened the field of politics bringing forth new social groups and new political actors. But they also complicated the reproduction of social hierarchies and the maintenance of an ideological consensus inside the community. Associations of the educated middle strata (in close contact with the communal, merchant elite) responded by attempting to assert their position in the name

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of communal unity and took it upon themselves to organize and articulate the particular interests of the lower strata. However, their efforts proved futile. The commercial employees followed an increasingly autonomous course of action; important guilds were taken over by the Socialist Federation; and Zionism split the middle class itself and challenged the ideological dominance of the communal elite. The outcome was a fractured social and political landscape. For Jewish merchants, it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain their hold over a community in flux. Their primacy was being contested from within. A House in Order: The Greeks In the Greek Orthodox community, similar efforts were made to uphold the existing social order by regulating the changing social landscape. These parallel developments presented an additional challenge to Jewish merchants, this time from without. From the end of the nineteenth century, Greek Orthodox merchants had gradually improved their previously marginal position in the city’s market. The establishment of branches of Greek banks, such as the Banque d’Orient and the Bank of Athens, provided them with necessary credit and relative autonomy from Jewish moneylenders, or the “Shylockian usurers,” according to the Greek press.39 These trends gained momentum after the Young Turk Revolution, enabling Greek Orthodox merchants to enter into lucrative market sectors hitherto monopolized by the Jews. In early 1909, a group of prominent merchants and industrialists founded the Anglo-Hellenic Commercial Company. This wholesale and retail venture aimed to break the Jewish monopoly in the lucrative import trade and serve the purchasing needs of Greek Orthodox traders from the hinterland, who had so far been fully dependent on Jewish-owned businesses such as Stein, Orosdi Back, and Errera. The Anglo-Hellenic Company quickly established itself as a significant commercial player, proving both enduring and profitable. Meanwhile, that same year, prominent entrepreneurs from Naoussa, keen to tap into the more profitable Salonican market, established the Naoussa ice factory, which expanded to include beer-making in 1912. This new and successful industrial venture collaborated closely with the influential Greek Orthodox guild of licensed off-sale vendors and café owners, effectively

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challenging the monopoly of the Jewish-owned Olympos Brewery and ice factory of Fernandez and Misrahi.40 Significantly, the fragile but steady economic advancement of Greek Orthodox merchants coincided with their growing prominence in Greek nationalist discourse. Emanating from Athens but now spreading among Ottoman Greeks, this discourse linked Greek supremacy in Ottoman Macedonia to the control of the local economy and finance, and all that to social engineering. In this context, commercial enterprise became as pivotal to the nation’s expansion and the health of its Darwinist “social body” as philanthropy.41 Georgios Hadjikyriakou, a notable Greek publicist in Salonica, articulated this view unequivocally, when he stated that: Whoever establishes a factory today in a city like ours, or founds a good commercial house, or undertakes a serious corporate venture, deserves no less honor and blessing than one who establishes a welfare or philanthropy asylum. The difference lies in the latter caring for the suffering, the sick and the disabled, while the former benefits healthy and robust citizens needed by society and the nation. Which of the two is more beneficial?42

The economic activities of Greek Orthodox merchants and industrialists were now increasingly fashioned as a service to national interests, and commercial enterprise was being elevated to the same level of importance for national survival as education. This shift endowed the merchants’ professional identity with national and thus noble connotations, strengthening their social standing by granting them additional symbolic capital. As the Greek Orthodox newspaper Makedonia noted in 1912, “the commercial-industrial class [now constitutes] the force of the Greek population.”43 In addition, during those years, group cohesion among Greek Orthodox merchants was significantly strengthened. In 1906, the passing of new community regulations terminated a long period of paralyzing internal divisions that had split the merchants and the community apart. Furthermore, as we saw, between 1904 and 1906 many among them participated in the Greek nationalist Salonica Organization, the secret group that sought to strengthen Greek presence in the city by combating the local Bulgarians. Common action for a mutual cause brought them closer together. In the marketplace, Greek Orthodox shops stood out with their white and blue colors and the large

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Greek signs on their facades. “About a year ago, Greek merchants in Salonica, in order to distinguish their shops from those of other nationalities, put up signs colored with our national colors and with various symbols of their national aspirations and ideals,” the Greek consul reported approvingly in early 1908.44 In fact, these trends reflected a broader ideological consensus embracing the entire community. In contrast to the Jews, there was no confrontation over alternative notions of Greekness akin to the clash between the Zionists and the “Alliancists,” the supporters of the Alliance Israélite Universelle and its assimilationist ideology. Rather, Greek nationalism tightened its grip over Salonica’s Greek Orthodox population for two main reasons. On the one hand, the Greek state exercised significant ideological control through its consular presence and its financial support for the community’s educational institutions. On the other hand, the long-lasting Greco-Bulgarian rivalry over Ottoman Macedonia, as well as Greco-Jewish economic antagonism in Salonica, generated a quasi-siege mentality and prompted a closing of ranks on the Greek side. Consequently, communal bonds remained closely knit around a shared notion of Greekness. Even in 1908, enthusiasm for the Young Turk Revolution and the widespread sense of brotherhood it generated proved short lived. As the Greek consul observed: Our compatriots, always prone to enthusiasms and disappointments, foolishly hoped that the constitution heralded a golden age for the Ottoman state and [Ottoman] Hellenism, leading them to view all national work as redundant. . . . Through loud complaints, they criticized all national work. It is true that these individuals have always formed a sizable group of professional debaters and critics. However, the majority of people, both in the city and the provinces, maintained their enthusiasm and their devotion to the Greek Consulate. This was clearly demonstrated as they wholeheartedly followed the consulate’s guidance during the general elections. It is also true that when the initial enthusiasm quickly evaporated (to which, by divine providence, both Turkish arbitrariness and Bulgarian violence contributed), everyone realized the futility of their early hopes.45

After the Young Turk Revolution, Greek Orthodox associational activity intensified, further solidifying this renewed communal unity. In August

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1908, the Ethnikos Syndesmos (National Club) was established. This club aimed to become a central, widely recognized organization representing the entire community in the local political scene and managing its relationships with the Ottoman authorities and the Committee of Union and Progress. Importantly, the differences between the native Greek Orthodox Ottomans and the resident citizens of the Greek state were also virtually non-existent. The two-year anti-Greek boycott actually contributed more to strengthening their ties than causing divisions, since, over time, the boycott targeted not only Greek nationals residing in the empire but the Greek Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman state, too.46 To secure social harmony, a series of parallel initiatives were undertaken. Numerous public lectures by bank managers, merchants and other businessmen emphasized the benefits of mutuality on both social and national grounds, claiming that it “contributed to our economic prevalence, bridged the existing gap between various social classes,” and fostered “the great work of social regeneration, national enrichment, and mutual prosperity.” Similarly, the chief Greek Orthodox commercial association, the New Club, supported financially the evening school established by the (Greek Orthodox) Educational Society of Salonica, aiming to “promote the intellectual and moral development of the commercial and artisanal class of our youth.” Simultaneously, the establishment of a cooperative bank was also being planned.47 Like their Jewish counterparts, the Greek Orthodox merchants sensed the dynamic of the “popular classes,” and articulated an identical moralizing discourse of self-help, mutual aid, and common employer– employee interests to win them over. However, unlike the Jewish case, their efforts proved successful, and no challenge to their leadership emerged from among the working or lower-middle strata. Even in the summer and autumn of 1908, when a wave of strikes hit many prominent Jewish firms such as the Brasserie Olympos, the Allatini flour mill, the Errera and Orosdi Back department stores and the Sides spinnery, Greek Orthodox businesses remained untouched.48 Behind this communal peace lay the unifying power of Greek nationalism which worked to legitimize the authority of the Greek Orthodox merchant elite. As a result, Greek Orthodox workers did not join the multiethnic Socialist Federation. Similarly, in August 1908, Greek Orthodox employees chose not

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to enroll in the open-for-all Employees’ Union; instead, they formed their own Employees’ Association, which tellingly cultivated close ties with the National Club.49 The Greek Orthodox guilds equally remained under the influence of middle-class men, mainly lawyers and educators, who were fervent supporters of Greek nationalism. The president of the important Guild of Bakers, also honorary president of the Guild of Laborers, and first president of the Guilds’ Association (founded in 1909) was Georgios Hadjikyriakou, a man of unquestionable nationalist credentials. Hadjikyriakou was a professor at the Greek Orthodox Gymnasium and a Greek national whom the Ottoman authorities expelled from Salonica in 1910 for engaging in anti-Ottoman activities. Importantly, he was also the most prominent spokesman for Greek Orthodox business interests. A fervent speaker and writer, he stressed the “great importance of Greek industry from a national standpoint” as well as the contribution which newly founded factories were making to “Greek power.” As secretary of the National Club, he even went as far as to accuse the Salonica branches of Greek banks of inadequately supporting Greek Orthodox commercial establishments. Hadjikyriakou perfectly embodied the twofold objective of coordinating the interests of the lower classes while ensuring that existing social hierarchies remained intact. Overall, then, Greek nationalism secured social cohesion and reinforced class hierarchies to such an extent that even strikes were welcome. As evidenced by the Greek consul’s approval of the “manly stance” of the Greek Orthodox waiters and their decision to strike rather than serve Bulgarian visitors in August 1908, the primary fear of the upper Greek Orthodox stratum was more about the Ottoman brotherhood of ethnicities than a nonexistent class conflict. The outcome was close class cooperation in the service of national interests, as exemplified by the selection process for the Greek Orthodox candidates in the national elections of 1912. They were chosen by a twelve-member committee, which included representatives from across the social strata: four members from the communal council, two from the New Club, two from the Employees’ Association, two from the Guilds’ Association, and two from the National Club.50 In parallel with its Jewish counterpart, then, the Greek Orthodox community of Salonica went through a similar set of social transformations and political shifts. From the turn of the century, its social structure increasingly

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centered around an upcoming merchant elite, a developing lower-middle class of commercial employees, and a traditional stratum of artisans and craftsmen. During the Second Constitutional Period, the lower strata were politicized, organizing themselves into professional associations much like the Jews. However, this early crystallization of “class” interests took place under the unchallenged leadership of the communal elite and was shaped by the unifying power of Greek nationalism. For that reason, it actually strengthened communal cohesion and solidified the leading position of the major merchant notables. In a period when Jewish merchants saw their hegemony challenged by competing forces inside the community, their Greek Orthodox peers successfully managed to reassert theirs. Developments in class relations inside each community were therefore slowly impacting interethnic relations in the city at large as they eroded the existing balance of power between its two most important groups, the Jewish and the Greek Orthodox merchants. A City in Flux: The Merchants Meanwhile, heightened ethnic tensions between different strata in the marketplace intersected with the ongoing restructuring of class relations inside the two communities, eventually challenging the overall dominant position of Salonica’s multiethnic commercial bourgeoisie across the city. In late 1908, Greek Orthodox and Jewish merchants were drawn into interethnic disputes for the first time in decades. Then, 14 unemployed Greek Orthodox manual workers, sacked from the Jewish-owned Allatini tile factory, purchased some carts and reached an agreement with several Greek Orthodox merchants to carry their merchandise. The merchants found the deal economically attractive, eager as they were to free themselves from the then dominant Jewish carters and their unfavorable terms. For the Jewish carters, however, this was an unequivocally hostile act, a challenge to their monopoly that could set a dangerous precedent. Consequently, they reached out to the powerful group of Jewish wholesale merchants and managed to secure their backing under the threat of boycotting the transfer of their merchandise. Jewish wholesalers obliged and thus ceased all dealings with their Greek Orthodox clients for as long as the latter refused to hire Jewish carters. The issue dragged on for days and turned into a virtual standoff. First, Jewish carters refused to serve

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Greek Orthodox merchants as long as they employed Greek Orthodox carters. Then, to maximize pressure, Jewish merchants also refused to deliver the produce that Greek Orthodox commissioners had purchased unless Jewish carters were hired to transport it. In response, Greek Orthodox merchants resolutely rejected all Jewish demands. At this point, the situation eventually became so tense that Jews threatened to declare a full-scale boycott of all local Greek Orthodox commerce. In the end, the crisis deescalated only after a committee composed “of the best Jewish and Greek merchants” convened to settle the terms of an agreement and a compromise was reached. This was, however, a compromise in name only, and the Greek Orthodox carters eventually succeeded in entering the carters’ guild under their own master.51 The incident dealt a serious blow to the self-confidence of the Jewish lower strata. It not only ended their monopoly in the carriage of goods but also set an alarming precedent, foreshadowing previously unforeseen threats to their livelihood. The potential for further escalation only added to their concern. During the same period, the anti-Austrian boycott committee seriously contemplated extending the boycott to include Greek vessels and products, in response to unfavorable developments in Crete and to counter the Cretan Greeks’ unilateral declaration of union with Greece. Jewish stevedores were alarmed. They rushed to make their reservations clear fearing that such a boycott would open the door for Greek Orthodox workers to enter yet another historically Jewish occupation. As they admitted: If the boycott against Greece is implemented, we will be ruined, and the unloading work will escape our hands because the Greeks will bring barges as they used to bring carts. And as we have examples up to now, they will successfully compete with us even in the unloading of European steamships.52

By contrast, the carters’ incident empowered the Orthodox Greeks. The manual workers managed to penetrate a crucial, traditionally Jewish occupational niche, considerably expanding their presence in the local job market. The merchants, too, advanced their position on both fronts, freeing themselves from the control of Jewish carters and, no less, successfully challenging the authority of the powerful Jewish wholesalers. At the same time, the incident brought the two Greek Orthodox groups closer together as the pursuit

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of common economic interests solidified communal cohesion and made evident the benefits of harmonious class relations and cross-class cooperation between coreligionists. Moreover, the incident helped Orthodox Greeks present themselves as good Ottomans and so gain precious credence in the eyes of local public opinion at the expense of the Jews. At the height of the conflict, the Greek Orthodox press stressed the inalienable right to work which every Ottoman citizen should enjoy, claiming that: Freedom of labor is . . . the prime capital of a constitutional and liberal state. It is the most important characteristic of a people in which, as a free entity, there is also freedom of will and freedom of conscience. . . . With such petty, unfree, and authoritarian acts [like those of the Jewish carters], the desired fraternization cannot be achieved.53

By contrast, the Cercle des Intimes, which rushed to defend the Jewish carters, read the event as an anti-Jewish attack. Consequently, it responded by appealing to a community-wide Jewish solidarity rather than employ a supra-ethnic discourse, namely, the languages of political economy and constitutional liberties which the Greek Orthodox had appropriated.54 Thus, while the Cercle understood the carters’ incident in narrow ethnic terms, the Greek Orthodox press managed to present it as a general affront to the broader Ottomanist project of interethnic brotherhood and equal rights and duties for all. By defending their own, particularist interests, the Jews were exposed as having acted unpatriotically. To make matters worse for the Cercle, the Greek line of argumentation merely replicated the rhetoric used by both the Greek Orthodox and the Jewish press against earlier labor mobilizations. During the strike wave of August 1908, the Journal de Salonique, while welcoming the establishment of trade unions and often warmly acknowledging the right of the “poor workers” to strike, vehemently condemned the obstruction of strike breakers by the strikers, framing it as a violation of their own right to work. As the newspaper stated, “I have the right to go on strike, but not the right to infringe upon the freedom of labor, to mistreat the employers, or to beat up the workers.”55 For the Jews, in fact, questioning their model Ottomanism was just one of the many ways the incident challenged their dominant place in the city.

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Jewish control over both ends of the multiethnic market was also called into question since cooperation between the carters and the wholesale merchants proved ineffective and the ability of the two groups to impose their will was curtailed. More crucially, the carters’ incident seriously tested the capacity of the Cercle des Intimes to protect Jewish workers. Ever since its foundation, Cercle members had invested considerable effort, time, and money to “raise high the flag of Israel,” as Secretary Pepo Modiano declared. The Cercle recognized the organizational weaknesses of Salonican Jewry when compared to other communities, notably the Orthodox Greeks and especially the Bulgarians. One article in La Nasyon vividly illustrated this point, noting that if a Bulgarian was “struck” even with a piece of paper, within 24 hours, the Bulgarian Constitutional Club in Salonica would be informed, and the incident would be publicized and denounced. By contrast, according to the Cercle, Ottoman Jews faced serious disadvantages in administrative effectiveness and, crucially, in unity, particularly at a time when all ethnicities were zealously promoting their interests. To rectify this, the Cercle aimed to convene a conference of representatives from all Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire and establish a central administrative body, an initiative it aptly called Union i Kongreso (Unity and Congress), an unmissable allusion to the inspiringly successful Young Turk Committee of Union and Progress, or Union i Progreso in Ladino.56 The Cercle’s attention to the lower strata underscored a similar commitment to communal unity. Transforming into a “real protector of the working class,” the Cercle strove to contribute to the “moral and material elevation” of the Jewish population by uniting all workers and defending their interests. Protecting them would consolidate communal solidarity and strengthen the position of Salonican Jewry as a whole within the new, volatile post-revolutionary environment.57 Failure to achieve these objectives would not only threaten the community’s cohesion but also, crucially, weaken the position of the entire Jewish nation across the Ottoman Empire. To accomplish its objectives, the Cercle articulated a much more assertive perception of Jewishness, aiming to “give to the Jew[s]” the same “courage” and “self-confidence” to fight for their rights as those which other ethnicities showed.58 The Cercle thus became the staunchest champion of Jewish guilds, defending their interests whenever a Greek Orthodox challenge arose. So

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strong was its reaction that more moderate observers like Joseph Nehama spoke about the Cercle’s “nationalist tendencies . . . which manifest themselves into chauvinistic hostility against the Greeks.”59 The discourse and interventions of the Cercle heightened interethnic tensions. They also raised the stakes of every single ethnic skirmish, no matter how small, since securing communal unity was increasingly dependent upon successfully retaining the Jews’ position in the market against any encroachment, Greek Orthodox or otherwise. However, as the carters’ incident amply demonstrated, the Cercle’s strategy did not pay off and disappointed Jewish workers found themselves in a position worse than before. With class relations within the Jewish community progressively intertwined with the course interethnic relations were taking outside of it, control of the lower strata (of the kind the Cercle advocated) was proving increasingly arduous and significantly riskier. A growing politicization among Salonica’s Muslims jeopardized the position of the Jewish entrepreneurs even further. In 1908 a Union of Muslim Clerks and Employees was formed, its activity blending nationalist with class politics. The union advocated a Friday rest for Muslim employees, but it also organized rallies against the annexation of Eastern Rumelia to Bulgaria; demonstrated against the union of the island of Crete with Greece; and clamored in favor of an anti-Greek boycott. However, on the local scene, it was the Jews that drew its attention. In August 1910, several Muslim merchants petitioned the chamber of commerce to move the day of bill settlement from “sacred” Friday to “profane” Thursday. In its response, the chamber erroneously suggested that the only obstacle was the Jews, who, forming the majority, would not allow it. This unfortunate reply provoked a verbose reaction from the Muslim press and caused the wrath of the Union of Muslim Clerks and Employees whose official journal went on to make vicious attacks on the Jewish merchants. The Jewish merchants counter-reacted and eventually the whole episode ended with the Jews willingly agreeing to the move.60 However, the insinuations made against them as the issue was debated indicated once again a growing cross-ethnic discontent with their dominant position in the market. No matter how heightened, such inter-communal tensions still did not produce any major ruptures inside Salonica’s commercial elite. As in previous years, merchants came together via petitions and deliberation of

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Figure 6.  Letterhead of the Sousmouch Ibrahim trade firm, 1911. Source: Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 182, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece

professional matters in the city’s chamber of commerce. Meetings like the one of merchants and maritime agents to discuss the question of increased landing and transit charges in the port were recurrent.61 In fact, the volatile post-revolutionary social landscape ended up encouraging new forms of cooperation. Early on, the widespread strikes of September 1908 rallied the entrepreneurs. A representative committee was formed which, acting in the name of the “commercial class,” congratulated the Committee of Union and Progress and Mayor Adil Bey for preventing the strike of the employees of the Compagnie des  Chemins de  Fer Orientaux (Oriental Railway Company). Around the same time, a tobacco strike alarmed factory owners from every community, leading to the formation of a multiethnic employers’ union and a lock out “to starve the 4,000 workers.”62 The anti-Austrian and especially the anti-Greek boycott also brought to the fore the merchants’ common professional interests. Already in November 1908, the most prominent among them established a boycott committee which aimed to arrange the anti-Austrian boycott in ways that would not harm the interests of the Ottoman merchants. Later, there emerged an overall reluctance to participate in the boycotts, and committees were

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formed to appeal to the government and dissuade the Committee of Union and Progress from carrying on with its boycott plans. Thus, concerned Jewish and Muslim merchants convened in August 1909 and in a joint meeting decided to ask the governor and the Committee of Union and Progress to intervene and stop the anti-Greek boycott. Similarly, in September 1909, the Club Maritime, which represented the agents of the foreign maritime companies, also submitted a petition along the same lines. In fact, as the anti-Greek boycott dragged on, the merchants’ protests continued uninterrupted. Jewish merchants had already been reluctant to participate in it in August 1909. This reluctance persisted, and in June 1910, when a new boycott was declared, it once again met with opposition from various merchant parties.63 In a multiethnic but integrated market, boycotts were harming the business interests of all entrepreneurs regardless of their ethnic background. Equally, they were also challenging the merchants’ dominant position in the market and the city at large by bringing a subaltern group, the stevedores, to the fore. The committee of the anti-Greek boycott (presided by a stevedore, Kerim Aga) resorted to threats, blackmailing, even physical violence in order to force the Greek Orthodox and Jewish merchants to pay a fee and obtain a certificate of Ottoman citizenship so as not to be inadvertently boycotted. Furthermore, the stevedores now presented themselves as representatives of the “people” on whose initiative the boycott was called. Their sudden empowerment subverted the established order of the marketplace. And their claim to be expressing the popular will contested the notion of the “respectable elements of our city” representing Salonica as a whole.64 More crucially, in the first post-revolutionary year, Greco-Jewish animosity, fed as it was by an unbridled press, alarmed the entrepreneurs. The language used by newspapers such as the Greek Orthodox Pharos tes Thessalonikes and Aletheia, and the Jewish Journal de  Salonique, which were in conflict with each other, was extremely charged. Aletheia depicted the Cercle des Intimes as a “secret society,” while Journal de Salonique resorted to name-calling against Garpolas, the publisher of Pharos, referring to him as a “nag,” “big idiot,” “bear,” “monkey face,” and “scabby beast.”65 Consequently, following the carters’ incident, Greek Orthodox and Jewish merchants agreed to establish a joint committee to oversee the market and

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prevent such conflicts of interest from breaking out again. Following that, in May 1909 the notables of the Greek Orthodox community visited the fair for the benefit of the Jewish schools en masse in order to demonstrate that they had absolutely no truck with the “agitators” of the press. Furthermore, as a member of the Greek Orthodox community’s council, merchant Pericles Hadjilazarou reprimanded Ioannis Kouskouras, editor of the newspaper Aletheia, for his anti-Jewish writings.66 And, as president of the prestigious multiethnic Cercle de Salonique, he attempted to establish an association to strengthen Greco-Jewish relations. Hadjilazarou was an ardent supporter of Greek irredentism, member of the nationalist Salonica Organization, and president of the Anglo-Hellenic Company, but he also retained excellent relations with the Jewish financial elite. His conciliatory attitude was in fact indicative of a broader, carefully calculated stance. As the Greek consul noted during the period of the carters’ incident, “until the Greek merchants are fully prepared to compete with the Jews, we have advised them [to exercise] much prudence in their decisions.”67 Greek Orthodox merchants consciously refrained from directly challenging Jewish economic predominance, choosing instead to advance their position by fashioning themselves as guarantors of social peace—at least for the time being. From anti-boycott petitions and joint committees to the formation of Greco-Jewish societies, all these instances of multiethnic collaboration represented an attempt by Salonica’s merchants to curb inter-communal tensions, stabilize their relations as a group, and finally reassert their hegemony in the city during a period of acute change. For the first time, Greco-Jewish relations became a subject of public concern, evolving into an “issue” that required resolution not just in closed-door discussions among religious leaders but through open deliberations in the public sphere. This shift is further underscored by the fact that the protagonists of the carters’ incident, including the Cercle des Intimes and the editors of Greek and Jewish newspapers, convened and agreed to form a mixed and permanent committee tasked with overseeing the market and proactively resolving any disputes that might arise between Jews and Orthodox Greeks at their onset.68 However, competing narratives added to the inter- and intra-communal social conflicts discussed earlier, making this attempt increasingly ineffective. These narratives were particularly troubling for the merchants, precisely

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because they now constructed the ethnoreligious “Other” by focusing on commercial interests. Thus, the Jews read Greek Orthodox economic expansion, penetration into historic Jewish niches, and the ensuing clashes, as interconnected parts of a broader, long-term Greek irredentist plan to make Salonica Greek.69 Conversely, Orthodox Greeks discerned behind the anti-Greek boycott the machinations of the Jewish entrepreneurs who aimed at weakening and ultimately dethroning the Greek Orthodox merchants from the dominant position they generally held in the economy of the Ottoman Empire. “The Jews,” remarked Hadjikyriakou, “exhibited an anti-Greek behavior and participated energetically in the persecution of the Greeks in order to satisfy their commercial interests and their insatiable Jewish profiteering.”70 Finally, those Muslim Turks who followed the discourse of the liberal opposition party increasingly saw the Zionists and the Jews more generally as aiming at the economic subjugation of the Ottoman Empire. Remarkably, in late 1909, even the congress of the Committee of Union and Progress decided that merchants could not be members of the central committee unless they abstained from their professional activities.71 At a time when Salonica’s multiethnic merchant bourgeoisie strove to retain its internal coherence and control over the city, the image of the profit-seeking merchant was used extensively to produce recognizable ethnic stereotypes and feed interethnic animosity. Classed images of ethnic difference as well as periodic conflict involving different social strata thus countered the attempts of merchants to manage interethnic relations. The merchants’ urban hegemony was increasingly challenged, as was the position of the most powerful element within it, the Jews. The two processes moved in parallel. The dominant position of Jewish merchants was equally based on the vertical control of their own community and on their undisputed place in the city’s market. However, during the Second Constitutional Period the rise of new social forces inside and outside the community made their position increasingly vulnerable. The broader contestation of the city’s multiethnic commercial bourgeoisie further intensified this process as the (“Jewish” and “Greek”) merchant now turned from an emblem of urban pride into a key symbol of interethnic conflict. Social transformations in Young Turk Salonica took the form of a substantive restructuring of existing class (for lack of better term) and ethnic

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relations both inside and outside the Jewish and Greek Orthodox communities. Evidently, post-revolutionary politics extended beyond the mobilization of the working and popular classes or bringing together an urban middle class through common public action, the twin processes which current historiography has so far detected.72 The eventual outcome of all those shifts was the erosion of a particular configuration of a local, Jewish-led, multiethnic commercial bourgeoisie and with it, Jewish hegemony. In 1911, the bankruptcy of the Modiano Bank and the difficulties prominent Jewish entrepreneurs holding Italian citizenship experienced after the outbreak of the Italo-Ottoman War dealt a further blow.73 Even before 1912 and the entrance of Greek troops to the city, the dominant position of the Jews was being contested while that of the Orthodox Greeks was steadily improving. Meanwhile, the “merchant” was turning into a symbolic representation of class and ethnicity in a state of flux. Where all this would end up was unknown at that time. In 1912 and 1913, the Balkan Wars once again reshuffled the cards in the game; in fact, they changed its rules altogether. Still, the seeds had been sown and so what happened once the Greek army entered Salonica was as much a continuation of ongoing trends as it was a rupture of them. For the prominent Jewish merchants above all, there was a line, albeit a crooked one, connecting the travails of the revolution to those of the war. To this story of yet more conflict we now turn.

FOUR

The Balkan Wars Politics in Times of Conflict

In the early autumn of 1912, the Christian Balkan states of Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro set aside their long and bitter rivalries and hastily formed a military coalition against the Ottoman Empire. This unforeseen turn of events caught European diplomats completely off guard. The unimaginable had just happened. The coalition, better known as the Balkan Alliance, launched a coordinated assault on the Ottoman army from multiple directions, achieving a series of remarkable victories, as much unexpected as they were unprecedented. Within a month, “Turkey in Europe” was a thing of the past and the political map of the Balkans was poised for a complete redrawing.1 For the combatants, the First Balkan War proved to be relatively short and not as bloody as they anticipated. Salonica, too, was spared a siege and emerged from the conflict largely unscathed. Hasan Tahsin Pasha, the commander of the Third Army Corps, recognized the futility of resistance and instead negotiated a peaceful surrender to the rapidly advancing Greek forces. On October  26, 1912, Crown Prince Constantine and his troops entered the city, with a strong Bulgarian contingent following suit 136

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a day later. The transfer of power proceeded smoothly: it was orderly, even uneventful.2 However, the merchants, including both Jews and Greeks, faced significant setbacks during the war, regardless of its brevity or the side they found themselves on. When hostilities commenced in late September 1912, all international orders were either put on hold or promptly canceled. Business transactions with the Macedonian hinterland, which had become a battlefield, ground to a halt, and bank credit was drastically reduced. In Salonica, the market came to a standstill, and purchases were limited to bare essentials. Meanwhile, food prices soared by over 35 percent, disproportionately affecting the lower strata but also hitting the more affluent.3 Occupying both roles, as suppliers but also as consumers, the merchants bore twice the brunt. The situation took a turn for the worse when the Ottoman army surrendered, and Greek and Bulgarian forces entered the city. The cascading repercussions of the war were deeply felt across all sectors of the local economy, affecting Greeks and Jews alike. However, ethnicity mattered, and not solely because Christian merchants could now rejoice as “Greeks” and “Bulgarians,” while Jews and Muslims faced the ominous prospect of becoming a minority in a Christian state. Rather, the war further exacerbated ongoing tensions between Greeks and Jews in the marketplace and also posed a substantial challenge to the self-perception and communal leadership of Jewish merchants. In essence, the war continued the path that had been set during the Second Constitutional Period. While the conflict marked a major geopolitical rupture, it also fostered continuities in terms of the politics of commerce and the politicization of merchant identities. At the same time, the fluidity of the period, the unprecedented turns, sudden shifts, and deep ruptures, also broadened the range of commercial politics. Much as they found themselves under severe pressure from various directions, Salonica’s Jewish merchants succeeded in temporarily reasserting their prominence by leading a remarkable cross-ethnic merchant initiative between the First and Second Balkan Wars. Building on their continent-wide business networks, the city’s importers and exporters challenged the imposition of new borders and carried their protests out of their city and across Europe. As public debate on commerce became increasingly

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polarized, the merchants’ mobilization also intensified. Paradoxically, then, war signaled not the collapse of politics but their high point. Taking a variety of forms, political action and political discourse came to matter more than ever before. Politics, it seemed, was the continuation of war by other means. And while merchants came under attack, they also managed to put up a united front. Jews in Conflict, Merchants in Crisis “The brutality of the soldiers, the Greeks in particular, surpasses the limits permitted even for those intoxicated by gunpowder,” reported Joseph Misrahi, a prominent communal notable and merchant, back to Paris in early November 1912.4 For the Jews, the first week of the occupation was a harrowing experience, referred to as “a week of terror.” Regular and irregular Greek and Bulgarian troops, sometimes aided by local Greeks, repeatedly assaulted Jewish and Muslim civilians along with their properties. Their attacks were as much symbolic as they were physical and included rapes, beatings, and widespread plunder. They targeted not only houses and synagogues but also shops and warehouses. On the night of November 12, Greek soldiers carried out a coordinated attack on numerous storehouses, and in the days before and after, grocery stores and cafés, especially in the poorer Jewish and Muslim quarters, were frequently targeted. Even large and reputable enterprises operating under foreign protection were not spared. Greek soldiers attempted to breach the renowned Orosdi Back department store, of French-Jewish ownership, only to be repelled at the last moment thanks to the determination of the guard and the intervention of the employees. The fez and textile manufacturing firm of Isaac I. Yahiel was less fortunate: despite displaying the French flag, it was stormed by Greek gendarmes.5 Salonica’s market had become a conflict zone. The newly established Greek authorities consistently emphasized the importance of fair and equal treatment for all, but these reassurances had little impact on everyday relations in the marketplace.6 On the contrary, Salonica’s market became a battleground for symbolic confrontation between the city’s new rulers and its long-established, dominant Jewish community. Tensions escalated within days of the occupation, when Jewish shop owners decided to close their shops fearing a second round of pillaging. From their perspective,

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it was a precautionary measure aimed at protecting their property. However, for the Greek authorities and the jubilant Greek civilian population, this act represented an attempt to bring the entire market to a standstill—an unacceptable act of silent yet defiant protest against the Greek occupation of Salonica.7 In exchange, Greek soldiers and civilians initiated an impromptu boycott of Jewish small businesses. Lower-class customers and small vendors refused to engage with Jewish street sellers and shop owners, whereas as one account describes, “the thousands of Greek [soldiers] encamped at our place would inquire [of] the vendor before purchasing two pieces of nougat, ‘Ti is-ise?’ [who are you] And they would instantly move away whenever they saw they were dealing with an ‘Evreos’ [a Jew].”8 For the ecstatic Salonican Greeks, boycotting the Jews represented a form of subaltern political action. It allowed them to demonstrate their newfound power and assert their claims on the city’s market. However, for the Jews, it felt like nothing short of a “war,” an invasion of “our place.” For the Jewish elite, especially, it held a deeper, and deeply familiar, significance. “Our Greeks,” Nehama noted: envy our commercial prosperity and wish to take our place forever. They believe their time to reign has come and would like to be the sole masters of the place. They forget about the Turks, few and insignificant economic rivals that they are, and focus on our coreligionists. Against them, they spread the most absurd rumors.9

For the Jews, the boycott was a clear indication of a coordinated effort led by Salonica’s Greek merchants to undermine Jewish commercial dominance, echoing their earlier attempts following the Young Turk Revolution. In times of war, the marketplace once again resurfaced as the main arena of popular politics and the main source of elite anxieties, much as it had been during the Second Constitutional Period. Jewish commentators unanimously agreed that Salonica under Greek rule would be a city cut off from its vast hinterland, reduced to a militarized border town within a small country that already possessed more than enough important ports. The role of Salonica as a commercial entrepôt would cease and so would the dominance of its Jewish community. Joseph Nehama perfectly captured this sentiment when he remarked that “a Greek

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Salonica will no longer be Salonica,” and this would be “the end of our community.” Tying Jewishness to commerce was now viewed as a suicidal choice. “What a pity that we are almost to the one merchants and middlemen, nigh parasites,” Nehama lamented. And he continued, “Peddlers and cart drivers we have been enough, having gathered nothing but contempt and hatred. . . . The Jew must become a producer—he must return to the land.”10 In echoing a key theme of both modern antisemitism and turn-of-the-century Zionism, Nehama, despite being staunchly anti-Zionist himself, connected commerce to the Jewish predicament, linking it to rootlessness and hatred for the Jews.11 In Greek Salonica, the Jewish merchant would no longer symbolize indigeneity but would instead be seen as the fundamental cause of the community’s impending displacement. The prevailing despair among the communal elite and the mounting anxiety about the bleak future of Salonica’s Jewry transformed the image of the “Jewish merchant of Salonica.” Previously a positive symbol of urban attachment and civic pride, representing communal revival and dynamic self-assertion, this figure now became one of self-pity, entwined in a discourse that identified commerce as the foundational cause of Jewish suffering through the ages. In the wake of the Greek occupation, merchants found themselves at the heart of a crisis in Jewish identity. Being dissociated from positive representations of Jewishness posed an indirect challenge to the merchants’ communal authority. However, their leadership was even more directly contested due to the unceasing radicalization of the lower strata, even during a period of upheaval and war. Throughout the First Balkan War and the initial months of Greek occupation, unemployment soared. The number of indigents sharply increased since the Ottoman army had requisitioned most means of transportation, including animals and carts, thereby depriving the numerous Jewish carters of their livelihood. Families with Jewish conscripts also lost their breadwinners. Moreover, industrial units operated at reduced capacity, local commerce ground to a halt, and the concurrent presence of military units, prisoners of war, and thousands of refugees created food shortages and price increases. Communal emergency funds were quickly depleted, and the imminent humanitarian crisis was temporarily averted only thanks to substantial financial aid from abroad.12 A federation comprising the six most important Jewish associations was established to oversee the allocation of incoming funds and to coordinate

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relief efforts. This umbrella organization, commonly referred to as the Interclub, brought together the Cercle Maccabi, the Maccabi Gymnastics Society, the Nouveau Club, the Alumni Association of the Franco-German School, the Cercle des  Intimes, and the Alliance Alumni Association.13 Some of the most prominent Jewish merchants were actively involved in the relief effort serving as members of the communal council, the Interclub, or both. In terms of aims and organization, their initiatives closely followed well-rehearsed patterns of social intervention. Similar to the Second Constitutional Period, they targeted the “poor” and the struggling lower strata, including unemployed blue- and white-collar workers. The goal was to provide relief to prevent social conflict, maintain communal cohesion, and legitimize existing social hierarchies, thus aiding the Jewish merchant philanthropists and aid-givers in retaining their dominance. However, these efforts did not fully quell social protest or silence criticism. Instead, the shock of Greek rule further eroded the status of these merchants, as emerging groups continued to challenge their leadership, much as they had done during the Second Constitutional Period. The war further radicalized white-collar workers. In December 1912, the entire Ladino press carried an appeal from the newly formed Association Mutuelle des Εmployés (Employees’ Mutual Society), which warned against potential wage cuts and layoffs during a period of acute price rises and severe economic difficulties. The society urged all commercial employees to fight against such “abuses” of the employers by uniting in defense of their collective interests as a “class.” Furthermore, it stated that “if a change in the regime of commerce is introduced [by the Greeks], then the Society will strive to guide all [employee] efforts in the direction most appropriate to [their] interests.”14 Collective “class” action was emerging not only as a spontaneous reaction to the immediate difficulties caused by the war, but also as a calculated response to the impending introduction of Greek labor and commercial legislation. While the philanthropic efforts of Jewish merchants aimed to showcase their leadership and symbolically construct Salonica’s Jews as members of a hierarchical yet unified community in solidarity with each other, the class rhetoric of self-organized commercial employees challenged this representation and put merchant authority to the test.

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Meanwhile, the position that Jews should hold toward the Greek authorities further intensified the rivalry between the established group of merchant notables and their political adversaries. Since the early days of the Young Turk Revolution, a faction primarily aligned with the pro-Zionist Nouveau Club had been challenging the communal elite, advocating for reforms and an extension of the franchise.15 They campaigned for the election of a “reformist . . . active . . . courageous . . . and energetic . . . Young Jewish council . . . just like the Young Turkish cabinet now in power.” They referred to themselves as les Jeunes (the young in French), both echoing the terminology introduced by the Ottoman-Turkish revolutionaries and fully embracing the positive connotations of youth in Zionist discourses of Jewish regeneration. Conversely, their opponents, the anti-Zionist communal elite of notavles (notables in Ladino) and merkaderes (Ladino for merchants), were now referred to as les Vieux (the elders in French).16 The entry of the Greek army into Salonica did not bridge the divide between these two factions; instead, the Young and the Elders clashed anew, this time over how best to deal with the occupying authorities. For the Elders, the only viable approach was to acknowledge Greek rule as irreversible and, consequently, to invest in cultivating a positive and close relationship with the new regime. They believed that maintaining neutrality until the fate of Salonica was decided for good was not an option, as it would likely provoke hostility from the Greeks, potentially leading to “massacring us all, or at best, expelling us on short notice.”17 Therefore, the most effective strategy was seen as establishing strong connections with the Greek ruling elite. Not, however, by attempting to win favor with the volatile governments formed by fragile political parties, but rather by securing the support of the most stable institution in the Greek political system: the royal family. In essence, the Elders adhered to a well-established model of Jewish diaspora politics, often referred to in historiography as the “royal alliance”: they aimed to secure tolerance through attachment to the court.18 Indeed, in late 1912 and throughout 1913, the communal council responded affirmatively to the overtures of the Greek royal family and provided extensive support for their public initiatives. The council regularly participated in the numerous ceremonies that aimed to inscribe Greek sovereignty in the time and space of the city, such as King George’s birthday and funeral,

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Te Deum services celebrating military victories, commemorations of fallen soldiers, and public receptions for the victorious Crown Prince Constantine. Such attendance and the heightened visibility it offered, aimed at symbolically integrating Salonican Jews into the Greek body politic. Furthermore, prominent merchants and major business firms generously contributed to fundraising campaigns for wounded Greek soldiers. Upper-class Jewish women were also admitted into Queen Olga’s inner circle and supported her relief efforts.19 As in the late Ottoman period, all these philanthropic activities aimed to demonstrate the loyalty and patriotism of the Elders, as well as their acceptance of the prevailing social order, even if in this instance their efforts were directed toward the benevolent Greek queen rather than the fatherly sultan.20 In contrast, the Young believed it was imperative for the community to keep their distance. In their view, aligning with the Greeks would only embolden Greek territorial claims over Salonica and lead to economic ruin for the Jews. It would also risk alienating both the Bulgarians and the Ottoman Turks—crucial business clients—and potentially expose Jews in these countries to retaliatory actions. Most importantly, the Young saw the approach of the Elders not as a mere “compromise,” but rather as deeply “humiliating, base, and cowardly.” In their view, it seemed as if the Elders were arguing, “What can we do? Aren’t we Jews, after all?” For the Young, then, the Elders were essentially advocating for Jews to “bend the knee,” to appease the stronger party, and submit to arbitrary rule. From their perspective, the position of the Elders reflected a contemptible conception of Jewishness characterized by passivity, subordination, and flattery of authority. In contrast, for the Young, “dignity” and “human respect” were rights that every Jew should enjoy, forming the basis for an assertive and agonistic Jewish identity. “The more one is humiliated, the less one deserves to be esteemed,” they argued.21 Nothing less than a fundamentally different understanding of Jewishness lay at the heart of the two factions’ opposing stances regarding the Greeks. This polarization around contrasting visions of Jewishness rendered problematic the very notion of the “Jewish merchant,” as it came to be associated with a doubly discredited form of Jewish identity. On one hand, the “merchant” became emblematic of the Jewish condition of wandering, uprootedness, and exile. On the other hand, being identified as an “Elder”

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implied passive submission to authority. Either way, the merchant was no longer a universally accepted category; instead, it became a subject position to be rejected—a figure so hopeless that he could no longer discern even where his own business interests lay. Ironically, these interests were now better represented by the Young. “What a bizarre situation!” Nehama exclaimed, “It is the ‘Young’ ones who shout to the ‘Elders’: ‘Do not be astounded! Think, be prudent.’ It is the bold and enthusiastic youth that recklessly implore the gray-bearded men, whom life has made wise, to ‘Reason, just reason!’”22 Once the attributes of the Elders, Jewishness and commerce were now entrusted to the Young. From the marketplace to the community, no matter where one looked, the First Balkan War and the initial months of Greek occupation held profound significance for the Jewish merchants, extending well beyond their immediate economic setbacks. As the ground beneath them continued to shift dramatically, their dominant position faced even greater challenges on virtually all fronts. In the marketplace, their relations with the Greeks were further strained, and their prominent presence was questioned. Within the community, emerging political actors persistently contested their leadership, while new discourses discredited the model ethnic and professional identities they embodied. The war further intensified complex processes that were already in motion since the early days of the Young Turk Revolution, affecting all the pillars that supported Jewish (commercial) hegemony. War not only heightened interethnic tensions but also exacerbated class conflict and fueled intra-communal political rivalries. These developments unfolded simultaneously, were interconnected, and collectively exerted substantial pressure on the previously dominant Jewish merchants. For them, the war represented a genuine legitimation crisis, calling into question all aspects of their identity. The more commerce was politicized, the more it appeared that Jewish merchants were losing control over their own lives. However, they were not mere passive victims of these tumultuous developments. When an armistice temporarily halted the First Balkan War in early December 1912, the embattled Jewish import merchants actively sought to safeguard their collective interests, spearheading a multiethnic collective. Commerce was once again

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politicized, but this time it brought Jewish and non-Jewish import merchants closer together. Trade Networks, Political Networks On April 14, 1913, the French foreign minister forwarded a letter titled “Debt recovery in the region of Salonica” to the French ambassador in London. This letter conveyed an appeal made by import traders in Salonica, who requested that their debtors in the Macedonian hinterland remain under the jurisdiction of the city’s commercial tribunal, despite recent border changes in the region. The appeal was originally drafted in Salonica and carried the signatures of 77 prominent merchants, including Jews, Greeks, and Muslims, both Ottoman subjects and foreign nationals. This document was then sent to various hardware merchants in Eastern France, who, upon receiving it, redirected it to the Besançon Chamber of Commerce. Subsequently, it swiftly made its way to the foreign ministry in Paris and eventually crossed the English Channel to reach its final destination in London, where an ambassadors’ conference was convening to assess the recent developments in the Balkans.23 The letter and its remarkable circulation across Europe stemmed from the unique structure of Salonica’s commerce during the late Ottoman period. At the turn of the century, imports were the most significant and profitable business sector in the city, amounting to approximately 135 million French francs per year and consistently growing. Imports catered not only to the city’s market, but also those in the broader region—in fact, more than 60  percent of the imported merchandise served the ever-expanding consumer needs of the 3.5 million residents of Ottoman Macedonia, as well as Serbia and Montenegro. Over this regional import trade, Salonican merchants effectively held a monopoly. Due to cash shortage and a lack of direct contacts abroad, merchants from the hinterland, including important commercial centers like Bitola and Skopje, relied on them to place their orders. Moreover, once the goods cleared customs, they were typically stored in local warehouses for future resale in the interior, with quantities varying based on local demand. It was a rare occurrence for interested merchants to personally travel to Salonica. Instead, the process of resale involved navigating through a dense and widespread network of intermediaries which included itinerant

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salesmen and commissioners residing in Salonica, who worked on behalf of their clients in the Macedonian hinterland.24 Due to the chronic cash shortages in the Macedonian economy, the relatively low degree of market monetization, and the absence of modern banking institutions, this intricate system of multiple intermediaries primarily relied on credit. Payment was not made at the time of purchase but upon the renewal of the order, a practice adhered to by both the interior merchants and Salonica’s major importers. The latter extended substantial credit lines to their customers, typically lasting from six to twelve months, while they themselves were indebted to their European suppliers for even larger sums. As the secretary of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce pointed out, this was a common business practice “everywhere in the Orient,” and it worked in favor of the local merchants. The intense international competition to gain a share in the growing Macedonian market, coupled with the ability of Salonican importers to manipulate it to their advantage, compelled even major European commercial firms to follow the local practice and offer longterm credit to their customers in the city.25 This system was exceptionally delicate and precarious, but two mechanisms ensured its smooth operation and the repayment of debts. First, Salonica held a monopoly as the sole transit port in Ottoman Macedonia. Consequently, interior merchants were compelled to settle their outstanding debts if they wanted to proceed with new orders. Second, in the event of a contract dispute, both debtors and creditors readily recognized the authority of the city’s commercial tribunal to resolve the issue.26 These particular characteristics of Salonica’s import trade predominantly favored its Jewish merchants. Their advantageous access to credit enabled them to establish a virtual monopoly, as they could source the required capital from a much broader range of resources compared to their Greek counterparts. Their long-standing presence nurtured trust. Business dynasties like the Allatini and the Fernandez had held formidable positions throughout the nineteenth century, affording them higher credit allowances from European suppliers since the 1860s. Additionally, Jewish importers were adept at securing credit from abroad through their connections to influential Jewish bankers in Central Europe or by collaborating with foreign financial

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Figure 7.  Letterhead of the import–export company of Joseph Mano & Sons, 1911. Source: Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 184, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece

institutions, primarily French and Austro-Hungarian. Local factors further favored Jewish importers. The establishment of the Jewish-owned Banque de  Salonique in 1888, the city’s first private bank, gave them preferential access to essential credit resources and increased protection against bankruptcy. The ongoing Jewish control of the local money market also played a significant role. For instance, Banque Saul sourced capital from various Western European banks, but primarily extended loans to Jewish clients. Likewise, Banque Levi Modiano continued to support firms, predominantly Jewish, that had halted their payments, offering guarantees for their bills of exchange and foreign bank loans.27 Jewish dominance in the import–export trade was further supported by the extensive pan-European connections of Salonican Jews. They possessed unique transnational family networks that facilitated the flow of information, providing them with a distinct advantage over their Greek Orthodox competitors, whose family connections were primarily regional in scope. Salonican Jewish merchants established “colonies” in major trading centers across Europe and the Mediterranean, spanning from Alexandria to Marseille, and from Paris and Vienna to Manchester in the north. They solidified their international contacts by frequently traveling to Europe and excelled in flooding the local market with cheap, out-of-fashion European products. Finally, foreign citizenship and honorary consular positions

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elevated their status and enhanced their creditworthiness. Their position was so solid that foreign companies found it impossible to bypass them. As Austro-Hungarian firms discovered in the late 1880s and early 1890s, every attempt to establish local offices and independently handle the import of goods was met with strong resistance from local Jewish importers and was ultimately abandoned.28 Regional networks served as a valuable complement to the transnational connections of Salonican Jews. Within the Macedonian hinterland, a dense web of representatives, salesmen, and resettled Salonican merchants connected the local markets to the city. This interconnection allowed Jewish merchants to stay well-informed about shifts in local demand, enabling them to adjust their prices swiftly and ultimately yielding them substantial profits.29 Crucially, Jewish merchants were also a vital part of an integrated economy, effectively sustaining it. The substantial Jewish presence rendered the establishment of separate ethnic networks and exclusive markets impractical. Consequently, prominent Jewish import firms systematically employed nonJews, both in Salonica and as commercial agents in the Macedonian hinterland. In a similar vein, Jewish businesses constituted the primary client base for non-Jewish banks, such as the Greek Banque d’Orient. These institutions owed their success in the financial market to their ability to secure an affluent Jewish clientele, rather than solely serving the less prosperous Greek Orthodox merchants. Credit networks were also distinctly multiethnic, as evident from the numerous bankruptcy cases preserved in the archive of Salonica’s Court of First Instance. In essence, Jewish dominance played a pivotal role in ensuring the smooth operation of an integrated, multiethnic economy.30 Import trade was therefore key to Jewish economic dominance, the prosperity of Salonica, and the mechanism of coexistence. Nevertheless, its distinctive features also made it highly susceptible to risks. Importers consistently operated on the edge of their credit limits, often stretching beyond them. They engaged in exceedingly risky transactions, securing bank loans many times larger than their capital, while remaining dependent on both their clients in the Macedonian hinterland and their suppliers in Europe. Consequently, they were exposed to even the slightest market fluctuations. A moderate devaluation of, say, 15 or 20 percent in the

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price of their goods or in the loans they had extended could suffice to push them into bankruptcy.31 The First Balkan War starkly exposed these dangers. As Ottoman Macedonia turned into a war zone, Muslims fled en masse and nearly half the population faced economic turmoil. This situation placed significant strain on merchants in the interior, who struggled to meet their debt obligations to importers in Salonica. Importers, too, faced the challenge of disposing the massive quantities of merchandise they had ordered in the summer of 1912, anticipating the end of the Italo-Ottoman War.32 Ηowever, what they and all of Salonica’s merchants feared most was the partition of Ottoman Macedonia among the victorious Balkan states. Not only because, in the long run, the drawing of borders and the imposition of multiple, high import duties would deprive their city of its vast hinterland and sever their regional networks. In the short run, too, the newly drawn state boundaries presented an even more menacing threat because they obstructed debt collection. Most debtors were now situated in lands occupied by Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro, or were soon to become citizens of the newly created state of Albania. In other words, they now resided beyond the jurisdiction of (Greek) Salonica’s commercial tribunal. Pursuing them in their new locations, taking them to court in their newly established countries of residence, was not a viable alternative; rather, it was a logistic and judicial nightmare, marked by expensive and lengthy proceedings, all for mostly insignificant individual amounts.33 At the same time, given the Balkan states’ embrace of protectionism, the potential imposition of customs tariffs in the occupied territories posed a further threat. Importers feared that this would divert the merchants of the interior away from the Salonican market and, consequently, away from their creditors. With imports through Salonica becoming more expensive and cumbersome, these newly minted “Serbian” and “Bulgarian” merchants were likely to redirect their business toward other importers in their new home countries. Forced to seek new channels, their dependency on the renewal of orders would diminish, and their obligation to honor their debts to Salonican importers would come to an end. The First Balkan War, by violently redrawing political borders, was inflicting equal damage on the commercial and credit networks that had previously defined Ottoman Macedonia.

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The fears of Salonica’s importers materialized when, on December 17, 1912, Salonica’s Jewish newspaper L’Indépendant reported that Serbian authorities had imposed heavy customs duties on all goods imported from the city.34 In the ensuing months, the Serbs, along with the Bulgarians, systematically obstructed commercial transactions. They increased taxes and duties across the board, penalized the export of Serbian coins, banned the import of products falling under the Serbian state monopoly (such as matches), and frequently delayed or even interrupted the transportation of goods by ship or rail.35 The Serbs justified these harsh measures by invoking the laws of war, asserting their right to raise taxes in occupied territories to fund their occupying forces and to combat contraband trade. After all, it was evident that, after entering the conquered “New Lands” without taxation, products from Salonica could easily make their way to “Old Serbia.”36 This argument carried weight, particularly considering that large and reputable Jewish commercial houses operating under foreign protection like Fils de  G.A. Errera & Co. Ltd. and the Orosdi Back department store, either hurriedly established branches in Bitola and Skopje or transported substantial quantities of goods to the occupied territories, clearly intended for sale in Old Serbia.37 However, for the foreign consuls in Salonica, the Serbian initiative represented a clear violation of international law. They contended that it “constituted an illicit interference with commerce and an infringement of the rights secured by treaty to neutral subjects, so long as the occupied territories had not been formally annexed to the Kingdom of Serbia.”38 Salonica’s importers, too, were convinced that Serbian authorities aimed to create facts on the ground and argued that in the short term, the Serbs intended to sever all trade ties between the occupied lands and Salonica. Since trade with the interior had picked up after the ceasefire, this action, they stressed, served the interests of Belgrade merchants who had stockpiled significant quantities of merchandise during the war.39 In the medium term, the imposition of customs duties would redirect retailers from these areas to trade centers in Old Serbia. This shift would not only limit the clientele of Salonica’s importers but also make debt repayment nearly impossible, as the available cash would now flow toward Belgrade’s wholesalers.40 As the Salonican Jewish newspaper El Liberal cautioned,

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The merchants of the interior, who owe enormous sums to our market, will no longer be able to purchase products from here despite their wishes. Instead, they will be forced to seek alternative sources in other places with our [sic] money. The immense debts that our merchants have extended throughout the interior, and the significant sums they have disbursed far and wide . . . will remain a dead letter, with no prospect of repayment.41

Whether arbitrary or not, the Serbian measures capitalized on the fluid circumstances and the absence of a concrete legal framework to initiate the process of nationalizing the economy in the newly occupied lands. The Serbian authorities were particularly concerned about the close ties between all Jewish traders in the major towns of New Serbia, such as Skopje and Bitola, and the prominent Jewish commercial houses in Salonica. These “New Serbian” Jews were perceived as potentially disloyal for two key reasons: first, their financial dependence on their Salonican peers, and second, their shared French-style education obtained at Alliance schools. From the Serbian perspective, it was not just religion but also education and commercial connections with Salonica that cast Jewishness as foreignness, raising questions about the loyalty of their Jewish citizens.42 The introduction of import tariffs, therefore, served as a national security measure aimed at creating homogeneous markets and integrated commercial polities. It was an act of economic engineering, that, while less violent, closely adhered to the logic of the better known policies of forced migration and demographic engineering simultaneously unfolding.43 For these reasons, the Serbian imposition of import duties in the occupied territories stirred a “great commotion” in the Salonica market and spurred an unprecedented mobilization among its importers. As early as December 18, 1912, the chamber of commerce convened and approved the formation of a mixed committee comprising importers and chamber members. On the same day, “groups of merchants” lodged protests with Georgios Cofinas, the director of the Economic Bureau of the (Greek) General Government of Macedonia, requesting intervention from the Greek state. Other merchants visited the consuls of the Berlin Treaty signatory countries, including Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary,

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and Italy. Furthermore, a petition was drafted calling for the abolition of Serbian import duties in the Serbian garrison village of Gevgelija. Over the following days, various committees and representatives met with the Greek prefect, merchants held meetings, and additional protest letters were sent to the chamber of commerce. The chamber itself took proactive steps, organizing conferences in which all interested parties, including the state authorities, participated.44 While the overwhelming majority of those involved were Jews, all merchants “without distinction” mobilized, as local newspapers consistently emphasized. The petition’s signatories “represented all nationalities of our city,” and the committee engaging with foreign consuls was also exemplarily multiethnic.45 Astonishingly, after a long period marked by ethnic tensions in the marketplace, at a moment when the strains of war and rival nationalisms were testing inter-communal relations to their limits, the question of Serbian import duties played a role in easing friction and fostering consensus among all importers. It created a shared space for interethnic cooperation and joint political action that went beyond the existing legitimate areas of cross-ethnic collaboration such as local philanthropy and international humanitarian aid. Naturally, this unprecedented synergy was a response to the imminent threat posed by the Serbian actions to Salonican importers. However, it also revealed a latent fear shared by all merchants, regardless of their ethnicity or national attachment. As the French consul reported, Jews, Greeks, Bulgarians, and “Turks” all “viewed with the utmost apprehension” the potential annexation of Salonica by either Greece or Bulgaria. Only the presence of Greek troops prevented them from openly voicing their concerns.46 However, in this specific moment, the stakes were particularly high for the Jews. Not only because they dominated import trade, but also because their overall economic survival hinged almost entirely on its swift recovery. Unlike their Greek peers, they could not count on economic nationalism or any other kind of state protection in the future—quite the contrary. Yet, despite the specific “Jewish” nature of the threat posed by the Serbs, Jewish importers chose and ultimately succeeded in rallying all other importers in Salonica. In doing so, they effectively defended “Jewish” interests (and Jewish dominance in the trade) by advocating for the protection of the entire professional group. Jewish

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and professional interests merged into one, illustrating the level of power Jewish importers still held during a period of ethnic polarization. Jewish-cum-professional interests were further elevated to the status of “local” interests. Chamber of commerce representatives Pesnikidis and Molho conveyed to the prefect “the concerns of our city’s commercial body regarding the customs tariff imposed by Serbia on Gevgelija” and outlined “the grave consequences this measure by the Serbian government would have on Salonica’s commerce.” Local opinion leaders also adopted this discourse. The Greek newspaper Makedonia observed that “all merchants in Salonica, without a single exception, realize the profound implications of the Serbian government’s decision to levy an excessive customs duty on all goods imported from Salonica. They spare no effort in seeking to repeal this arbitrary measure that contravenes international law.”47 The central role of import trade in Salonica’s economy galvanized a broad group of traders, eventually leading to the symbolic identification of the importers with the entire “commercial world,” and even with the city itself. The challenges faced by Jewish merchants resonated with broader fears and aspirations, garnering cross-ethnic support and mobilizing diverse groups on their behalf. In this manner, Jews succeeded in making their interests synonymous with “Salonican” interests—universal, legitimate, and hence embraced by the local public. The effectiveness of the importers also stemmed from their ability to emphasize the national and international dimensions of their demands and engage both national authorities and numerous international agents. Salonican importers capitalized on Greco-Bulgarian rivalry and each state’s efforts to persuade the European powers and the local population that it alone could guarantee the city’s economic prosperity. The Greek government consistently sought to gain the favor of Salonica’s merchants, hoping to secure their political support in the impending conflict with other Balkan states over the city’s future.48 Consequently, Greek economic authorities responded positively to the importers’ demands and implemented specific measures to address their concerns. They made demarches to the Serbs and put forth concrete proposals regarding the future of Salonica’s import trade. As Cofinas stated, “we sacrificed the fiscal interests of the State for the commercial interests of the city and demonstrated that a commercial and maritime people like us is aware of the city’s needs and knows how to serve

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them.”49 Admittedly, the (Jewish) importers’ success in co-opting the Greek administration owed much to the fluid post-First Balkan War period which had temporarily heightened their political influence. Still, this was no small feat. Throughout their political mobilization, they managed to maintain a group solidarity that harmonized ethnic, urban, and national “interests,” and even succeeded in reconciling the seemingly conflicting identities of Jewishness, Greekness, and Salonicanness, at least for a brief moment and for one last time. When taken over by the Greek government, the question of the Serbian (and Bulgarian) customs tariffs became an international concern. The European powers involved in settling the postwar order in the Balkans welcomed the Greek proposals. Measures such as maintaining low Ottoman import duties, granting tax exemptions for goods imported from the Serbian- and Bulgarian-occupied territories, and issuing certificates for all imported goods shipped from Salonica to those territories, were viewed favorably by Britain, France, Germany, and Italy.50 International pressure, however, extended beyond diplomatic channels and state actors. Working in parallel with rather than through Greek state authorities, Salonican merchants took action on their own. Initially, individual businessmen followed a well-trodden path and leveraged their foreign nationality to seek protection from Serbian arbitrariness. Thus, in February 1913, the manager of Mair de Botton Ltd. protested to the British consul. He expressed frustration with the British government’s perceived passivity on the issue of Serbian import duties, suggesting that Salonican merchants believed Germany and Austria-Hungary were better equipped to safeguard their commercial interests and those of their protected subjects.51 Local merchants learned how to manipulate great power rivalry by playing one European state against the other, just as they had been doing for decades to secure credit extensions from competing European exporters. A state’s economic expansion in the Balkans and the ensuing fears and antagonisms it generated among its rivals could turn imperialism on its head. Great Power antagonisms created a fluid space on the ground that empowered Salonica’s importers, making the shifting of loyalties a useful card to play, even (or especially) in times of acute crisis.52 Such requests for protection made to diplomatic authorities were primarily stratagems employed by single individuals. However, what made the

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cases of the Serbian import duties and Salonica’s commercial tribunal distinctive was that a person’s extraterritorial status was neither the sole nor the primary means by which merchant politics took on an international dimension. On the contrary, Salonican merchants reached to the world collectively by mobilizing their own transnational professional networks and institutional connections to garner support for their proposal to maintain the jurisdiction of the commercial tribunal across the former Ottoman territories. The widespread circulation of their petitions and reports in Central and Western Europe during the first half of 1913 owed much to their extensive business contacts. Salonican merchants alerted the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, whose concerns regarding the Serbian import duties were then favorably reported in the Salonican press.53 In France, Salonican importers engaged hardware merchants in the eastern provinces, urging them to advocate on their behalf. These merchants, in turn, mobilized the Besançon Chamber of Commerce which forwarded their petition to the French minister of Commerce. Similarly, in Belfort, another group of French hardware merchants contacted the local chamber of commerce, which then informed the French foreign minister and ambassador in London. Following suit, the Paris Chamber of Commerce made similar demarches, and its journal communicated the Salonican petition to the public, increasing its visibility and impact.54 Across the English Channel, in January 1913, the Manchester Chamber of Commerce presented a similar petition to the Foreign Office, and the London Chamber of Commerce, upon being informed by its Salonican counterpart, promptly contacted the Board of Trade. This led to the demands of Salonica’s importers reaching the highest echelons of European diplomacy, with British foreign minister Sir Edward Grey briefing his ambassadors and coordinating actions with Paul Cambon, the French ambassador in London.55 In an increasingly divided Europe, split into two opposing camps, the collective mobilization of its merchants briefly managed to bring the great powers closer together. Historically, all powers favored a low tariff regime in the Balkans. They opposed any attempt to “prejudice foreign commerce” by raising barriers to trade and were therefore “anxious that the requirements of commerce should receive all possible consideration in the decisions taken in regard to the fate of Salonica,” as the German government put it.56 The

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ongoing commercial issues in Salonica were intricately linked to the broader question of the city’s economic future, leading to an extensive diplomatic exchange of letters, reports, and memoranda among France, Italy, Great Britain, Germany, and Austria-Hungary. Ultimately, the European powers decided to take “a collective step.” The governments of France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Austria-Hungary backed the demands of Salonica’s importers, applied pressure on the Serbian (and Bulgarian) authorities, and finally escalated the matter by forwarding the question of the commercial tribunal to the ambassadors’ conference in London, the international summit tasked with arbitrating between the warring Balkan states.57 The collective involvement of Salonica’s importers then, along with the path which the internationalization of their local economic problems took, alludes to the multiple overlaps of commerce, diplomacy, and civil society during a time of disruption and war. Four primary factors shaped these overlaps, almost all of which involved, to a great extent, Jews: strong personal ties with Europeans residing in the city; extensive business networks spanning across Europe; debt obligations that extended throughout the continent; and, finally, the influence of European imperialism. As detailed in Chapter 1, during the final decades of Ottoman rule, several Salonican merchants, particularly Jews, had established close ties with the resident European elites. These ties were forged on the basis of shared foreign citizenship (or other forms of consular protection), active involvement in the social life of the city’s European expatriate communities (primarily Italian, French, and Austro-Hungarian), and participation in a burgeoning cross-ethnic network of clubs and societies. These prestigious local-cuminternational connections significantly strengthened the standing of these merchants in both the urban and communal spheres. However, in the aftermath of the First Balkan War, such “glocal” contacts served a different purpose. Consider the case of the memorandum highlighting the dire consequences of altering Salonica’s commercial regime. Drafted by the directors of the leading commercial houses, this memorandum was not only accepted by the local consuls but also expeditiously forwarded to their respective governments.58 In essence, the international networks that had previously empowered Salonican merchants at the local level now enabled them to act on a transnational scale.

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The cross-European politics of Salonica’s merchants was further facilitated by the involvement of non-governmental or quasi-governmental institutions pertaining to the public sphere, specifically, chambers of commerce in Salonica and across Europe. What enabled the swift and widespread response of these commercial organizations? It was no accident that all chambers of commerce were located along existing business and trade diaspora networks that connected Salonica to Europe. In Besançon and Belfort, it was the local hardware merchants, business associates of Salonica’s importers, who championed the cause. Salonican merchants, primarily Jews, also maintained close commercial ties with Austro-Hungarian firms, given that from the late nineteenth century, the bulk of their imports originated from the Habsburg Empire.59 Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that Salonican merchants gained the chambers’ attention in those places by systematically alerting their suppliers abroad. Moreover, London, Manchester, Paris, and Vienna boasted important Sephardi commercial communities. Salonican and other Ottoman Sephardi merchants residing in these cities maintained close business ties with Salonica and likely played a role in encouraging their local chambers of commerce to take action.60 However, the exceptionally prompt and positive response of these chambers of commerce was largely driven by the fear that European suppliers might incur significant losses if Salonican Jewish importers were unable to access their debtors in the Macedonian hinterland, thereby failing to repay their European creditors. The interconnected chain of credit, stretching from a retailer in a small Macedonian town to a major supplier in a European capital, had the potential to transform a localized problem into a cross-European financial challenge. Consequently, European merchants and their organizations were eager to support the solution proposed by their Salonican peers. They advocated for the maintenance of the jurisdiction of Salonica’s commercial tribunal across all former Ottoman territories in Europe to facilitate the efficient and comprehensive collection of all outstanding debts and prevent an impending debt crisis. The concerted action of these chambers of commerce highlighted the significance of the Ottoman market for European merchants. However, it also reflected a long and extensive engagement of European commercial institutions with imperialism, extending beyond the capitals and deep into

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the provinces. While data is currently available primarily for France, it is clear that chambers of commerce were not passive observers of centrally formulated colonial policies. Rather, they strove to connect local production with specific overseas regions and systematically advocated for the economic benefits of imperial expansion. In France, chambers of commerce focused their attention on both formally colonial and “semi-colonial” regions. They continuously pushed for a more energetic and interventionist French presence in the Ottoman Empire to counter the influence of rival European states, primarily Austria-Hungary and Germany, and even welcomed Ottoman missions in their cities.61 Therefore, the mobilization of the chambers of commerce in the aftermath of the First Balkan War was shaped not only by immediate concerns but also by a longer history of linking commercial politics with empire-building. International contacts in Salonica, Europe-wide business connections, cross-national credit networks, and imperialist aspirations were the four key factors that facilitated collective merchant action from Salonica to Manchester. As a result, in the early months of 1913, decades-long transnational commercial ties gained newfound political importance, evolving into the foundation of Salonican merchants’ politics. What were once primarily business and credit networks transformed into political networks. The predominantly Jewish Salonican merchants successfully created lobbying groups that transcended the boundaries of the Greek nation-state, even managing to fashion a sort of transnational “commercial public opinion.” Ironically, Salonica’s chamber of commerce—initially introduced in the late Ottoman Empire to oversee market transactions, increase state control, and promote Ottomanism—was turned on its head. From an “Ottomanizing” institution it now acted like an “international” organization, serving as the face of a collective by supporting autonomous merchant action and facilitating their pan-European contacts. Consequently, alongside the national and religious categories of “Greeks,” “Serbs,” “Bulgarians,” “Jews,” and “Muslim Turks,” the war allowed for the emergence of an entirely different kind of collective on the European stage: Salonica’s importers. Identified as a distinct, cohesive group, often referred to as “the commercial community” by consular authorities in Salonica, these importers saw themselves in similarly inclusive

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terms, emphasizing the commonality of their appeal in their petitions and the unity of merchants from different nationalities, including “Ottoman citizens as well as subjects of foreign powers.”62 Collective action solidified this multiethnic collective, strengthening their group identity. The importers’ joint diplomatic efforts extended beyond the mere drafting and submission of petitions to foreign authorities in Salonica and Europe. They maintained close contact with foreign diplomats and collaborated with them as equals. The French foreign ministry, for instance, actively engaged Salonica’s merchants by sharing its draft proposal on the future of the city’s commercial tribunal, seeking their approval, and welcoming their feedback.63 Such cooperation, typically seen among state actors, underscores the significant international influence wielded by the importers. Their actions, publicized in the local press, elevated their standing in Salonica and, crucially, gave substance to their distinct collective identity. The importers acted internationally, not just locally, and by doing so, they became a subject of their own making. In early 1913, the exact nature of the post-Ottoman political regime in the Balkans remained unclear, and the transition to it was a dynamic and somewhat open-ended process, with several possibilities to consider. As these merchants navigated the passage from Ottoman to Greek rule, they demonstrated that they were more than passive observers of cataclysmic structural changes that exceeded and defined them. The demise of empire did not solely deepen ethnic divisions among them. Instead, the merchants’ coordinated mobilization created, albeit temporarily, an interethnic collective, reigniting the importance of self-organization. As the Jewish newspaper El Liberal conceded: It is true that there are still merchants in Salonica who do not find the establishment of a commercial union, one that could provide us with exceptional services independently of the chamber of commerce, useful. . . . May today’s example serve as a salutary lesson to us, and may it help to open the eyes of those who persist in wanting to keep them closed.64

Even as the empire was collapsing, there was still something distinctly late Ottoman in the political practices of Salonican merchants and this was

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the cultural logic informing their actions. Their primary demands revolved around the abolition of import duties and, critically, securing transnational jurisdiction for Salonica’s commercial tribunal. The tribunal would operate under the oversight of the European powers, offering protection to Salonica’s import traders while limiting the authority of the victorious Balkan nation-states over their newly acquired territories and populations. It would have functioned as a hybrid institution, under and above state sovereignty, echoing the capitulations system, the foreign-controlled gendarmerie in Ottoman Macedonia, and the Ottoman Public Debt Administration.65 In the dawning era of nation-states, Salonican merchants strove to uphold an “imperial,” late Ottoman political and economic framework. Yet, their demands were not just an attempt to keep the past alive. Their objectives also aligned with various plans to internationalize Salonica, transforming it into a neutral and autonomous “city-state” jointly overseen by the European great powers and neighboring Balkan states. In late 1912 and throughout 1913, several parties were actively advocating versions of this plan within European diplomatic circles. While the Zionist project is the most well-documented, a memorandum signed by “a group of Salonican merchants” was also in circulation.66 When viewed in this context, the importers’ position on the future of their city’s commercial tribunal represented yet another effort to devise workable models of sovereignty and plural concepts of territoriality that transcended the rigid framework of the nation-state. These models were tailored for a new–old era perceived as post-imperial, and commerce was at the center of such “internationalizing” thinking, just as Jewishness was. As Jews actively promoted these plans, whether as Jews or as merchants, “Jewish” and “commercial” interests intersected, and these two categories of identification converged one last time. The merchants’ demand for a supranational commercial tribunal was therefore firmly rooted in late Ottoman thinking. So, too, was the manner in which this demand was articulated, echoing late Ottoman notions of political power. In the last third of the nineteenth century, Salonica’s merchants, mostly Jews, wove intricate networks that bound them to Europe, from obtaining a foreign nationality to gaining modern European cultural capital through Western-style schooling.67 These strategies reflected a shared conviction that within the Ottoman realm, power was polycentric, with

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European states playing a significant role in the empire’s political landscape. An affiliation with Europe, therefore, held the promise of protection, status, and authority in Salonica and beyond. This late Ottoman understanding of power continued to be relevant even after the collapse of the empire. However, this time it guided the merchants’ political actions rather than solely dictating their business moves. At the aftermath of the First Balkan War, Salonica’s importers did not use Greek state officials and institutions as intermediaries to contact the signatories of the Berlin Treaty. On the contrary, they independently approached them by submitting petitions to the consuls in the city and making representations to commercial houses and chambers of commerce abroad.68 Their reliance on international connections, both within Salonica and across Europe, betrayed an “Ottoman” worldview, which gave shape and meaning to their collective mobilization. As former imperial subjects, Salonican merchants acted “glocally,” indirectly questioning the primacy of the (Greek) nation-state and suggesting new modes of political engagement. Ultimately, however, Salonica’s importers were unable to realize any of their stated objectives. The Serbian import duties were not abolished, and transnational jurisdiction for Salonica’s commercial tribunal was not included in the Treaty of Bucharest which determined the region’s future in August 1913. Even the new customs regulations hastily introduced by Greek authorities in early 1913 failed to facilitate transit trade, as they proved to be too complex and time-consuming. The logic of the nation-state eventually triumphed over the principles of free trade.69 The mobilization led by Jewish importers was short lived and inconclusive, a seemingly minor event yielding no discernible outcomes. One might even argue that it was out of step with the times. The demands that united the importers and the forms of action that brought them together belonged to a fading world, one that could not be resurrected. During this transitional period, Salonica’s importers conceived their interests and defended them based on Ottoman concepts. However, the world in which they would now have to act was irreversibly post-Ottoman. Yet, despite its apparent insignificance, this unexplored episode of a road not taken is more than just a study in alternative futures. The counterintuitive story of Salonica’s importers unveils an unusual cast of characters and

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thus sheds a different light on the history of the Balkan Wars and the passage from empire to nation-state. Historians have long viewed these wars as the demise of multiethnic coexistence and the triumph of the nation-state in the region. Their focus on nationalism and patterns of ethnic violence— particularly brutal against local civilian populations—has led them to interpret the wars as the culmination of ethnic antagonisms and national rivalries that had been steadily dividing the diverse populations of Ottoman Macedonia in the preceding decades.70 Historians of Balkan Jewries have also examined these events exclusively through the lens of ethnicity, mostly depicting the Greek annexation of Salonica as the beginning of Jewish retreat from the city. According to this view, almost overnight, a community of approximately 80,000 individuals, constituting nearly half of the city’s multiethnic population and holding sway over the local economy and urban culture, was transformed into an embattled minority, subject to both the exclusionary and assimilationist policies of the nationalizing Greek state.71 Ironically, the shared emphasis on ethnicity and nationalism has caused celebratory national historiographies and their revisionist critics to converge, inadvertently overshadowing the emergence of other supranational collectives resulting from the Balkan Wars. Framed as a Christian crusade, the offensive of the Balkan states against the last Muslim empire in the world triggered a wave of Muslim solidarity and prompted a global Muslim humanitarian relief effort that stretched from London to Alexandria and as far east as Kolkata, reaching deep into the Indian Muslim world.72 Within war-torn Ottoman Macedonia itself, population displacement generated new social categories that transcended nationality. Numerous Western journalistic accounts, consular reports, and narratives from international commissions uniformly labeled Jews, Christians, and primarily Muslim civilians fleeing the war-ravaged interior for the safety of coastal towns as “(Balkan War) refugees,” a term devoid of any national connotations. Likewise, individuals engaged in philanthropic and humanitarian efforts formed a group that cut across communal and national boundaries. This was exemplified by Salonica’s “International Committee,” which, as early as October 1912, brought together local Jewish, Greek Orthodox, and Muslim elites, prominent members of the city’s European community, and various international refugee relief organizations active in the region.73

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The Balkan Wars also served as a laboratory for imagining and advancing new political identities. In early 1913, a group of exiled Salonican notables formed the “Macedonian Committee” in Istanbul. Claiming to represent Muslims, Kutso Vlachs, and Jews, they appealed to European governments and the public, advocating for an autonomous “Macedonia for the Macedonians.” This initiative sought to redefine Macedonia as an inclusive, transethnic point of spatial identification. It aimed at de-nationalizing a divisive geographical term that competing Balkan nationalisms were vying to appropriate. In the process, the work of the Macedonian Committee also raised questions about the category of Jewishness itself. Treating the Jews of Macedonia as a distinct ethnicity rather than solely a religious group, its approach left European diplomats perplexed.74 Among all these alternative collectives that emerged, Salonica’s merchants were the most active. Although these individuals differed in religion, ethnicity, and nationality—and as entrepreneurs, communal notables, and city leaders sometimes had to balance conflicting interests and serve diverging agendas—they prioritized their professional interests and acted together during the First Balkan War. They harnessed the power of both local commercial institutions and transnational trade networks to engage in politics at an unprecedented level, delving into the realm of great power diplomacy. Jews were at the forefront of this brief yet unparalleled mobilization, thanks to their control over the most lucrative sector of the local economy, import trade. In the ethnically divided Balkans, commerce, Jewishness, and locality converged once more, even if only temporarily. The unique structure of commercial and credit transactions in the region informed a style of entrepreneurial politics from the bottom-up that defied national boundaries and recast Jews as the foremost advocates of broader interests and larger collectives for one last time. In a broader sense, then, the story of Salonica’s importers reveals the fluidity and plurality of territorial understandings on the ground. The clash between the merchants and the Serbian authorities, as well as the question of Salonica’s commercial tribunal, reflected competing perceptions of space and conflicting understandings of territoriality. During this transitional period, when the old territorial order had essentially ended but the new one had not yet been formally established, various actors vied for control over a

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territory they were simultaneously seeking to redefine as “Greek,” “Serbian,” Bulgarian,” or, alternatively, “Macedonian.” While Serbs and Bulgarians attempted to assert their spatial authority by creating facts on the ground, by implementing measures such as import duties and customs controls, the merchants clung to their Ottoman understanding of an integrated Macedonia. The statist perception of boundaries and territoriality favored by the Balkan states ultimately prevailed, but it did not go unchallenged. “Refugees,” “humanitarians,” “Macedonians,” and “Salonican (import) merchants” certainly denoted very different types of collectives, some voluntary and others involuntary, some ascribed and others self-fashioned. But when these four cases are brought together, they do make evident how the response to the shattering of Ottoman pluralism was not only the hardening of monistic national identities, but also a momentary explosion of multiethnic formations, of different modes and imaginings of interethnic relatedness. Placed in this broader context and read alongside those other examples, Salonica’s merchants then appear less of a curiosity and more of a bellwether. They provide a clue to connections, suggesting a different link between commerce and politics, to how transnational credit networks can turn into transnational political networks and how economic space can nurture alternative visions of territoriality; a clue to the multiple and situational character of an open Jewishness formed at the point where commercial, ethnic, and local identities converge; and, finally, a clue to a professional collective, Jewish-led yet still cross-ethnic, indicating the need to think beyond high politics and ethnicity when talking about the Balkan Wars in general and the fate of Balkan Jewries in particular.

FIVE

The Great (Class) War, 1914–1918

Jacob Molho was a known  name in the port of Salonica. In fact, he was the port. A reputable maritime transporter, his business had grown spectacularly together with the port’s development. The company of Molho Brothers handled the loading and unloading of merchandise, owned its own tugboat—the Brumotz—and managed the local branch of the Anglo-Syrian Trade Company.1 Their job was to connect the land to the sea, but they also connected worlds. Like other Jewish, Greek Orthodox and Muslim firms, Molho Brothers sustained the circuits of a globalized Mediterranean trading system, keeping the doors to the vast Balkan hinterland open. They made the port of Salonica a node and the city uniquely Levantine and Balkan. For the Molhos, open horizons were key—much like the vistas Jacob would enjoy from the port on a clear day, with the quiet waters of Salonica’s gulf blurring into the horizon in front of him. Jacob Molho was a man of peace. Wars brought closure, adding doom to Salonica’s familiar gloom. Borders were redrawn and commerce in the port stood still. During the Second Balkan War in 1913, the Bulgarian army requisitioned the Brumotz only for the Greek warship Arcadia to sink it in retaliation. Still, wars also brought unforeseen opportunities. The Molhos were an integral piece of Salonica’s 165

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jigsaw puzzle, and it seemed no army could move without their assistance. The firm carried equipment for all parties—first the Ottomans in 1912, then the Greeks in 1913, and, finally, the British and French Army of the Orient in 1915 and 1916. In recognition of his services, the Greek authorities decorated Jacob Molho. He was one of few Jews to receive such an honor, a fitting tribute to a public man who had served his city and his community from almost every position available, as a communal notable, a municipal counselor, a treasurer of the local chamber of commerce, and, finally, a member of the local branch of the National Bank of Greece.2 The successful entrepreneur and the committed public man: this is how Jacob Molho is remembered in the memorial books celebrating the Jewish community of Salonica, which is the only place his memory still survives. Yet, his name features in numerous documents, offering glimpses into the life of a complex individual as well as the complexities of trade in times of global war. Mentions abound. In mid-July 1915, for instance, the local Jewish newspaper L’Indépendant mentioned Molho sitting on a commission and dealing with sugar shortages and speculation relating to its price.3 Two months later, an alarmed French consul reported him partnering with the maritime company of Hadji Daout and the two of them engaging in contraband trade between Salonica, the Bulgarian port of Dedeagach (present-day Alexandroupoli), and finally Germany via neutral Romania.4 Molho’s profits must have been enormous, but his reputation must have suffered to the same extent. For throughout World War I, the press of Salonica, both Greek and Jewish, treated Molho and his likes as profiteers who made exorbitant fortunes by starving the city to death. Molho’s standing as a public man soon morphed into that of a public enemy. In the eyes of the public, he had turned against his city. World War  I questioned loyalties. Did Molho’s allegiance lie with the Greeks who decorated him? The French who contracted him? Or perhaps the Germans whom he did business with? Did he serve Salonica as a committee member, or did he betray his hometown as a profiteer? Or was he simply a merchant above all else? And, if this was indeed the case, what did being a merchant mean? Molho was a misfit, but his trajectory fits well into the overall fluidity of the war years. When the conflict broke out in the summer of 1914,

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Greece remained neutral. In the ensuing months, however, politics polarized between the interventionist supporters of Ententophile prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos and the neutralist followers of Germanophile King Constantine. The National Schism, as this political crisis came to be known, eventually tore the country apart, bringing it to the brink of civil war. In late 1916, a pro-Venizelist Provisional Government was established in Salonica, gaining control over Northern Greece, Crete, and the Aegean Sea. Meanwhile, the legitimate pro-Royalist government continued to govern from Athens until in June 1917 the Entente powers forced the king to abdicate and restored Venizelos to power.5 All that time, Salonica was a government seat, a vast military camp, and by the end, a city in ruins. In late 1915, 150,000 French and British troops disembarked at the port. They had been withdrawn from the Dardanelles after the landing there failed and were transferred to Salonica to assist the struggling Serbs against the combined attack of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria. More troops, including some smaller contingents of Italians and Russians soon followed. This vast army, which eventually numbered some 650,000 Allied soldiers, arrived too late to prevent the fall of Serbia, but camped around the city until the end of the war, becoming an almost permanent fixture of urban life. A Babel-like motley of French, English, Russian, Italian, Serbian, New Zealand, Indian, Black, Senegalese, Moroccan and Algerian, they were mocked as “the gardeners of Salonica” for they saw little action in the battlefields. But in August 1917 they were pressed into service, battling against a catastrophic fire which almost razed the entire walled city to the ground. Wartime Salonica was spared the destruction of war but ended up in ruins nonetheless.6 These cataclysmic events determined the direction of life in the city, disrupting its normal rhythm. Time seemed disjointed. For the nationalizing Greek state, however, time stood still. The presence of the Entente forces weakened its authority, the National Schism severed any continuity in state policy, and the process of assimilation was halted as a result. Contemporary observers, such as Joseph Nehama, arrived at similar conclusions, nostalgically memorializing these years as the Indian summer of Ottoman Salonica. The city, he noted, was “the festival of nations. All the songs of the world resound here.”7 Underneath, however, a deep ethnic and class restructuring

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was taking place. Surprising as it might seem, the Great War not only consolidated anew the shaken Jewish prominence in the marketplace, but even brought Jewish and Greek merchants closer together. By heightening class conflict, it ended up reconfiguring class identities in the city. In Salonica, the Great War was first and foremost a class war. Doing Business: Winners and Losers World War I significantly impacted all of Salonica’s major economic sectors, but not equally or with the same intensity. While some sectors barely managed to survive, others flourished. Factors like access to primary materials, the level of state intervention, and the demands of local civil and military populations were instrumental in determining each sector’s performance. Ethnicity, however, was not. Still, it did matter since Greek merchants were predominantly active in the struggling sectors, while Jews (and Muslims) were represented mainly among those that thrived. Success and failure in the war economy had unintended ethnic consequences. Starting with manufacturing, the textile factories and spinning mills in the central Macedonian towns of Naoussa, Edessa and Veria—the bloodline of Greek entrepreneurship in Salonica—were badly hit. The redrawing of boundaries after the Balkan Wars had already cut them off from Bulgarian and Ottoman markets. Then, in early 1914, the municipality of Salonica introduced new taxes and raised import tariffs, further increasing production costs. The outbreak of World War I added to these challenges, as Greek manufacturers struggled to source and transport essential raw materials. Unable to do so, factories were forced to either operate well below capacity or temporarily close. Making matters worse, this difficult decision often depended on the good faith and cooperation of workers who were themselves becoming increasingly frustrated, resorting to sporadic strikes. Military orders could have provided a critical lifeline for these industries as they had done back in the late Ottoman period. However, the Greek government largely ignored the manufacturers’ persistent pleas and when a few firms were eventually contracted in 1917, it was too little too late. French commissions of low-quality cloth for uniforms for the colonial troops were a welcome alternative, but still not enough to alleviate the manufacturers’ overall predicament.8

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The soap industry of Salonica, another pillar of Greek entrepreneurship, faced similar problems. On the one hand, the Greek government systematically regulated the import of olive oil from the Aegean islands, causing interruptions in production. On the other hand, export bans restricted access to the market of Southern Serbia which had historically absorbed a substantial part of Salonica’s soap production. Government purchases to support the numerous Balkan War refugees still camped in the city could not compensate for such losses and soap manufacturers feared these “pointless restrictions [in olive oil import and soap export] were bound to ruin our small but flourishing industry.”9 Contrary to Greek manufacturers, the principal Jewish establishments fared better. Inevitably, they too began to feel the pressure, but their monopoly in the food sector secured their position and allowed them to seize any lucrative business opportunities the war could offer. A good example is the Olympos Brewery, which from late 1915 to early 1919 produced beer and ice exclusively for the British Army. This reorientation secured the company’s smooth operation, all the more so since the British guaranteed a regular supply of coal and lignite and even facilitated the purchase of new ice-making equipment. Military needs were always prioritized and as a result, Olympos enjoyed uninterrupted access to scarce raw materials and scant fuel. Large Jewish-owned companies could make the adverse circumstances of war work to their advantage.10 Other major Jewish firms managed to render themselves indispensable by exploiting their nodal position. In this respect, Jacob Molho was not a unique case. The Commercial and Industrial Company of Salonica, for instance—the city’s leading local establishment—played a similarly vital role in every civil and military food provisioning scheme. Although it faced setbacks during the Balkan Wars, the company quickly recovered thanks to its near monopoly of grain milling. Time and again between 1913 and 1919 it was contracted to supply wheat, first to the Greek army, then to the numerous Balkan War refugees, and finally to the local population as well as the British and French expeditionary forces. Just like the Olympos Brewery, the company further expanded into baking, supplying bread to the British, French, and Greek armies, and using these profits to cover the chronic losses of its tile factory. The operation was smooth, the output steady, and profits

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rose again.11 Evidently, Jewish merchant-industrialists adapted well to the exigencies of the Great War, successfully rebounding from the blows they had suffered during the Italo-Ottoman War of 1911 to 1912 and the departure of prominent Italian Jews. Their firms were just too big to fail, too important to be sidelined. Tobacco processing and cigarette making, the backbone of local manufacturing, had a bumpy start, however. By 1914, the industry was already struggling with increased taxation and widespread labor unrest, and the onset of the war brought extra challenges on a much larger scale. The Allied blockade and disruptions in overland transport restricted access to the primary markets of Central Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Additionally, several leading Jewish (and Dönme) firms ended up on British, French and Italian blacklists, due to allegations of trading with the enemy, an act of stigmatization which harmed both their reputations and business prospects.12 However, the situation improved considerably after 1916. The arrival of the insatiable Entente troops triggered an unprecedented increase in local demand and the sector soon rebounded. Greek tobacco merchants were the first to seize the new opportunities by making substantial investments. The Atlas cigarette company of Doukas Sahinis, for example, saw its monthly production skyrocket from 2,000 kilograms in January 1915 to 20,000 a year later.13 Yet, despite Greek advancements, Jews continued to dominate the trade. The Commercial Company of Salonica maintained control of the expanding market, whereas the new branch of the Salonica Cigarette Company achieved a production output 50 percent higher than any of its local competitors. Salonica further distinguished itself by becoming the main supplier of the British and Italian armies.14 Evidently, then, Jewish commercial houses adeptly utilized the war to balance out any export trade losses with success in the local, multi-national market. These years were so volatile and their effects so mixed that it seems hardly any significant shifts occurred in the ethnic hierarchies within the tobacco industry. Change was nevertheless clearer in banking, where the National Bank of Greece managed to consolidate its position in the money market. Being the country’s foremost financial institution, it quickly became the primary currency supplier to the Allied troops despite the early involvement of the Jewish Banque Saul Amar. By late 1919, the Greek government also

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granted it the exclusive right to provide currency to anyone.15 This decision aimed primarily to restrict imports and safeguard currency reserves, but in establishing a virtual monopoly for the National Bank of Greece, it inevitably ended up marginalizing any other (non-Greek) bank. As a result, Jewish businessmen were compelled to switch to the National Bank and learn how to operate in a new and unfamiliar environment. Their credit worthiness had to be established anew and, in many cases, this was harder to achieve in comparison to their Greek peers. By contrast, within commerce—the lifeblood of local economy—trends proved much more contradictory. Both Jewish and Greek merchants operated inside an unpredictable and adverse business environment, but they did not encounter the same kinds of difficulties. Frequent interruptions in railway transport; the division of Northern Greece into British, French, and Italian zones of jurisdiction; strict travel restrictions; and, above all, regular bans on exporting merchandise out of the city hindered Salonica’s trade with its hinterland. Greek merchants historically dominated this sector and consequently suffered most. Many, in fact, ended up losing their clients altogether as traders in Greek Macedonia chose to sidestep them by switching their orders to other supply markets and to the better-connected ports of Volos and Piraeus.16 In the meantime, Jewish importers and exporters, the pillars of Jewish commercial dominance, were under a different sort of strain as maritime trade had become a highly risky and unbearably costly undertaking. The Entente powers regularly confiscated Salonica-bound vessels they deemed suspect, while the British frequently conducted inspections and redirected ships to Malta or the island of Limnos in the eastern Aegean Sea as part of their anti-contraband strategy. Similarly, the Allied blockade of the Central Powers first restricted and then crippled the voluminous trade between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Salonica. Consequently, the big Jewish import firms that had dominated this trade for decades were particularly hard hit. As if all this was not enough already, Greek state policies redoubled the pressure on external trade. The (predominantly Jewish) importers had to deal with the low pricing policy of the police as well as requisitions of their unloaded foodstuff on an almost daily basis, not to mention the long delays in government compensations. Above all, starting in late 1914, all imports of staple goods were gradually taken away from individual

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firms and assigned to the National Bank of Greece, greatly limiting the scope of business.17 Once catering for an entire region, Jewish importers were now unable even to serve their own city. To top it all, Salonica regressed relative to other rival Greek ports. Beginning in April 1915, government decrees dictated that imports and exports of all core items were to be made exclusively through Piraeus.18 Overnight, the port of Athens became Greece’s sole entry point, while Salonica, the erstwhile gateway to the Balkans, was downgraded to a provincial port. Additionally, an increasingly bureaucratized war economy favored Piraeus’ importers who benefited from their proximity to central government. Salonicans, by contrast, had to deal with extra transportation costs, endure delays, and risk confiscation of their merchandise. Their business cycle shrunk, and their Northern Greek clientele bypassed them to place orders directly with Piraeus.19 These inauspicious developments further destabilized the position of Jewish importers. After the loss of Salonica’s hinterland in the Balkan Wars and the subsequent introduction of high import tariffs, the centralized organization of the war economy threatened to relegate their city for good, thereby dealing the final blow to their dominance. In such a difficult business environment, Jewish importers could only exhaust whatever possibilities the sudden boom in transit trade offered. Once the Ottoman Empire allied with the Central Powers and entered the war in September 1914, the closure of the Straits turned Salonica into the principal port of transit for Serbia, Romania, and Russia. Jewish importers rose to the occasion, but their dominance was short lived as Bulgaria’s attack on Serbia in Autumn 1915 closed this trading corridor for good.20 The profits they accrued were also lower than anticipated. Russia and Romania quickly established their own commercial agencies in Salonica to facilitate the delivery of military material, and their agents proved fierce competitors to local importers. They enjoyed priority access to the few rail wagons available and eventually almost monopolized transit trade. In fact, their unchecked activity threatened to “enrich foreigners and damage local merchants” to such a high degree that an alarmed chamber of commerce fiercely petitioned for the immediate dissolution of all foreign agencies. The commerce of Salonica, the Greek press clamored, had lost its “Greek citizenship” even if, ironically, Jewish importers were the ones who were suffering most.21

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Overall, the Great War cut Salonica from its hinterland but simultaneously transformed it into a global military depot. It made it a Greek provincial city and, paradoxically, a Balkan transit center, too. All merchants, regardless of their faith, felt the conflict as a deep, totalizing experience that impacted on every local, regional, national, and international business endeavor of theirs. However, ethnicity did eventually shape the nature and extent of the war’s effects, albeit indirectly. As we saw, since Greeks and Jews tended to operate in distinct business fields, they experienced different sorts of hardships and exploited different types of opportunity. Moreover, the stakes were higher for the globally connected Jews who had the most to lose (or gain) from the ebb and flow of changing trading patterns within the region. Yet, ethnicity shaped trading hierarchies in ever more intricate ways precisely because it became closely associated with both licit and illicit trade. Jews (and Dönme) were perceived not just as a nation of traders but also one of smugglers. In the early phase of the war, trading with the enemy, meaning the Ottoman, Habsburg, and German Empires, became a particularly lucrative business venture with an evident ethnic marker. Once the Ottoman Empire closed the Dardanelle Straits to Entente shipping in September 1914, Salonica became the “hyphen between the West and the Orient” according to the imaginative Belgian consul.22 Regaining its erstwhile position as the gateway to Central and Eastern Europe, the city turned into the center of an extensive trading network spanning from the Ottoman Empire in the East to Germany and the Habsburg Empire in the West and the Russian Empire to the North. Enticed by the potential of making large profits, commercial agents from Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria settled in Salonica and used “all sorts of contraband operations and means of corruption to achieve their objectives.” Guided by the German consulate in the city, they partnered with recommended local commissioners to purchase and ship large quantities of merchandise to Germany and Austria-Hungary via the neutral states of Bulgaria and Romania. Chief among those commissioners was Jacob Molho, who throughout 1915 used his complementary positions of ship-owner, commercial representative of the Romanian transport company Viteza, and member of the municipal council and the chamber of commerce to obtain export permits and virtually monopolize the transport of goods from Salonica to Bulgaria.23

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Several other prominent local firms followed suit, working independently to circumnavigate the Allied blockade and engage in illicit trade with the Central Powers. Almost all had a strong Salonican Jewish core, but they were open enough to cut through the Sephardi-Ashkenazi divide and also include members of different ethnoreligious groups as well as foreign nationals. In this respect, no trade network was perhaps more intricate than that of Hassan Akif, the well-known Dönme tobacco magnate. Abram Saporta, a Jew, was a silent partner of Hassan Akif while Leon J. Aélion, another Salonican Jew, mediated the firm’s purchases in the city. Tobacco leaves were then exported to a Munich-based cigarette factory that was founded by a Serb called Zurban who also happened to be the firm’s second silent partner. Hassan Akif also owned the German Jewish cigarette factory Grathwohl in Munich and did extensive business with Hugo Berdach, a Vienna-based Ashkenazi Jew and agent of both Ottoman and Bulgarian tobacco companies there. Finally, throughout the war, Osman Nouri, Hassan Akif ’s son, handled all communication with the firm’s Ottoman and German partners via Lazare Benveniste. Benveniste was a resident of Zurich, in neutral Switzerland, and the son of Haim Benveniste, the tobacco magnate and president of the Jewish community of Kavala, whose firm was also involved in contraband trade. Osman Nouri and Lazare Benveniste corresponded regularly, and Benveniste’s nodal role, like that of other Jews in the company, helped Hassan Akif keep his business channels with Germany and the Ottoman Empire open.24 To eliminate such evasive business dealings with the Central Powers, the Allies resorted to various measures that continued to evolve throughout the war. Key among these were blacklists and statutory lists which cataloged all companies worldwide that traded with the enemy. By early 1916, these lists had turned into a punitive tool of considerable power. Not only did they include firms of any nationality involved in illicit commerce anywhere in the world; they were also published globally, in newspapers, business publications, and government gazettes across the British Empire and beyond. Featuring even in the remote Kenya and Australian Commonwealth Gazettes, blacklisted Salonican companies had nowhere to hide.25 Above all, penalties for being blacklisted were extremely severe, including cutting off all business dealings with British subjects and denying access to any British services. In

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short, blacklisting could have very serious consequences for a Salonican company, potentially even leading to its financial ruin. All Salonican firms were by definition suspect of contraband activities due to their extensive prewar transactions with the Central Powers.26 Moreover, any continuation of such activities while Greece remained neutral was also treated as incriminating evidence. Complicating matters even more, the criteria used by French and British consuls for blacklisting a firm often extended beyond mere business dealings. Hence, Haim and Albert Benveniste were labeled as “known Germanophiles,” and their company was blacklisted not for any commercial undertakings but simply because the two brothers were spreading “the most pessimistic rumors on the future of Salonica,” prophesizing its commercial demise. Similarly, Abraham Recanati faced equally intense scrutiny mainly due to his Zionist activities and correspondence with a fellow Salonican Jew detained in a French concentration camp.27 Links to Germany could be discovered in the most imaginative of places. By incriminating Zionism, blacklisting was targeting all Jewish merchants by default. However, foreign nationality could offer a way out. When the British blacklisted the opium company of Albert Scialom, an Italian citizen, the firm’s representative asked the Italian consul to intervene and settle the matter. The consul obliged and even went as far as to coordinate action with his French colleague in order to exert maximum pressure on the British. Not only did he vouch for the business “probity” of Albert Scialom, but he went on to stress his high social status, calling Scialom “one of the most well-known members of our [Italian] colony [in Salonica].” The case was then taken further up to the Italian ambassador in Athens, and from there to the Italian commercial attaché in Paris who finally introduced it for discussion to the highest authority, the Council of the Allies.28 The war had put double loyalties to the test, but foreign nationality could still weigh in. It served as a weapon of the weak, eventually empowering the otherwise more exposed Jewish firms. If Jewish nationalism appeared treacherous, paradoxically, Jewish cosmopolitanism could turn into a badge of loyalty. In this and other respects, then, there was a sense of déjà vu about the war. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, Jewish merchants had built extensive and powerful business networks with Salonica’s

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major trade partners, namely, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the rest of the Ottoman Empire. Foreign citizenship, too, guaranteed them preferential treatment and extraterritorial protection. After the Balkan Wars, intensive boundary making had diminished the importance of all those business assets that had once distinguished Jewish merchants from their Greek peers. World War I made them a boon once again, even if for a short time only and for a specific and dubious purpose. Before the British and the French arrived in town, “Jewish” commercial networks were repurposed to serve a vibrant, albeit illicit, trade in hardware, tobacco, and other vital war materials despite, or more probably because of, the Allied blockade. Interestingly, the emergence of a highly cohesive, transnational underground trade occurred in parallel with the much better documented increase in government control over all commercial activities in Greece and elsewhere.29 In fact, one fed off the other since the war was a global affair as much as it was a state matter. As a result, the extended familial networks and strong international connections that had shaped Jewish entrepreneurship for so long could now enjoy a brief second life. Some pasts just refused to die. “For everything to stay the same, everything must change” Much like the economic effects of the war discussed previously, state and military intervention in Salonica’s market generated additional powerful yet contrasting trends. Government and army exigencies offered lucrative business opportunities to both Jews and Greeks. However, as developments around food provisioning demonstrate, the practicalities of war economy could actually lead to an unexpected renewal of Jewish dominance. Existing ethnic hierarchies proved both resilient and adjustable. Before the war, Greece was heavily dependent on food imports, purchasing most of its wheat from the Russian Empire. The outbreak of hostilities severely disrupted all existing routes and caused recurrent shortages in foodstuff across the country.30 Nowhere, however, was the situation as critical as in Salonica, now also a destination for several transitory groups. On the eve of World War I, the city was already hosting waves of wretched Greek Orthodox refugees fleeing persecution in southern Bulgaria and Ottoman Anatolia. Once the war broke out, the Serbian collapse in October 1915 and

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the subsequent Bulgarian advance in eastern Greek Macedonia triggered new flights of Serbs, Jews, and Orthodox Greeks to the city. Immediately after, the arrival of the Entente troops created a second Salonica, more than doubling the city’s population. The circle of civil displacement and military movement would only close in August 1917, when the fire razed the inner city to the ground and turned most Salonicans into refugees in their own home.31 The unprecedented concentration of such a diverse and desperate population rendered food provisioning a matter of primary importance. That Salonica was the seat of the Allied military headquarters as well as of the Venizelist Provisional Government endowed food with additional significance. Food obviously concerned people’s livelihood, but it also touched upon questions of social order, political stability, and military efficiency. Feeding Salonica thus called for the involvement of a plethora of actors— from the Greek state and the Provisional Government to the British and French military authorities. Their collective actions reshaped the contours of trade, but their competing interests left the traditional ethnic hierarchies intact. On the one hand, the war augmented the interventionist role of the Greek state. On the other, the Anglo-French Army of the Orient exerted such extensive control over the city that it substantially limited the Greek state’s authority. Compared to other cities in Eastern and Western Europe, then, Salonica was a paradox with business-making reliant on two opposing processes. The multiplicity of power centers, so characteristic of late Ottoman Salonica, had resurfaced again during the Great War. Greek authorities tackled food scarcity by introducing a wide range of measures. In essence, their strategy focused on imposing strict control over the movement of staple goods in a largely vain attempt to curb profiteering and secure local self-sufficiency. National economic space was fragmented into a conglomeration of localities. Thus, ad hoc special permissions and individualized certificates were introduced to regulate imports and exports as much to other parts of Greece as abroad.32 The process of issuing such permissions and certificates changed repeatedly over time but it always remained highly bureaucratic on account of the increasing involvement of numerous government offices—from the newly established Ministry of Provisioning down to the Prefecture and the local Directorate of Provisions.

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However, no matter how centralized these procedures were, they also implicated various professional bodies, including Salonica’s chamber of commerce and the newly founded Commercial Association. These non-governmental organizations now assumed a broad set of regulatory duties: they issued certificates, evaluated import and export applications, and allocated space in the few available rail wagons and other scarce means of transportation. Furthermore, their representatives sat on numerous consultative committees to set prices, determine local needs for staple foodstuffs, and decide on import and export quotas. Jacob Molho, for instance, spoke for the chamber of commerce on as many as three such boards.33 Paradoxically, then, by supplementing the expanding state, these commercial organizations managed to advance their own position. The organization of food provisioning did not lead to a singular expansion of government power. On the contrary, it also bestowed additional authority to other representative bodies. When it came to commerce, war economy developed into a complex structure that involved civil society as much as the state. The two became deeply entangled. This entanglement had important repercussions on ethnic hierarchies in Salonica’s commercial world. Although Jewish merchants did not face open discrimination from the omnipresent government and government-related agencies, they were, nevertheless, forced to navigate a progressively unfamiliar business environment. Increasingly, all was Greek to them. When it came to shipping goods, transnational ethnic and family networks—as well as close contacts with the foreign-managed port and railway companies of Salonica—did not matter as much as they once had in the late Ottoman period. They might have served them surprisingly well in the early, chaotic days of the war but their use was progressively limited to contraband trade, not licit commercial activities. On the contrary, a different toolkit altogether was now key to business success. New links to the Greek administration had to be cultivated, ties with an impersonal and suspicious civil service forged, and even a knowledge of Greek was required. The growing involvement of the Greek state was changing the local business culture, pushing obliquely toward market integration and, indeed, Hellenization. However, these developments had a more equivocal impact since Jewish merchants creatively exploited the windows state intervention was opening to them. Factors other than ethnicity proved critical in securing a solid

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business relationship with the Greek state. Major Jewish firms managed to outmaneuver their Greek competitors and win lucrative government contracts by capitalizing on their dominant position in the food and supplies sector and making exceptionally appealing bids. Jews found a prime market in the insatiable Greek army, a customer they quickly made their own. The formidable supplier Florentin furnished grass for their animals between 1915 and 1919; omnipresent Jacob Molho handled its transport at the port; whereas the newly established firm of Alvo Brothers, soon to thrive in the hardware market, was subcontracted to deliver barbed wire. These and other Jewish suppliers were also contracted by the Refugee Settlement Commission, the second major state client in the city.34 Only Jewish firms, it seemed, were big enough to cater for the ever-increasing military and welfare needs of the Greek state. The more it grew, the more they grew with it. Political allegiances and close contacts with the ruling party proved equally important. At a time of intense polarization between the interventionist Liberal Party and the pro-neutral Royalists, state involvement in the economy turned into a means of cementing political alliances and favoring loyal businessmen. Political rivalries had an undoubted impact on ethnic hierarchies, but their results were often ambiguous. Salonica’s local Liberal Club ended up facilitating economic Hellenization by actively promoting the business interests of its overwhelmingly Greek members.35 In contrast, the rival governing party of Royalist Dimitrios Gounaris ended up stalling Hellenization precisely for the same reason, that is, because it prioritized serving the economic needs of its multiethnic political clientele in order to stay in power. As the 1915 elections had shown, the Royalists had made significant inroads into the non-Greek populations of the region and had successfully managed to integrate them into Greek party politics, leaving Jewish merchants with enough room to maneuver.36 Thus, at the height of a fuel shortage crisis in September 1915, Joseph (Peppo) Mallah, the Royalist deputy for Salonica, successfully managed to secure from the Gounaris government a permit to log and export a colossal quantity of badly-needed firewood on behalf of a “trust” including him and several other prominent Jewish merchants. The affair might have been a “scandal,” as the indignant Greek and Jewish anti-Royalist press dubbed it; but it nevertheless indicates how the twisting of state intervention by local Liberals and Royalists alike

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could actually have deeply contrasting effects on ethnic hierarchies. Hellenization could be the spin off, rather than the driving force behind party politics.37 The enduring strength of Jewish businesses and the economic ramifications of Greek party politics were powerful enough stalling mechanisms, yet alone they could not have arrested the imminent shifts in ethnic relations which an expanding nation-state-at-war was slowly but steadily pushing for. Ultimately, the Hellenization of Salonica’s commercial world was effectively halted due to the parallel operation of another power center, more powerful than the Greek state itself: namely, the Army of the Orient. Wartime Salonica presented a peculiar case, a city where the politics of national integration coexisted with the exigencies of foreign occupation. As one contemporary observer noted, Salonica was “an occupied city as effectively under alien military administration as Brussels or Warsaw or Belgrade.”38 The dominant presence of the Entente left a deep imprint on ethnic relations, as much by expressly favoring Jewish merchants as by mitigating any nationalizing tendencies of the Greek state. Satisfying the foreign soldiers’ needs, from food and drink to sex and souvenirs, made Salonica’s shops buzz with activity like never before. This, however, was just the tip of the iceberg. The encampment of a 500,000strong army had a multifaceted economic effect, which far exceeded the invigoration of the local marketplace. Entente involvement in the local politics of trade was both broader and deeper. For a start, the French and the British systematically contracted local merchants to supply their troops with an impressive array of products. These ranged from essential items like charcoal, wood, vegetables, and cigarettes, to local delicacies such as goat meat, carob beans, and “native white cheese.”39 This turned out to be an exceptionally lucrative business, particularly because army contractors succeeded in managing it as a two-way trading operation. Not only did they profit from supplying the military, but they were also the recipients of Allied leftovers, which they then sold to the struggling civilian food market at exorbitant prices, securing considerable extra revenue in the process.40 The Allies constituted a second city of consumers, but their importance for Jewish and Greek commerce primarily lies in the active role they exercised in the local market, where they reorganized its spaces and oversaw its

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conduct. The French and the British controlled all transport of goods. They carved Greek Macedonia into separate zones of jurisdiction and took it upon themselves to issue permissions for shipping items to and from them.41 In Salonica, they also established the Commission Mixte de  Ravitaillement (Mixed Provisions Commission), a Greco-Entente authority tasked with curbing contraband trade and profiteering. To fulfill its objectives, the commission was granted the authority to issue import and export certificates and set quotas for all staple produce, including foodstuffs.42 As if this was not enough, for a merchant to import from an allied country, an additional authorization was required, issued by the competent consulate in Salonica. This was no formality. Before granting permission, consuls would have to consider factors such as the local need for the specific import, the importer’s reputation and credibility, and, above all else, any potential involvement in contraband trade.43 As a result of such intense regulatory work, the feeding of the entire local civilian population effectively fell under the control of the Allies. Additionally, the Italians and the French capitalized on their military presence to advance their business interests in Greek Macedonia. Before the war, Austria-Hungary and Germany had dominated Salonica’s import trade; once they were gone, France and Italy rivaled each other to fill the gap and turn the region into an exclusive market for their own products. For both countries, postwar recovery passed through the economic conquest of Greek Macedonia.44 Hence, the Italians established a chamber of commerce and the well-frequented Magazzino Italiano, a military canteen selling subsidized items to the Allied personnel, with plans to transform it into a large depot for Italian merchandise after the war.45 In return, the French seized control of the inter-allied Mixed Provisions Commission and used it for the sole purpose of advancing their business interests in the region, as the British nervously noted.46 Furthermore, the French ran their own commercial bureau to facilitate business contacts between French and Salonican merchants, publishing a commercial bulletin to inform prospective investors. They were so determined in their quest to strengthen the business ties between France and Greek Macedonia, that they even floated the idea of setting up regional “Franco-Macedonian Committees” in France to work collaboratively with local chambers of commerce.47 In fact, French and

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Italian plans for economic penetration in Greek Macedonia were so ambitious that their consuls dared propose that Salonica be turned into a free port city once the war was over.48 How did the Allies’ multilayered involvement in the local economy intersect with ethnic hierarchies? How did it impact on the Greco-Jewish power dynamic? Unfortunately, the innumerable application forms for import permits, the long lists of army suppliers, and the staggering 1,500 bulletins on Salonican firms which the French Commercial Bureau had compiled no longer survive. This considerably weakens the historic record and makes answering these questions even more challenging. There is no paper trail to follow in order to establish where the vast sums of Entente money went, who accumulated the circulating capital, which firms won and which lost, and which ethnoreligious group benefited most. All that survives are the texts and the stories they tell. Still, no matter how anecdotal, these documents reveal something about the ways Jewish merchants used their social and cultural capital to take advantage of the Entente presence and how they even let their imagination dream of a new future beyond Greece. The broader jurisdiction of the Allied administration, its better organization and greater efficiency, benefited those who dealt with it more than those who dealt with the Greek state. Doing business with the Entente offered specific advantages: it made the acquisition of import permits easier, secured the exemption of an employer’s workforce from military service, and granted preferential access to raw materials and means of transportation. Above all, it offered protection against the Greek administration to such an extent that Entente contractors oftentimes exhibited utter contempt for Greek law, believing their position was untouchable.49 Jews were the primary beneficiaries of this attractive business environment. Even though several Greeks ranked among the most important suppliers to the Entente forces, the names of prominent Jewish merchants pop up much more frequently in the surviving documents. Jacob Molho’s management of British transports at the port was just the tip of the iceberg since Jewish firms catered in fact for the largest part of the Army’s local provisions. The Orosdi Back department store did the laundry for the British hospital and the Salonica Base, while Fils de G. A. Errera & Cie supplied the army with woolen items. And then there was Nehama, Cohen & Cie. Standing

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on top of everyone else, they supplied the British Army from the first to the last day, their procurement contracts so huge that they covered a dizzyingly vast array of products from Greek Macedonia and beyond, including the rare privilege of importing from abroad.50 These and other Jewish suppliers owed their success to a number of factors, the combined outcome of their unique economic, social, and cultural resources. To begin with, their strong position in Salonica’s market allowed them to dominate army supply auctions, brokering higher selling prices on account of their monopoly of several staple products. Additionally, the ability of Jewish bidders to strike deals with each other and form rings strengthened their position vis-à-vis their competitors. In November 1916, for instance, an exasperated British director of Ordnance Services noted in his war diary how Modiano, sole proprietor of a huge quantity of paraffin wax, participated in the auction on his own as well as through a third party and managed to artificially raise the final price.51 Using the same techniques, Jews were also able to better place themselves whenever the Entente army sold. Hence, in August 1919, a much-concerned inspector of the British-owned Ionian Bank despaired over how best to dispose of the surplus military material now that the conflict was over and the troops were about to leave Salonica. He was convinced auctions represented the most obvious choice, but they were certainly not the most beneficial. As he noted, “already the speculators in Salonica and especially the Jews, are . . . making plans for the purchase of all remaining stores for a song, by forming a group or groups, and paying a small amount on account.”52 This, it seems, was a battle the British were unable to win. Furthermore, a revivified Jewish bourgeois sociability brought Jewish merchants and foreign officers closer together, increasing familiarity and nurturing bonds of trust. Greeks, by comparison, lacked such social contacts. The Association France-Greece, established in April 1915, quickly declined despite having Cleon Hadjilazarou, the most prominent and most cosmopolitan of all Greek businessmen, at its helm. The Anglo-Greek League, founded around the same time, also fell into similar disrepute.53 In contrast, the Jewish bourgeoisie found it far easier to associate with the Entente forces because of their strong French and Italian cultural orientation. Before the war, many Jewish merchants possessed foreign nationality

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and were actively involved in local branches of French and Italian philanthropic and educational associations. Once the conflict started, many more contributed to collection drives in favor of French, Italian, and Belgian victims of war. And when the Army of the Orient disembarked in Salonica, the points of contact multiplied. The local masonic lodges opened their doors to French and Italian “brothers” (Jewish and non-Jewish), the Jewish merchant elite attended performances of drafted French artists, and the alumni associations of the Alliance and other French-language schools, such as the Mission Laïque, rushed to turn their venues into French foyers.54 A distinctly Jewish cultural capital served as the necessary foundation for cross-cultural contact, informing a wide array of social activities and a dense web of institutions. Jewish sociability slowly morphed into a shared Franco-Jewish social space. Moreover, exposure to French culture became a business credential. As Sam Scialom came to appreciate, education in the French-language schools of the Alliance Israélite Universelle and membership in Jewish Francophile voluntary societies, like the Alliance Alumni Association, could secure a merchant’s place. As mentioned, in March 1918, Scialom, director of a historic Salonican opium trading company, found himself included in the British blacklist for breaking the blockade and trafficking Ottoman opium. To prove his loyalty, he invoked his membership in the local Alliance Alumni Association, mentioned his education in the Alliance schools, and even submitted letters of support from their director, Joseph Nehama.55 Interestingly, the arrival of French troops in Salonica had turned Nehama, and other Jewish custodians of French culture in the city, into assessors of one’s loyalty to France. Such an upgrade worked to the benefit of Jewish merchants. Much like the late Ottoman period, cross-cultural social networks gained in importance because of the parallel operation of multiple power centers, this time the Greek state and the Entente military authorities. The creation of this second, Entente-centered, parallel power web balanced the difficulties Jewish merchants encountered with the Greek authorities. A liability in the context of a nation-state, foreign connections now constituted a precious symbolic capital, to which Jewish merchants had, as in the past, preferential access.

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Franco- and Italian-Jewish cultural ties also acquired further political significance reflecting French and Italian aspirations to expand economically in Greek Macedonia, the Balkans, and Eastern Mediterranean once the war was over.56 The feasibility of these plans relied heavily on the cooperation of Salonica’s Jews, a group both states considered to be economically prominent, culturally proximate, and politically detached from the Greek nation-state. Consequently, when the Italian consul established an Italian chamber of commerce in the city, he made sure its board consisted of prominent local Italian Jews and its presidency entrusted to consigliere Morpurgo, president of the Banque de Salonique and the Ottoman Industrial and Commercial Company. Similarly, Guglielmo Errera, a Salonican Jew of Italian citizenship, was put at the helm of the Magazzino Italiano.57 Acting more aggressively, the French Ministry of Commerce and Industry planned to establish a local committee of “French, Greek, and Jewish patrons” to promote French trade.58 Placed next to the established nations of France and Greece, Jews were considered important enough in French postwar plans to be accorded the symbolic status of a separate nationality. Throughout the duration of World War I, then, centripetal and centrifugal forces were unleashed on Salonica’s economy. On the one hand, persistent state intervention pushed toward Hellenization. On the other, the Army of the Orient functioned as an alternative, if not competing, power center, acting as an external pull that provided great benefit to the Jews. The war neither led to Jewish integration nor marginalization from a Greek economy that was itself heavily invested in nationalization. Rather, the outcome was the perpetuation of ethnic hierarchies. Yet, the basis upon which these hierarchies functioned was now radically different. To paraphrase Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, everything changed for everything to stay the same.59 This was a surprising development, especially when compared with imperial Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Middle East where the conflict had led to the growth of antisemitism, ethnic upturns, and the quest for national bourgeoisies.60 In Salonica, by comparison, ethnic tensions were minimal and never entered public discourse.61 And yet, below the surface, the war had unleashed opposing forces that were silently leading toward the establishment of two ethnically distinct fields of business activity. While

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Greek merchants veered toward the national state, their Jewish peers orbited around the Allies. Once the war was over, local commerce was hit by yet another crisis. Everywhere in Europe, the transition from a war to a peace economy proved to be a difficult endeavor, but in Salonica, extra forces made it particularly arduous. The departure of the Entente troops closed both the major source and stimulus for the influx of money in Greek Macedonia. The repatriation of Greek refugees in the conquered regions of Thrace and Asia Minor was piecemeal and incomplete, but it nevertheless constricted local consumption.62 Significant delays in rebuilding the city after the Great Fire of 1917 further accentuated stagnation. Moreover, the food crisis lingered and exports to the neighboring Balkan states either remained prohibited or rigorously controlled.63 Finally, the war had turned part of the city’s hinterland into a battlefield, whereas the volume of trade in the port of Piraeus quickly surpassed that of Salonica. Greek and Jewish merchants saw their business constrict and their place in the urban, regional, and national economy challenged. For Jews, however, the future looked even bleaker. In October 1919 Jewish circles heralded Greek territorial gains in Ottoman Thrace and the western coast of Ottoman Asia Minor, hoping they would considerably enlarge Salonica’s business space.64 Yet, restrictions in transit trade reappeared and so did Hellenizing trends in the market. In early 1919, Greek government circles were already discussing making bookkeeping in Greek mandatory; and in July of the same year, the Ministry of Economy introduced Sunday rest for barber shops. Both measures were eventually withdrawn, but they sent ominous signals about the Greek state’s aggressive postwar policy.65 This policy was not strictly speaking anti-Jewish. As the French consul cautioned, it rather aimed to achieve a comprehensive Hellenization of the region’s economy, targeting all foreign enterprises, regardless of creed or nationality.66 However, by seeking to eliminate Western European influence in Greek Macedonia, the economic policy of the Greek state also threatened to deprive Jews from a historically effective protective shield, namely, European presence. During the Great War, Jewish merchants had ingenuously managed to keep their economic power intact. In the new, postwar Greek business environment, their position and

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influence as both Jews and Salonicans would gradually recede. The future looked bleak. Peace could be more destructive than war. “Bulimic Merchants” and “Bloodsucking Profiteers” For Salonicans, however, other futures mattered most. Throughout the course of the war, everyday life in the city evolved around food—its scarcity, provision, purchase, and consumption. Food was more than a bare necessity: it became a question, a narrative, and an emotion, too. Day in and day out the press would record every minute development on the food front—the cargoes en route, arrivals at the port, storage and hiding, and then the endless meetings of the ever-changing competent authorities, the prohibitions, the police raids, the requisitions, and confiscations. Food was the main character in a story full of twists and turns, very similar to those serialized novels published daily in local newspapers. Readers would be constantly reminded of the number of days remaining until some stock of coal, wheat, rice, or sugar would run out—eight days for wheat in August 1914, then four in January 1915, and then a mere two in January 1916.67 These countdowns impacted heavily on local temporalities: they brought a dark future ever closer and compressed the present into an agonizing time lag. Wartime Salonicans experienced time as a series of impending doomsdays, interspersed with fleeting moments of redemption when shipments finally arrived, or a staple food item was made available. Even language changed. In the Francophone Jewish press, the Greek word dhiatimissis replaced the French tarification as the dominant term for price fixing. Food politics gave rise to a new cross-ethnic jargon that was inadvertently bringing Jewish and Greek reading publics closer together. Above all, local discourse was militarized. The vocabulary of war dominated accounts of bread riots and police raids, whereas opinion articles and public announcements adopted a polemical tone to describe the diverging interests of various actors. Eventually, food was transformed into a second battlefront, which monopolized the public’s attention to the point it overshadowed the war itself. “Lately,” the Jewish newspaper L’Écho de Salonique noticed in July 1915, “all one hears about in the newspapers are flour merchants, sugar traders, and other people of that

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sort. . . . Before Warsaw and the Dardanelles, our ears have to be bored with the sugar question. It is a tiresome matter that will end up making us all diabetic and neurasthenic.”68 Food turned into the primary arena of local politics.69 As elsewhere in Europe, food shortages threatened to undermine social cohesion, generate social conflict, and harden social divisions. Existing class and ethnic relations were put to the test and established class and ethnic boundaries were bound to be challenged. The merchants of Salonica, exposed as they were to accusations of profiteering, were by default at the core of these developments; and Jews among them even more so. Indeed, World War I firmly placed the issue of profiteering into the limelight and turned it into a catchword that dominated all forms of public text, from formal announcements of professional associations to the satirical columns of every newspaper irrespective of party affiliation. In the press, references to “robbed people,” “Mrs. Profiteering,” and “sucking of the poor man’s marrow” abounded. Even the otherwise moderate L’Indépendant could not resist likening profiteers to “vampires.”70 A profiteer could be a big merchant whom the press pathologized by attributing his actions to his “bulimic nature.” But a profiteer could also be a small trader, like the butchers, shoemakers, tailors, and fruit and fish vendors newspapers regularly chose to single out.71 At times, even the state could be labeled a profiteer, as its monopoly over the import and distribution of basic foodstuffs was regularly blamed for the shortages and the exorbitant prices in Salonica’s market.72 There was no purpose the term could not serve. Thus, while the Labor Center of Salonica attacked the guilds of small traders for “filling their pockets with war profits,” the Guilds’ Association by contrast attributed food shortages to the profiteering activities of several capitalists only.73 An open and fluid category, profiteering was therefore more than a descriptor. It was a trope, offering the most meaningful way to understand Salonica’s food shortage. Prewar, profiteering had essentially constituted a moral accusation against excessive individual profit.74 After the outbreak of hostilities, its meanings broadened. It now denoted not just a dubious practice but an air-tight explanation of the current economic predicament and a cogent argument of who was responsible for it. At its core, the language of profiteering juxtaposed the exploitative seller to the hard-hit consumer. But how was the consumer to be defined?

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In the first years of the war, the consumer was the “people” described as the sum total of toilers and breadwinners.75 More precisely, in the dominant anti-profiteering discourse of the Greek Guilds’ Association, the “people” (laos) also included the guilds who served as their spokespersons.76 This juxtaposition between “the people” and the profiteers closely followed the staple anti-plutocratic discourse of the guilds, which historically pitted the hardhit “populace” (kosmakes) against the “plutocrats.”77 By late 1914, however, the “plutocrats” were already equated with the major merchants whom the guilds held accountable for the vicissitudes of the “robbed” and “oppressed people.”78 Guild criticism mainly focused on the merchants’ violation of a tacit social contract, according to which the merchants should demonstrate a “heightened sense of duty to the suffering people.”79 “For some years now,” newspaper To Phos commented, Our well-to-do have lost the historic noble character of the wealthy class which gave birth to the great benefactors. To donate significant sums of money for the common good is the work of a bygone era. Today, the war has brought about a new psychology and has spread the rottenness over which profiteering has grown. Some people have treated the great bloodbath only as an opportunity [to profit] and they have exhausted all means and spared no effort to exploit [the war].80

In a variation on the above theme, the “people” of the consumers were juxtaposed not only against big merchants but small traders, too. The notion of “the people” still defined who the consumers were, but its most historic elements—the retailers, shopkeepers, artisans, as well as the guilds—were now excluded. Guilds, in particular, were now viewed as exploiters of the “people’s” basic needs. As To Phos remarked in 1918, “the merchants and the guilds” constituted a common class “whose interests were opposed to those of the suffering people.”81 In short, the new rhetoric of profiteering initially drew from the more established populist language of the “people.” Yet, this new rhetoric fundamentally changed the old. The “people,” or publique in the French-language Jewish press, increasingly only included the consumers. The “people of the consumers” constituted a new imaginary collective posited against all those involved in food supply—from wholesale

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importers to retail traders. The acute difficulties in food provisioning had elevated food distribution into the main social and political issue and had ushered in the creation of a new group designation. Consequently, the rhetoric of profiteering ended up informing a novel representation of social hierarchy. Society was viewed as composed of two new distinct “classes,” defined with reference to consumption, not production. On the one side, there were the “resellers,” (metaprates in Greek) “comprising the merchants and the guilds, a class whose interests stood against those of the suffering people.” On the other side were “the consumers,” “that class which does not practice commerce” and did not belong to the “profiteering professions.”82 Even though “class” was still occasionally used to refer to occupational groups, the new language of profiteering had considerably changed its original meanings. The language of profiteering the war had brought about persisted until the immediate postwar period. By then, however, it was drawing not from a populist discourse but from a burgeoning Marxist social vocabulary, thus generating a more “classed” representation of society. To begin with, the notion of “consumers” acquired clearer “class” features. The press no longer referred to consumers as “the people,” but as the “petty bourgeoisie” or the “lower middle class.” Meanwhile, merchants, previously known as “resellers,” were now termed “capitalists” and “employers,” itself a novel descriptor.83 Above all, workers were now dissociated from the consumers and treated as a separate social group responsible for the exorbitant prices and the acute difficulties the petty bourgeois consumers were facing. Clearly, there was a shift from a two- to a three-tier representation of social hierarchies, from “people” vs. “resellers” to “petty bourgeois” vs. “capitalists” and “workers.” How did this come about? The new imagining of society was obviously Marxisant. It presupposed the existence of a class struggle between “capital and labor” and identified “two opposing social camps: the capitalist merchants and compradors,” or the “employers” on the one side, and the “working class” or “labor,” on the other.84 However, conflict between these two classes did not center on the means of production and their ownership, but, rather, high prices and food shortages. As To Phos observed:

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The two opposing social camps debate who is responsible for the unjustifiably high cost of living. Letters of merchants and compradors blame workers and their high wages. Letters of workers, by contrast, blame the greedy merchants. Between these two classes, there is not a conflict of interests anymore but an implacable hatred.85

Competition between capital and labor resulted in exorbitant prices. Merchants priced the available merchandise so high they pushed workers to strike for wage increases. Successful strikes, however, obviously meant higher labor costs, which the merchants chose to absorb by incorporating them into the product’s retail price instead of squeezing their own profit margins. Prices would therefore continue to rise, and further strikes would break out to the detriment of the consumer who bore the full brunt. Thus, in an original restatement of the classic class narrative, class conflict was transposed from the level of production to that of consumption. Its true victims were the petty bourgeois consumers, the middle stratum of white-collar workers and commercial employees. Public discourse treated the clash between capital and labor as a strange war that did not wear down the combatants but caused infinite harm to bystanders. Every “win,” every rise in production costs, was eventually rolled over to the consumers. According to To Phos again: Today, a war has been declared between capital and labor. However, the combatants remain invulnerable and undamaged and for that reason they are not at all in a hurry to end it by signing a reasonable peace treaty. The class of consumers always pays for the cost of this fight. Every wage raise, every employer claim, and every regular or special tax is always saddled on the consumers.86

In consequence, consumers “ha[d] become the anvil that everyone pounds.”87 Employers, workers, and consumers. The language of profiteering was closely intertwined with the rhetoric of class conflict, which crystallized into an unusual imagining of a tripartite society. These new understandings of social divisions made Salonica an oxymoronic case: simultaneously, it was both typical and unique. Indeed, the rhetoric of profiteering was

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widely employed throughout wartime Europe and the Middle East to make sense of the difficulties in food provisioning. Acute shortages and exorbitant prices were common in Vienna, Berlin, Freiburg, and Warsaw, in Istanbul, Beirut, and Salonica, and so were the words used to explain them.88 In each city, however, the same words could mean very different things. Every local discourse on profiteering drew from distinct understandings of society and produced unique political identities. In Vienna, for instance, a new social vocabulary replaced the language of class.89 In Berlin, by contrast, the idiom of profiteering intertwined with gender discourses to shape a new political subject, the “woman of lesser means” who dominated the public space of lines and queues and challenged the profiteering tactics of producers, wholesalers, and retailers.90 In Salonica, things were similar and at the same time fundamentally different. As elsewhere in Europe, here, too, the profiteer was not to be identified with a specific social group such as the merchants; rather, the language of profiteering generated new social divisions based on one’s access to essential goods. In other words, it constructed identities with reference to consumption instead of production.91 However, unlike Berlin, the gender of the “consumer” did not change. There is virtually no reference in the press to women queuing and, although they did so, public discourse did not put them in the limelight.92 On the contrary, both local newspapers and foreign observers stressed the difficulties male breadwinners faced on account of the labyrinthine bureaucracy of food stamps and the endless waiting in line for a single loaf of bread. “Those who lack the muscle to fight for bread will go without,” Makedonia lamented.93 Elsewhere—in Vienna, for instance—the idiom of profiteering replaced existing perceptions of the social order. Yet, in Salonica this was not the case. Rather, the rhetoric of profiteering interacted with existing social imaginaries producing new and hybrid vocabularies. The “people,” initially, and the “middle class,” subsequently, were tied to the “consumer” and were resignified accordingly. The language of the “people” and the new Marxisant vocabulary of class were imaginatively adapted to make sense of the extraordinary circumstances brought about by food shortages. The language of profiteering thus interacted with, rather than supplanted, the existing system of social representations, performing a double symbolic function. On the one hand, it intensified older symbolic distinctions between the existing social groups.

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On the other hand, it created new distinctions, even if these proved to be ephemeral. In both cases, it resignified the merchants’ identity with particularly negative connotations. Merchants were delegitimized. The “merchant” was closely linked to the “profiteer” and portrayed as the perpetrator of a victimized urban public. Powerful metaphors were often employed, and merchants were regularly dehumanized, depicted as “blood-sucking” creatures, “vampires,” “leeches,” “octopuses,” and other tentacled animals. Similarly, pseudo-psychological explanations referred to their innate “bulimia,” “greed,” and “rapacity,” pathologizing their business practices. Newspapers also questioned their patriotism, pointing to their selfish exploits at the very moment when “the poor people pay with their blood,” and “are sacrificing their lives on the [Macedonian] battlefront.” Eventually, these “nouveaux riches” were treated as “a threat to social order.” They were accused of forming a gang-like “clique,” acting like “thieves,” and performing the “criminal act” of profiteering. Above all, their speculation skyrocketed prices, curtailed consumer demand, and shrank production, which led to layoffs and ultimately the creation of “an entire class of unemployed workers.” They were the cause behind all “recurring anomalies of social life.”94 Such popular portrayals deconstructed the late Ottoman image of the merchant as a public man and city benefactor and challenged his hitherto widely regarded moral authority as a community leader and respectable citizen. Moreover, the notion of the “merchant” took up some more distinctly classed characteristics. Until the Great War, the “merchant” was distinguished from the blurry category of the “people,” of day laborers and small artisans. As the conflict dragged on, the public discourse on profiteering linked him, as we saw, to capital and to “employers,” and juxtaposed him against the working as well as the lower-middle “classes.” “Contrary to Athens,” To Phos noted, “the merchants’ interests reign supreme here. Still, such a system will never alleviate society. Labor will continue to increase its demands, resellers will become super-rich, and the unfortunate employees, unable to make ends meet, will become burglars and usurpers by necessity.”95 Thus, during the war, the figure of the merchant ceased to resemble that of an acceptable public man. No longer were they associated with the modernizing city or credited for acts of public service that benefited the common

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good. On the contrary, in the idiom of profiteering, the “merchant” stood for blatant self-interest and their identity acquired narrower and less widely condoned features. Remarkably, although the war substantially altered the merchants’ class identity, it left its ethnic connotations largely untouched. Explicit references to Jewish wholesalers were few and inconsequential, and the image of the profiteer never developed into an antisemitic stereotype in the same way that it did in Vienna and other multiethnic cities at war.96 Similarly, private complaints filed against Jewish merchants, be those petitions to the chamber of commerce or protests to the Commercial Association and to local state authorities, were generally free of antisemitic references. Such an absence of antisemitism is startling for throughout the war, Jews controlled the wholesale and retail trade of all basic necessities in Salonica, from coffee and sugar to wheat and rice. Moreover, as we saw, since the turn of the century, Greek antisemitism had been on the rise. During the last decade of Ottoman rule, Greek Orthodox and Jewish merchants had increasingly clashed, whereas Greek nationalism prioritized the threat of Jewish commercial predominance over traditional religious allegations. Then, in the wake of the Balkan Wars, local Greek newspapers called for the “commercial conquest of Salonica,” pointing to the “Jewish merchant” as the main opponent of Greek rule. Finally, after the great tobacco strikes of early 1914, Jewish leaders of the Socialist Workers’ Federation were demonized, while militant trade unionism was linked to the “unpatriotic Jews.”97 These trends in early-twentieth-century Greek antisemitism point to change as much as to continuity. When the Great War broke out, antisemitism in Salonica was manifestly present, yet its focus had radically shifted. Following the April 1914 strike wave, the “socialist and revolutionary Jew” rapidly replaced the (bourgeois) “Jewish merchant” as the primary threat to Greek nationalism. “The monsters Benaroya and Yionas” will never be released, Makedonia declared in July 1915, referring to the exiled Jewish socialist leaders Abraham Benaroya and Samuel Yionas. Similarly, Nea Aletheia asserted that “the socialists of Salonica cannot be seen as serving the homeland. Patriotism and socialism in Greece, in particular, are incompatible since the flimsy principles of socialism undermine the very foundations

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of patriotism.”98 The most politically dangerous form of Jewishness was increasingly tied to socialism and the labor movement. Here lies the key to explaining the absence of antisemitism in the rhetoric of profiteering. From 1914, the “Jewish profiteer” could not serve as a usable form of antisemitism now that the main line was drawn between (Greek) capital and (Jewish) labor. In fact, for the anti-socialist camp, linking profiteering to Jewishness in a period of rising social tensions created unnecessary divisions between Greek and Jewish employers, weakening them as a whole. As a result, the image of the merchant gradually lost its strong Jewish connotations which were in turn transferred to the worker. Shifts in public discourse, then, posited the “people” of consumers not against Jewish merchants alone but against “merchants” full stop. Increasingly, these terms took a discernibly class outlook as the bipartite scheme of “merchants” vs. “people” morphed into a tripartite one of “[merchant-] employers,” “workers,” and “consumers.” Such novel imaginings of the “merchant” did much to reconfigure its class connotations, but, importantly, left its ethnic overtones intact. Strangely enough, the idiom of profiteering softened ethnic differences in order to breed a peculiar, class-centric vision of merchants and society. The Salonica of the Great War played host to many street sellers and buyers whose different languages turned the city’s marketplace into Europe’s Babel. Yet, all merchants, both Greeks and Jews, spoke and were spoken about through a single, shared language—the language of profiteering. Together and Apart: Merchants, Employees, and the Guilds At the same time, however, merchants reshaped their group identity through their own collective agency. Their sense of self was not just a linguistic construct. The idiom of profiteering made their actions meaningful to others, but their own selfhood was the combined result of both discourses and practices. Salonica’s merchants were actively involved in the (re)production of their own identity. Their troubled relationship with the commercial employees, the guilds, and the Greek state redefined them as a class, securing their embattled local hegemony on a new basis.

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The Great War hit Salonica’s commercial employees particularly hard. As prices surged, their wages remained stagnant, leading to a significant drop in their standard of living. At the same time, the unprecedented business opportunities the war created for many other groups further disadvantaged them. War significantly strengthened the traditional group of artisans and shopkeepers with bakers, grocers, and other petty traders of staple goods in particular benefiting from both the presence of the Entente troops and widespread food scarcity.99 As the US consul observed, The prices at which the simplest necessaries of existence can be obtained, are fantastic. High prices are to be expected, but everybody in business down to the smallest shop-keeper, is pervaded with the mania of getting rich quick and of making enormous profits, beginning with 200%.100

Commercial employees also felt pressure from a new “bourgeois group” of “upstarts and nouveaux riches” whose conspicuous consumption and lavish way of life contrasted with their own hardships and affronted their value system, as a sympathetic press liked to note.101 Education in Western-style schools like the Alliance’s and participation in alumni and other middle-class associations meant that employee values centered on the bourgeois virtues of hard work, education, and respectability, virtues that had shaped the selfrepresentation and broader worldview of all emerging white-collar workers since the late nineteenth century. They constituted their distinct cultural capital and informed their understanding of a proper social hierarchy. This value system placed the commercial employees above the working classes, sustaining their aspirations to ascend the steps of the class system by emulating the bourgeois. It was a value system they shared with the bourgeoisie and one they felt brought them closer to it. However, wartime profit-making seemed to vindicate vices, not virtues, whereas the new stratum of nouveaux riches posed both an economic and a moral threat to the perilous social position of commercial employees. In short, overrun by new as well as old groups, commercial employees witnessed a material and symbolic downgrading. Their continued sense of cultural superiority was increasingly incongruent with their lowered economic position, and this further intensified their overall sense of degradation.102

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Moreover, commercial employees also felt pressure from further below. Toward the end of the war, the working classes saw their own position within society slightly advance. In 1919 a series of dynamic and successful strikes improved their financial situation, while the establishment of a Labor Center in late 1917 elevated their institutional status.103 As a result, their economic and social standing stabilized. In public discourse, too, the hierarchical relationship between white- and blue-collar workers was reversed. As L’Indépendant claimed, the steep rise in the workers’ income “by 500% or even 1000%” was now making civil servants and commercial employees “[society’s] eternal sacrificial lambs.”104 Finally, relations between commercial employees and their employers also grew more strained, further eroding the employees’ social standing. Although merchants had amassed huge profits, employee salaries had not risen accordingly, a point frequently highlighted by the press, which blamed the “rapacious” merchants for the growing disparity. The swift pauperization of employees was treated as inversely proportional to the rapid enrichment of employers and so the solution proposed was a wage rise that would reflect the “spirit of generosity,” and the moral and humanistic qualities that had always distinguished the employers.105 Once again, paternalism was suggested as the way forward. However, while paternalistic attitudes might have fared well in the past, they no longer succeeded in forging a harmonious relationship based on deference and consensus. During the war, employees were radicalized. Their ties to their merchant employers loosened, and their relationship with them increasingly reflected the dynamics of class, marked by visible tensions. In the early stages of the war, commercial employees were largely invisible in public discourse, subsumed into the broader collective of the “popular classes.”106 Moreover, the Greek Association of Commercial Employees collaborated closely with the Guilds’ Association, essentially integrating into it. Interestingly, despite being part of the “people” (or perhaps because of it), the employees’ political rhetoric did not target the “propertied classes.” Instead, it was directed against the Greek state, criticizing its unfair conduct. Specifically, the protests of the employees’ association focused more on government policies than on the practices of their employers, whereas employee demands primarily centered on the readjustment of custom tariffs so

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that Salonica’s import trade would be “alleviated and workers and employees [could] maintain their employment.”107 Similarly, the crisis in the local labor market was attributed to heavy taxation rather than to employers’ profiteering. Employee interests aligned with their employers’, the two groups being on the same side. Four years later, the employees’ repositioning was complete. In March 1919, and after several years of inertia, the Association of Commercial Employees was reconstituted from scratch. Its reestablishment was initiated by members of the Venizelist Liberal Party and reportedly echoed an international postwar “spirit of group solidarity and self-organizing.”108 Yet, things quickly took a different turn. Enrollment was massive, and the association quickly radicalized. Following the example of blue-collar unions, it severed all ties with the Guilds’ Association and in April 1919 its members unanimously resolved to join the socialist Labor Center of Salonica, demanding an increase in wages along the way.109 What followed further widened the gap between them and the merchants: in June 1919 all three major employer associations—the Commercial Association, the chamber of commerce and the Industrialists’ Association—rejected the employees’ demands as “inapplicable.” In response, a few days later, the employees’ association expressed its “solidarity” with the nation-wide strike of bank employees, acting in unison with the local Labor Center.110 A veritable tug-of-war was underway. As these precipitous developments amply demonstrate, the war significantly affected the relationship between merchants and their employees, leading to profound changes in their dynamics. High prices, stagnant wages, and the dominant image of the profiteering merchant dissociated commercial employees from the higher merchant stratum. As a result, their economic, social, and symbolic standing at the lower end of the bourgeois world was put to the test. Back in 1908, in the wake of the Young Turk Revolution, the words and actions of Jewish and Greek Orthodox communal elites had elevated commercial employees to the new focal point of communal welfare. Securing Jewish economic predominance or advancing Greek Orthodox business-making necessitated a restructuring of the local labor market along clearer ethnic lines. Ten years later, ethnic solidarity had given way to class difference. In the midst of growing social

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polarization, Jewish and Greek commercial employees were now coming closer to the labor strata, positioning themselves opposite rather than alongside their merchant employers. Relations between merchants and the guilds followed the opposite course. Early in the war, the major point of friction centered around the question of provisioning the two most important guilds in the city, the bakers and grocers. Guild protests concentrated on the unlawful practices of “greedy” wholesalers who only served handpicked customers or systematically sold above fixed prices.111 Guild members also viewed state policies as inherently one-sided and frequently blamed the authorities for blindly following the recommendations of the chamber of commerce. In their opinion, this led to prices being fixed, often at the expense of the grocers who faced accusations for speculation and suffered from police persecution “even though they [were] not the ones marketing soap, coffee and other overpriced merchandise.”112 Such issues turned the guilds against the merchants. Like others, they, too, adopted the idiom of profiteering. Letters to the editor, announcements, op-eds, and even personal accusations blamed not the state, but middlemen and wholesalers for the recurring food shortages and widespread black marketeering.113 Occasionally, guild representatives even tapped into the public’s antisemitic sentiments. They singled out the profiteering “Jewish company [sic] of flour merchants” and went as far as admonishing “our compatriots, the Greek merchants, for reassuring their alarmed Jewish colleagues they had nothing to worry about because Greek merchants were capable of revoking all police regulations.”114 These reactions reflected a deeper change in the guilds’ understanding of their role. In September 1915 spokespersons propagated the establishment of a guild-controlled committee of “social defense” to fight against the profiteering tendencies of several “capitalists.”115 A few years later, in July 1918, the Guilds’ Association elected a three-member committee to “set prices, determine profit margins, monitor merchants, and denounce them for speculation whenever they hid their merchandise or asked for an exorbitant price.”116 As the war was nearing its end, the guilds were embarking on an increasingly independent course of action fueled by a widely-held conviction about the merchants’ speculative practices.

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Going a step further, the guilds also challenged the merchants’ primacy by advocating new forms of food distribution. In the early months of 1915, their federation encouraged the bakers in Salonica’s hinterland to organize themselves into guilds, rid themselves of middlemen, and purchase the amount of grain their region needed directly from the Ministry of Provisions.117 Such coordinating acts reflected a novel approach to market relations. The idea of unmediated purchase promised to substitute the guilds for the speculating merchants and in doing so redress the uneven relationship between the two groups. In the following years, more conscious attempts to overstep the merchants were made through the formation of cooperatives. In December 1917, the Guild of Restaurant and Tavern Managers founded a consumer cooperative “to help its members purchase those goods which speculation had made disappear from the market.”118 This was, however, an isolated initiative. Very few cooperatives materialized, indicating that merchants were successful in maintaining their dominant position. Yet, the cooperative rhetoric espoused by the guilds also reveals that they and the merchants held diverging views on the economy. “Bear in mind, gentlemen,” Dimitrios Rizos mentioned in the general assembly of the Restaurants’ Guild in late January 1918: When peace comes, social rivalry will be so intense that the [continued existence of the] cooperative will be vital to the Guild. When hard times pass, there is no reason to redirect the profits which are now distributed among the members of the Guild to the pockets of ten or fifteen grand merchants.119

Cooperatives might have been a response to an emergency situation brought about by the Great War. Yet, they were now elevated to the primary means for protecting the guilds’ interests in times of ongoing social tension and were advocated, no less, as the preferred model for postwar organization of the market. In the guild’s economic vision, there was little space for the merchants anymore. The war thus widened the gap between the guilds and the merchants and accentuated their differences. However, the emergence of a vocal labor movement also triggered convergences. In the last phase of the conflict, guilds and trade unions followed diverging paths. In 1917, many workers’

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associations left the Guilds’ Association to establish the Labor Center of Salonica, emancipating themselves from the control which the Guilds’ Association had hitherto exerted over them. In the next few years, numerous strikes brought these two groups to loggerheads with each other.120 Yet, these same developments also ended up facilitating a rapprochement between the guilds and the merchants. In July 1919, amid one such strike wave, the chamber of commerce organized a grand meeting to discuss the high cost of living. All merchant and professional associations participated including the Guilds’ Association. Speakers fiercely attacked trade unionism, castigated workers for “laziness” and thriftlessness, and concluded with a plea to “organize the employers’ class.” Indeed, the meeting ended with the election of a committee to draft the new statute of the Employers’ Association.121 Labor activism was thus generating new frontlines, pushing merchants and guilds to cooperate despite their obvious differences. The “utopian socialism” which the merchants had discerned in the discourse of the Guilds’ Association in 1914 now gave way to the realization that both groups shared a common social and political identity—that of the employer.122 The Great War thus left an ambivalent legacy to the relationship between guilds and merchants. In the late Ottoman period, Greek Orthodox merchants had forged close cooperation with the (Greek Orthodox) Guilds’ Association, which the first national elections of 1915 had further solidified. The war years put this collaboration to the test. The vicissitudes of food provisioning and their attribution to profiteering set the two groups apart: they challenged the position of the merchants in the market and hence their symbolic dominance over the city. As with commercial employees, the ideas and actions of the guilds signaled their growing autonomy and the emergence of a discernible class awareness. However, social upheaval in the immediate postwar period deterred the further radicalization of the guilds and made rapprochement with the merchants possible. In the late Ottoman period, nationalism was the ideological glue binding Greek Orthodox merchants together with the guilds as both faced intense competition from the Jews. In the aftermath of the Great War, opposition to trade unionism would play a similar role. This time, however, the aim was to secure the interests of both Greek and Jewish merchants and guarantee the survival of both Greek and Jewish lower-middle-class artisans and shopkeepers.

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Persecuted Salonicans: Merchants Rebound Social conflict, new social discourses, and the reconfiguration of class hierarchies placed the merchants of Salonica at the core of overlapping debates, challenging their erstwhile undisputed prominence in the city and its market. However, as the conflict drew to a close, the difficulties of food procurement were largely attributed to the detrimental policies of the “Athenian state” and its hostile attitude toward Salonica and its merchants. The survival of the city thus relied on safeguarding the livelihood of its traders. The very future of Salonica was once more tied to its merchants. During the war, government policies severely affected the position of Salonica vis-à-vis Piraeus, the port of Athens. Centralization and the expansion of state bureaucracy were particularly harmful to Salonican importers who found themselves far away from the administrative centers of decisionmaking and hence their requests were often disregarded. “One thinks ministerial officials know our needs better than our merchants or our bankers,” L’Écho de  Salonique commented ironically.123 Moreover, the government forbade all imports from Old Greece to Salonica, fearing the shipped goods would be resold to the Entente troops rather than consumed by the local population. The ban disrupted the regular conduct of trade and favored the Athenian businessmen who could easily obtain the necessary certificates of exemption.124 Equally damaging for local trade was the prohibition of exporting goods from Salonica to its hinterland. To top it all, Piraeus was designated Greece’s sole port of arrival for all imported goods. As a result, the port of Athens quickly monopolized trade across the Aegean Sea and came to control all imports and exports. Salonica’s merchants, whose business cycle in 1912 equaled half of Greece’s, were now outrun by their Athenian peers. “Salonica is forced to suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of Piraeus,” a bitter L’Indépendant observed.125 These adverse developments led to an intense confrontation between Salonica’s merchants and the central authorities. Both Greeks and Jews denounced the “manifestly subordinate position of Salonica’s merchants” and the unequal treatment of the two ports. To their view, the government had “never catered for Salonican commerce, on the contrary, it had oppressed it.”126 In fact, the local press went as far as to attribute the government’s incomprehensible decisions to the machinations of a Piraeus

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business clique which had leveraged the administration to “persecute” Salonica and “artificially” redirect its trade to the port of Athens. As the British consul reported, echoing the opinion of many Salonican merchants, “in many of the administrative acts adversely affecting the fortunes of Salonica, the hand of this selfish clique can be detected and there seems no immediate prospect of relief from this oppression.” Once a city in full control of its trade, Salonica and its merchants were now under the “yoke” of Athens and its port.127 A strong anti-Athenian localism thus came to inform the grievances and protests of Greek and Jewish merchants alike. Self-victimization underwrote their attachment to the city and remolded their own identity. Late Ottoman civic pride gave place to a widespread sense of collective victimhood both among merchants and within the local population at large. This localist discourse employed a strikingly violent language and abounded in crude racial and colonial stereotypes. To demonstrate how monstrous the neglect of Salonica was, the city was described as a “colony of Athens” and Salonicans were self-sarcastically labeled “Hottentots,” “Mamelukes,” and “Kaffirs.”128 At other times, Athenian governance was likened to Ottoman rule, suggesting an intolerable continuity with an abominable past.129 Combined together, these imaginative references to the Ottoman past and the colonial present vividly illustrated the exclusion of Salonica from the space and time of a modern and culturally Western Greek nation.130 State policies were rendered absurd, and, even worse, anti-Greek. Greek nationalism was turned on its head. Next to the merchants, several other groups articulated an identical anti-Athenian and self-victimizing discourse. “Among the Israelite population which chiefly lives out of commerce, there is yet another subject of discontent,” noted Joseph Nehama in one of his regular reports to the headquarters of the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Paris: “this is the outrageous favoritism the merchants of Piraeus enjoy at the expense of Salonica.” Communal reports and the Jewish press referred to Athenian “mandarins” and Salonica’s “tutelage,” and detected a conscious attempt by the central government to “paralyze Macedonian commerce” and treat Salonicans as “second class citizens.”131 By foregrounding the commercial decline of the entire city, Jews could also obliquely express their anxieties about the survival of their

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own community. Similarly, when the Labor Center argued against food shortages, it denounced the discriminatory policies of the central state and called for Salonica to be treated on the same terms as Athens. February 1919 saw the organization of an impressive rally, and the main demand was for Salonican workers to enjoy a daily portion of bread equal in price and quality to that of their Athenian comrades.132 Emotionally charged anti-Athenianism was a usable discourse, able to legitimize every outsider group’s particularist demands. Back in the years directly following the Balkan Wars, the most vocal advocates of anti-Athenianism were found primarily among Salonica’s Greek merchants and other members of the Greek bourgeoisie. A group of lesser importance in the late Ottoman period, they posited themselves as wardens of local interests to advance their place in the city and have their voice heard nationally. In the national elections of June 1915, almost all prominent Greek merchants had rallied behind the staunchly localist Independent Party, advocating for the interests of “abandoned” Salonica and claiming to stand for the rights of the “[Greek] Macedonian People.” They vowed to fight against the “strangulating” policies of a “heartless” central government and were determined to avert the “enslavement” of local commerce to Athens and the transformation of Greek Macedonia into a colony ruled by a “clique of Old Greek politicians.”133 Over the course of the Great War, however, anti-Athenianism proliferated. It spread further with more actors employing it in a greater variety of contexts. Anti-Athenianism appealed to embattled groups like the workers and the Jews precisely because it constituted an acceptable language of political expression. Being strongly pro-Greek, it was an integrationist not a separatist discourse, accommodating Greek rule rather than contesting it. It could, therefore, be combined effectively with several different ideological positions and collective sensibilities, lending both credence and legitimacy to a host of particularist, even “unpatriotic,” demands relating to labor and minority rights. At a time when anti-trade unionism and anti-minority nationalism were narrowing the horizon of acceptable political action, anti-Athenianism gave voice to marginalized and censored social groups. Its chief bearers may initially have been the educated and commercial Greek bourgeoisie, but its growing popularity toward the end

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of the war eventually widened the limits of political participation. The age of mass politics came through the politicization of locality, making Salonican anti-Athenianism an overarching identity. This might appear counterintuitive, since most current historical scholarship tends by contrast to stress the inherently diverse and fundamentally contested nature of local and regional identifications.134 In Salonica, however, anti-Athenianism maintained its core content despite the different political uses it was put to. Interestingly, outsiders thought of Salonica as a preeminently Jewish and working-class city. For them, ethnicity and class were the determining factors of its distinct urban outlook. Yet, for Salonicans, the exact opposite was true, and it was localism that actually colored their individual sense of ethnic and class identity. They were Jewish and working-class by being Salonicans first and foremost. Localism was malleable enough to serve different agendas, but it was also an idiom universal enough to reconnect Greeks to Jews and merchants to the city. A shared sense of victimhood cut across class and ethnic lines to create citywide commonalities.135 In an increasingly fragmented social terrain, the “wronged Salonican” turned into a transethnic identity. A strongly localist figure, vehemently anti-Athenian yet not at all anti-Greek, it allowed for the liminal integration of Jewish merchants into a broader “Salonican” collective immediately before state-induced policies of Hellenization began to marginalize them. Moreover, being deeply emotional, anti-Athenianism nurtured an affective community of “Salonicans” that transcended class divisions at a time when the experience of food shortages and the language of profiteering had generated multiple cleavages among the city’s social groups. This renewed sense of common ordeal served the merchants well. “Life in Salonica will recover,” Nea Aletheia claimed, “only when local trade is unchained.”136 Localism thus resignified Greek and Jewish merchants as persecuted Salonicans par excellence. It attuned them to public sentiment, facilitated their symbolic reconnection with the city and made possible their reintegration into the local polity. Their losses signaled the financial catastrophe of the entire city. By 1919, therefore, merchants had reemerged as Salonica’s leaders in suffering, lamented as the first and foremost victims of an inexplicably damaging Athenian policy. Moreover, they were now recast as the city’s heroes, too—those who “despite the innumerable difficulties they

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faced during the war, had single-handedly managed to keep the city fed by importing all necessary foodstuffs.”137 The days of “vampires” and “leeches” were gone. The divisive language of profiteering gave way to localism, a language of consent that helped restore the established social hierarchies and reinstate merchants at the top. *** No trace of these stories survives in public memory, which has been shaped instead by a radically different narrative. Starting in September 1915, the landing of British and French troops initiated a plethora of publications that inscribed Salonica into the orientalist trope. The noisy and “cosmopolitan” city was portrayed as the meeting point where a timeless Orient encountered the ultra-modern realities of a war-torn West. “My word, what a change in Salonica,” private William Knott exclaimed, “it is a revolution for Orientalism into military organization.”138 The Western gaze of innumerable French, British, Italian, and Russian soldiers, officers and diplomats, nurses and journalists, men and women focused on the extraordinary diversity of Salonica’s public spaces where the city’s ethnic mosaic encountered an equally diverse West, colonial as much as European. Demetra Vaka best captured the theatricality of it all: Tables and chairs overflowed the streets, at which sat the fighting men of twenty different tribes, from three continents, in their various uniforms, talking their own languages and drinking their accustomed drinks. There were French, English, Scotch, Serbs, Italians, Greeks, Cretans, Indo-Chinese, and Senegalese; and of civilians, Turks, Jews, Greeks, and a sprinkling of almost every other nationality. It was the most marvelous show we had seen.139

This dizzying image of cross-cultural Salonica was first crafted in situ: it was visualized in innumerable postcards and memorialized in literary pieces, appearing in the local Ententiste outlets of the Balkan News and La Revue Franco-Macédonienne. Then, a plethora of postwar memoirs, autobiographies, and travelogues further consolidated it.140 Finally, the catastrophic events that followed eventually mythologized it. The Great Fire in 1917 and the rehabilitation of 100,000 Greek Orthodox refugees from Ottoman

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Anatolia in 1923 made wartime Salonica look like a mirage, the last reflection of a bustling cosmopolitan city right before the deluge. This powerful image has dominated local and European memory ever since and it has shaped the direction of historiography, too.141 Two themes dominate the historical narrative—cross-cultural encounter on the one hand and, on the other, the extraordinary business opportunities the presence of the Entente troops brought to the city.142 The Great War is conceived as the last period of economic prosperity Salonica would know. Thus, ethnicity and affluence have become the twin keys to understanding the experience of war. Yet, daily life in wartime Salonica centered around the intense food crisis endured by its population. The quest for food turned the war into a clash of representations, an experience spoken through two languages. The first was the language of profiteering. Profiteering informed a reimagining of society in three tiers; resignified the older categories of the “people” and the “popular classes;” animated new symbolic frontlines between “consumers” and “producers” (the latter including both employers and workers); shaped the image of the racketeering merchant; and, eventually, delegitimized the merchants’ symbolic bonds with the city. It also redefined the merchants’ position in local politics. It alienated them from commercial employees and strained— but did not break—their relationship with the guilds. Still, even though the idiom of profiteering dominated public discourse, it failed to monopolize it. Toward the end of the war, a second language, a strongly anti-Athenian discourse, surfaced in the city. Articulated around the self-victimizing image of the persecuted Salonican, it generated an inter-class and interethnic consensus, introduced new images of the wronged merchant, and consequently led to the merchants’ reunion with Salonica. Even if each of these two languages sheds a different light on Salonica’s merchants, taken together they put them into the limelight. They might have generated competing representations but they both pointed to a broader shift. Ethnicity was on the retreat. Since the Young Turk Revolution and throughout the Balkan Wars, the “merchant” was a symbol of ethnic conflict standing for the rivalry between Greeks and Jews. However, during World War I, the term lost its ethnic referents, no matter whether the merchant was depicted as a profiteer, a victim of the Athenian state, or a rescuer

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of crisis-stricken Salonica. By the time the war had ended, the merchants of Salonica were associated primarily with a class rather than an ethnicity. The question of food pushed for collective action and determined their engagement, convergence, and divergence with other social strata. Class mattered. For the Jewish and Greek merchants of Salonica, the most multiethnic moment in the city’s history was the moment when their class identity was most profoundly reconfigured.

Part III

REMAKING SALONICA GREEK AND BOURGEOIS 1912–1922

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Joseph Misrahi

In March 1920, Joseph Misrahi departed from Salonica to reunite with his children in Marseilles. At first glance, his move appeared unremarkable, mirroring the journey of many Jews leaving the city in the wake of World War I in search of a better future. However, for those who knew him, Misrahi’s departure marked the end of an era. For decades, he had been the public face of the community: a committed modernizer serving on the Alliance’s local committee since 1873, and a paternal leader for Salonican Jews guiding them steadily during times of dramatic change. Misrahi repeatedly held a position on the community’s executive council, and his name was featured on the boards of all major Jewish welfare institutions, ranging from the Baron de Hirsch Hospital to the venerable Talmud Torah. Beyond his community roles, Misrahi was a pillar of the local business scene. On the eve of the Balkan Wars, he led an empire that included several of Salonica’s top industrial and financial establishments, from the Commercial Company of Salonica, a giant in tobacco processing, to the Banque de Salonique, the Olympos Brewery, and the Société Anonyme Industrielle et Commerciale (Industrial and Commercial Company). As a French citizen, he was deeply involved in the local French colony, tirelessly supporting all its educational and welfare institutions, including the Alliance Française, the Mission 211

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Laïque, and the French Benevolent Society. His multifaceted life made him a man of many worlds.1 At heart, however, Misrahi was a true Salonican. As a member of both the chamber of commerce and the distinguished multiethnic Cercle de Salonique, he brought his native city together by organizing both the work and leisure activities of its emerging commercial bourgeoisie. So imposing was his figure and so powerful the image he projected that in late November 1912, a major Greek newspaper from Athens reported that Misrahi, along with his associate Emmanuel Salem, a community notable and lawyer, had founded a company to purchase Salonica from the Greeks and establish “a new Jewish state” in the city under the protection of a great power. This report, noted a disturbed Joseph Nehama, was another example of the absurd antisemitic myth of Jewish dominance.2 Nonetheless, the plausibility of such an outlandish idea stemmed from Misrahi’s unique blend of communal authority, financial power, public prominence, political leverage, and, most importantly, his deep attachment to Salonica. Misrahi was more than just a model bourgeois Jew: at times, it seemed as if he was Salonica itself. The man was the city. In 1912, with the onset of Greek rule, Misrahi faced new challenges, requiring adaptive strategies. During those years, he struck a careful balance between continuity and change, plowing on while searching for new roles. He remained active in the communal sphere, serving Salonica’s Jewry in various posts. He presided over the local Alliance committee—his life’s work—spearheaded relief efforts for Jewish victims of the Great Fire, and frequently liaised with Greek authorities on behalf of the community. However, the burgeoning Zionist movement posed an insurmountable challenge to him. Like many of his fellow Alliancists, Mizrahi was skeptical of what he perceived as the Zionists’ “harmful forces of reaction,” and particularly concerned about their growing influence among those he cared about most, the Jewish youth. He fought back, and when the Alliancist candidates failed clamorously in the 1915 national elections, he advocated for the formation of an Alliancist boy scout group to counter the success of the Zionist Maccabees. The idea never got off the ground. As Salonica entered the era of masses and mass movements, Misrahi’s elite politics were becoming ineffective, and he found it increasingly difficult to adapt. His inability to counter

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the Zionists’ triumphant advances and safeguard his lifelong achievements likely left him feeling exceedingly “annoyed” and “remote,” as Nehama surmised. The ground of communal politics was shifting under his feet, and Misrahi must have felt increasingly alienated from the community he had long served.3 Although Misrahi’s business ventures in Salonica persisted, they inevitably evolved. The Commercial Company, a family-run business, remained a key player in the tobacco trade. It thrived during World War I but later grappled with frequent strikes and ongoing labor unrest. At the same time, the Banque de Salonique faced its own transformations: its headquarters moved to Istanbul in 1910, and most board members relocated. By the late 1910s, the bank maintained just a branch in Salonica, with Misrahi as the sole director remaining in the city. Adapting to these shifts, Misrahi sought to diversify his business portfolio. In 1919, the Commercial Company secured a substantial loan of 20,000 pounds from the National Bank of Greece. In a major industry move later that year, Olympos Brewery merged with Naoussa, a smaller Greek-owned local competitor, creating the Olympos-Naoussa Brewery. This venture was among the few new enterprises in Salonica at that time. Misrahi retained his position on the board, yet the leadership of the new company was now shared between a Greek and a Jewish director. Regardless of one’s strength, surviving in Salonica’s evolving economic landscape required forging alliances with the city’s new rulers.4 While Misrahi was adjusting his business strategies, his patterns of sociability were undergoing even more drastic changes. His ties to France remained strong: together with his wife and daughter, he helped establish and manage a host of French patriotic organizations during the war-ridden 1910s, including the Union des femmes de France (Women’s Union of France), the Foyer du Soldat (Soldier’s Home), and Solidarité Française (French Solidarity). Similarly, he continued to frequent the Cercle de Salonique, serving as its vice-president under the Greek president, Pericles Hadjilazarou. However, his professional life began to increasingly reshape his associational world. Misrahi remained an active board member of the chamber of commerce even in a period of growing Greek dominance. During this time, Greek merchants were taking the lead, his Muslim and Dönme colleagues were fading from the scene, and the chamber, a distinguished Ottoman institution,

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underwent restructuring under Greek law in 1919. Yet, Misrahi’s involvement did not wane. On the contrary, in 1915, he even co-founded the Industrialists’ Association of Macedonia, serving as its inaugural vice-president and again collaborating closely with President Pericles Hadjilazarou and later his son Cleon. In all these roles, Misrahi vigorously defended the imperiled interests of Macedonian commerce and industry. He advocated for the organization of a national merchants’ conference in November 1917 and was crucial in mediating a major tobacco workers’ strike in July 1918. An intense associational activity was opening avenues for Misrahi to forge new relationships with his Greek peers.5 Yet, in early 1920, he resigned from all his communal and professional positions and relocated to France. His departure was profoundly felt. Joseph Nehama, a longtime collaborator, mourned the “great gap” Misrahi left in community life, while his colleagues at the chamber of commerce expressed deep regret and thanked him for his “numerous services” to the institution. These farewells signified more than just a personal departure. Reading like obituaries, they conveyed a sense of irreversible ending, the passing of an entire era. Yet, the world Misrahi was leaving behind in Salonica was as much a world rising as it was receding. It was a new world, but one that he, together with his Jewish and Greek contemporaries, had worked hard to bring about.6

SIX

Toward Hellenization Coming, Going, Staying, Becoming

Economically, socially, and politically, the 1910s were a period when acute fluidity became the new norm and rupture turned into a structural feature of life in Salonica. The outbreak of World War I in the summer of 1914, the arrival of the Ententist Army of the Orient in late 1915, the National Schism between Royalist neutralists and Venizelist interventionists that brought Greece to the brink of civil war, the subsequent Venizelist military movement in the city, the establishment of a pro-Ententist Venizelist Provisional Government in 1916, and, finally, the Great Fire of August 1917 radically altered local realities time and again. The end of hostilities in the summer of 1918 brought no stability as it was almost immediately followed by the ferocious Greco-Turkish War of 1919 to 1922 and its near-apocalyptic conclusion, a catastrophic Greek defeat in Asia Minor in the late summer of 1922. Only then did peace finally arrive, but for Salonica, as for the rest of Greece, the price was a humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented dimensions. In 1923, the compulsory exchange of populations agreed in Lausanne between Greece and Turkey mandated the expulsion of around 500,000 Muslim Greeks in return for the reception of nearly 1.3  million Greek 215

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Orthodox Ottomans. Within a year, Salonica’s remaining 20,000 Muslims would leave, their paths crossing in the port and the railway station with the nearly 100,000 Greek Orthodox refugees arriving from Pontus and Western Anatolia.1 Viewed from afar, Salonica of the 1910s seemed like a city adrift. Cumulatively, these developments imposed their own logic on state policies and redirected government priorities to the service of a never-ending war effort. The urgent task of integrating the newly annexed lands was temporarily put aside and the assimilation of Greek Macedonia’s ethnic minorities was stalled. In the 1910s, the Greek state was a state at war, not the nationalizing state it would become after 1923.2 Yet, below the surface, Salonica’s merchant world was undergoing a deep ethnic and class restructuring, one shaped less by concerted state policies and more by the seemingly unrelated phenomena of migration and displacement, natural catastrophes and changing business behaviors. In these years complex and entangled migratory movements engulfed all of Salonica’s ethnoreligious groups, from the Bulgarians and the Dönme to the Greeks and the Jews. The homicidal ethnic hatred unleashed by the Balkan Wars had broadly left the city untouched, but it still generated small yet violent expulsions and, above all, imposed a thick atmosphere of fear, despair, and impending doom. The outcome was substantial waves of involuntary emigrations among Salonica’s non-Greek populations, thinning its multiethnic demography. Topping it all, the Great Fire of 1917 burned down the entire downtown area including its commercial center. Major stores, several manufacturing units, fancy hotels, cafés, and restaurants, other landmark venues, as well as the city’s most densely populated residential districts, were all reduced to rubble. They would remain so for years to come, a scar on the urban landscape, forcing many, Jews in particular, to plan for a life away from their birthplace. This was “the death of a city,” as L’Indépendant mourned, bidding farewell to Salonica by giving birth to its myth.3 Yet, the same phenomena also brought new life as newcomers came and went time and again. Between 1912 and 1913 hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees, fleeing persecution from the war-torn Balkan hinterland, found temporary shelter in makeshift camps on the city’s outskirts before departing to Ottoman Anatolia.4 Within a year, they would be replaced by tens of thousands of uprooted Orthodox Greeks, some escaping persecution

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in the Bulgarian zones of occupation during the Second Balkan War and the First World War, and others fleeing death in the port towns of Ottoman Asia Minor where, ironically, their perpetrators were often Muslim war victims recently arrived from the former Ottoman Macedonia.5 These Greek Orthodox refugees would stay for much longer in the city, eventually making the homes of the departing Muslims their own. Between 1912 and 1917, they would be joined by a smaller number of Balkan Jews also seeking shelter as Shtip, Strumitsa, Serres, Bitola, and other commercial centers in the Macedonian hinterland were evacuated, bombarded, or burned to the ground during the Balkan Wars and World War I.6 Meanwhile, the gradual consolidation of new borders in the region also pushed several unwanted Greeks from Serbia’s and Bulgaria’s newly annexed territories to move southward and try to carve a brighter future in “Greek” Salonica.7 For a decade, then, Salonica was a city on the move—quite literally so, if the circa 50,000 victims of the fire, nearly all of them Jewish, are taken into account. Almost overnight, these inner-city dwellers were rendered homeless, eventually resettling in the empty barracks of the departing Army of the Orient on the city’s eastern outskirts.8 Paradoxically, they had become refugees in their very own city. Yet, no matter how dramatic these population movements were, they did not bring about the reversal of ethnic hierarchies. In the city, Jews remained numerically superior. Moreover, Jewish merchants held strong throughout the 1910s, continuing as the driving force behind the local market, in economic as much as demographic terms. Greeks, by contrast, still lagged behind both in numbers and economic power. However, Jewish resilience was deceptive and concealed a latent but irreversible drive toward Hellenization. Migrations—Greek, Jewish, and others—might not have overturned the Jewish numerical majority, but their numerous less perceptible workings had a lasting impact on the ethnic composition and overall profile of Salonica’s commercial world. Moreover, emerging investment trends and subtle but critical adjustments in the business strategies of Greeks and Jews were also pointing in the same direction. Hellenization was occurring despite an enduring Jewish demographic and economic predominance. In other words, Jews were becoming a minority even before they demographically constituted one. Before “majority” and “minority” became legal attributes or demographic facts, they had surfaced as business attitudes.

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Changes in mentality did not follow, but rather predated changes in numbers and so by the early 1920s, Salonica’s merchants were already “Greek,” even if in spirit more than in substance. People on the Move: Jewish Departures, Greek Arrivals “No one is stateless as long as the city of the Thessalonicans exists,” proudly declared Nikiforos Houmnos, a Byzantine scholar and Salonican resident of the late fourteenth century, singing the city’s praises.9 Salonica’s long history was built on successive waves of migration and the 1910s demonstrated this trend in the most emphatic way. As massive population movements swept across the Balkans and Ottoman Anatolia, the city found itself at the crossroads, emerging as a primary hub for diverse groups of both incoming and outgoing forced migrants and refugees. These successive waves of migration had a cumulative impact on the city’s merchant stratum, initiating changes in its long-established ethnic hierarchies. By the end of the Greco-Turkish War in 1922, a demographic shift had become evident: Bulgarian merchants had vanished, the number of Muslim merchants had markedly shrunk, Jews were steadily decreasing, while the number of Greek merchants had marginally increased. The Greco-Jewish numerical gap was slowly beginning to close. Bulgarian merchants were the first to disappear from Salonica’s ethnic landscape. Despite being the smallest group, they were the ones most feared by the Greeks due to long-standing Greco-Bulgarian tensions in Ottoman Macedonia. These tensions peaked in June 1913 and the Greek victory against Bulgaria in the subsequent Second Balkan War made the continued presence of Bulgarians in Salonica challenging, if not outright impossible. Consequently, in July 1913, Greek authorities arrested several leading Bulgarian merchants, imprisoning some and exiling others to Athens and the remote island of Ithaca in the Ionian Sea. Among the most notable was Spyro Sourondjiev, a prominent merchant who rapidly succumbed to the hardships of imprisonment and exile. Two years later, in November 1915, another group of politically active pro-Bulgarian merchants and notables were also internally displaced, this time to the Aegean islands of Santorini, Syros, and Amorgos.10 Within just three years, the Bulgarian commercial presence

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in Salonica had completely vanished. The Bulgarians were the only ethnic group to face such severe measures from the Greek state at this time. Yet, their experience was paradigmatic: it foreshadowed a broader state policy of internal displacement for “unpatriotic” Greeks and “enemies of the state” that would continue to expand in the following decades.11 These years also witnessed a rapid decline in the presence of Muslim and, in particular, Dönme merchants. In 1921, the commercial bulletin of the city’s chamber of commerce listed only a few Muslim names and scarcely any notable Dönme. This dwindling Muslim commercial visibility was primarily due to emigration. By 1918, the populations of Muslims and Dönme had decreased to fewer than 10,000 and 7,000 respectively, roughly half their numbers in the late Ottoman period.12 Among those departing, some Dönme merchants, such as tobacco entrepreneur Kiazim Emin, capitalized on their foreign citizenship and extensive business networks to relocate to Western and Central Europe during World War I. However, the majority opted for Istanbul as their new home, leaving soon after the conclusion of the Balkan Wars in August 1913, when the Treaty of Bucharest dashed any hopes of an autonomous Macedonia. The arbitrary violence of the Greek authorities undeniably played a role in driving out Muslim and Dönme merchants. Yet, as the case of Mustafa Siamli indicates, strong connections with the Young Turks and the Committee of Union and Progress, as well as prior involvement in the Istanbul market, also made emigration politically and financially attractive. Industrialists were equally prepared to leave despite the challenges of relocating capital. Mola Ziya, for instance—a leading flannel manufacturer in Salonica—successfully moved his establishment to Istanbul in 1914.13 The extent of Muslim merchant emigration was significant, though it did not impact all sectors uniformly. Some merchants with substantial land holdings remained. So did several tobacco magnets, like Hassan Akif, enticed by the exceptionally high profits the local industry was yielding, especially during World War I. Interestingly, even among the departing Dönme, quite a few maintained their connections with their home city. Rustem and Medjit Karakas, the Baldji Brothers, and Dilber Zade moved their primary operations to Istanbul but established branches in Salonica, leaving family members behind to manage them.14 However, these cases were exceptions

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rather than the norm. By 1915, emigration had so weakened the Dönme entrepreneurs that their once notable engagement in Salonica’s social and political life had dwindled to the barest minimum. “One would pain oneself to find a Dönme candidate,” the French consul observed on the eve of the first national elections in late May 1915.15 Ironically, even those Dönme who had opted to remain had become invisible, swiftly retreating from the city’s commercial and public spheres. Although physically present, in almost all respects they had already “left” Salonica. Contrary to their Muslim and Dönme counterparts, Jewish merchants experienced a demographic shift that extended beyond a mere numerical decrease, mainly due to contrasting population movements both from and to Salonica. During the Second Balkan War as well as World War I, all major Jewish communities in eastern Greek Macedonia and New Serbia found themselves caught in the crossfire. In 1913, the Jews of Serres witnessed the total destruction of their town, while those in Bitola faced exceptionally heavy bombings between 1915 and 1918. Shtip and Strumitsa were also hard hit during the First Balkan War. These events triggered a massive exodus: in 1913 the Jewish community of Salonica had to use the grand building of the Talmud Torah to temporarily shelter around 240 Jews from Strumitsa, while in 1918, its specially formed committee catered for the housing and employment needs of over 800 of the 1,250 Jewish refugees from Bitola. Wealthy Jewish merchants were prominent among those deciding to flee, such as those from burned down Serres who in June 1913 left on foot for the relative safety of Salonica, “seeking asylum and assistance among relatives and friends.” In the years to follow, others would head for the towns of Old Greece.16 Such population movements were driven by the exigencies of war, yet, as the case of the Serres merchants indicates (alongside many other similar instances of forced displacement across the twentieth century), these movements also followed established migration patterns.17 For centuries, strong business connections had linked Jewish communities in Ottoman Macedonia to Salonica. Since the mid-nineteenth century, in particular, representatives from major commercial families, such as the Kalderons of Bitola, had relocated to Salonica infusing new blood into the local Jewish merchant elite. However, it is hard to determine whether the Jewish Macedonian merchants who fled the war settled permanently in the city and what the extent of their business

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impact was. For the most significant group, the 1,250 Jews from Bitola, fragmentary data suggests that several returned to their hometown after the war.18 Yet, those many who stayed in Salonica integrated seamlessly into the local economy and community life while preserving their distinct identity. Not only were they sufficiently successful to finance the construction of the imposing Monastiriot Synagogue in 1926, but some among them, such as Haim S. Aroesti and the brothers Salomon and Isaac Aroesti rose to further prominence. Haim adapted exceptionally well to the Salonican market soon becoming a prominent commissionaire, while Salomon and Isaac thrived in the leather trade making it to the 60 wealthiest taxpayers in the community. Descendants of an elite Bitola Jewish family, all three were major synagogue sponsors and bolstered the interwar Jewish merchant elite with their economic achievements.19 However, these additions were modest and insufficient to counterbalance the effects of continuous Jewish emigration. Starting with the Italo-Ottoman War of 1911, a series of adverse events contributed to this trend. These included, in roughly chronological order, recurring wars, the loss of the Macedonian hinterland in 1913, the introduction of a new tariff regime in 1914, significant delays in establishing a free zone in the port, the catastrophic fire of 1917, the implementation of a new city plan, the anticipated (and dreaded) Hellenization of the market, and, ultimately, the bleak economic prospects of the city once World War I was over. All these factors created a suffocating environment for Jewish merchants, increasingly pushing them out of Salonica. The Great Fire of 1917 was probably the turning point in this chain of events. It left the city in ruins and dealt a severe blow to Jewish commercial dominance. Its short-term effects were economically just as significant as its long-term contribution to the Hellenization of Salonica, since the fire damaged the city’s commerce in every conceivable way. To begin with, it dramatically shrunk the purchasing power of the local population by rendering almost half of it homeless, including 50,000 Jews. It also tore the commercial tissue of the city apart reducing the largest and most important part of the market district to ruins. Business landmarks, such as the Tiring department store, and prominent firms, like that of the Errera brothers, were among those burned.20 Difficulties continued to pile up after the fire was put

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out. The Governor General of Salonica ignored the merchants’ protests and requisitioned all food staples, whereas insurance companies stalled compensation for months to come.21 The policy of the Venizelos administration further exacerbated the situation. The day the fire was finally put out, Minister of Transportation Alexandros Papanastasiou froze all construction in the fire-stricken zone. Despite incessant protests from merchants and proprietors, representations from the municipality, and even the intervention of the Governor General, only a few building permits were issued and those for temporary repairs only. The ban was rigorously applied.22 Trade was therefore conducted at open-air stalls and in makeshift tents, on the quay, in Salonica’s eastern residential district, and, at best, in sheds and shelters raised by the municipality near the Muslim cemetery. In fact, the shortage of space to rent and the high prices asked would for long burden many merchants and shop owners.23 At the same time, the government’s decision to expropriate the burned zone and compensate proprietors with non-transferable land bonds deprived prominent entrepreneurs of a crucial financial resource and credit guarantee. In Salonica, established Jewish merchants like Jacob Cazes as well as Greek newcomers like Athanasios Makris, drew their power from pursuing a multilayered business activity which combined commerce with involvement in the rapidly expanding real estate sector. Real estate was not only a safe investment but also a means to improve one’s creditworthiness and many merchants used it as collateral to secure those short-term bank loans vital for conducting business in Macedonia.24 The fire thus had a wide and broadly negative impact on the whole of Salonica’s business community, but it hit the Jews particularly hard. Small and large Jewish proprietors owned the greatest part of the burned zone followed by Muslim absentee landlords, rentiers, and Dönme merchants. As Joseph Nehama calculated, “Four-fifths of these buildings are owned by the Jews, and they represent two-thirds of the real estate wealth of our coreligionists in Salonica.”25 Jewish businesses were therefore bound to be strongly affected first by the strict terms of immediate shop repair and then by the constraints of mandatory expropriation. Jews understood the expropriation as a government attempt to radically de-Judaicize the city. They were surely not the only ones to oppose it. The

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entire commercial world of Salonica, regardless of ethnicity, was resolutely against the government’s new plan, especially its stipulation that all large plots in the burned zone were to be surveyed and auctioned. In Jewish discourse, however, opposition to expropriation morphed into a denunciation of Greek anti-Judaism. Given the identification of the community with the city, and specifically with the city as a commercial hub, fear of Greek business penetration translated into a fear of de-Judaicizing Salonica. The expropriation and sale of land plots were a means to Hellenize urban space and, obliquely, a way to weaken Jewish prominence in the Balkan trade to the benefit of others. Jews would be deprived of their shops and real estate property, their ties with their hometown would be literally cut, and hence they would end up severing all business activities. “They would be driven to exile,” Nehama forewarned. “Salonica will thus be depopulated,” and “the Jewish community will have been annihilated by a double scourge: the fire caused by a fatal coincidence, and the expropriation, the work of some greedy swindlers and the hateful ostracism of certain fanatics.”26 Nehama might have sounded like a modern-day Cassandra, but the fire certainly gave the final push to the unfolding Jewish exodus. Interestingly, for some Jewish merchants, emigration became an act of Hellenization. Even before World War I, several commercial houses had opened branches in Piraeus, and Athens’ Jewish community already included a significant “Salonican colony.”27 The Great War likely intensified this trend. In 1916, Salonica’s bombardment by German Zeppelins forced hundreds of families to seek temporary refuge in Old Greece. Furthermore, in the wake of the fire, the General Government of Salonica authorized 4,000 “suffering rich” to relocate to Athens and to Larissa in Central Greece. And in late 1918, Abraham Saporta, a respected philanthropist, well-known flour merchant, and recently re-elected board member of the chamber of commerce, moved his business to Piraeus. Once the war was over, the establishment of Greek administration in Izmir in 1919 and the prospect of further Greek expansion into Asia Minor motivated more adventurous young merchants, such as Abraham Benveniste, to try their luck on the eastern shore of the Aegean.28 However, for the vast majority of Jews leaving Salonica, their future lay outside Greece. The first significant wave of emigration occurred right after the Balkan Wars, when in response to the fragmentation of Ottoman

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Macedonia, several major commercial houses either opened branches or shifted their operations to the newly expanded Christian Balkan states. The American Jewish Yearbook reported that by June 1913, as many as 120 prominent Jewish merchants had already settled in Sofia. While this figure might be inflated, it undoubtedly indicates an unexpected trend.29 Nevertheless, for most Jews, the Ottoman Empire remained their preferred destination, “a blessed land for merchants” as Leon Rousso affectionately termed it. In 1913, a substantial number of Jews took advantage of an Ottoman decree that allowed the tax-free importation of goods, and relocated to Istanbul and to a lesser extent Izmir. Their departure was part of a larger migratory wave, so substantial that in a single week of July 1913, two hundred Salonican Jews left for the Ottoman capital. Emigration continued unabated for about a year, and by June 1914 it had become almost uncontrollable, leading the various Istanbul branches of the Jewish Lodge B’nei B’rit to set up immigration bureaus, akin to those in Russia, to facilitate the resettlement of Jews arriving from Salonica and former Ottoman Macedonia.30 The British consul captured the prevailing sentiment perfectly, stating in March 1914, “If more merchants have not left up to the present, the reason may be found partly in the fact that they can hardly reconcile themselves to the idea that the present division of the Balkans is permanent.”31 Such was the complex mix of despair and disbelief that had engulfed Salonica’s merchant community at the time. World War  I temporarily halted Jewish emigration, as restrictions on maritime travel and emerging business opportunities in Salonica encouraged many to stay.32 However, departures quickly resumed after the fire of 1917 reaching unprecedented levels, especially after the war ended. By 1919, a panicking chamber of commerce expressed grave concerns, warning of “the deciduousness of the erstwhile evergreen tree of Salonican commerce.” In 1920, the Commercial Association reported alarmingly that “many members have liquidated their shops and most of them have emigrated elsewhere.” By 1921, thousands of Jews had left for Western Europe and the United States, with Paris alone becoming home to as many as 4,000.33 Among these emigrants were many from the financial and merchant elite, anxious about the irreversible contraction of their local businesses. While some headed to major French ports like Nice, Marseille, and Toulouse, most chose the nation’s capital. Notable examples include Abraham Amar, who in 1920, at the

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age of 70, resigned as director of his bank and moved to Paris; prominent textile merchant Nehama Mallah; and the 71-year-old Joseph Misrahi, who relocated to Marseille in the same year. In all cases, these elder patriarchs were the last of their families to leave, following their offspring who had already initiated the gradual relocation of their family businesses. Between 1913 and 1920, for instance, four of the five children of Nehama Mallah had emigrated to Zurich and Paris.34 The comprehensive nature of these departures meant that the prominent Jewish families, who had long been a cornerstone of Salonica’s social and economic life, almost completely vanished. So swift was this change that by 1920, Dino Fernandez, the “merchant notable,” stood out as a rarity, “one of the few representatives of Salonica’s old Jewish aristocracy” still residing in the city, as Nehama melancholically observed. Even he, however, would not remain there much longer.35 To be sure, resettlement did not always entail a complete severance of business ties with Salonica. Saul Amar, for instance, might have left early, but the Salonican branch of his bank remained operational throughout the interwar period. Similarly, despite Joseph Misrahi’s departure, his tobacco manufacturing company, the Commercial Company of Salonica, continued its operations in the city. As for Dino Fernandez, after moving to Paris, he retained the majority of bonds in his Olympos Brewery, even following its 1920 merger with Naoussa.36 Between the wars, Jewish merchants and businessmen, now residing abroad, maintained a keen interest in their hometown’s commercial affairs, often more actively than their Muslim and Dönme counterparts. Nevertheless, maintaining a local business presence could not counterbalance the overall negative impact that emigration had on the dominance of Jewish merchants in Salonica. First and foremost, massive capital transfers abroad substantially weakened local Jewish finance. Even during the “good” days of the Great War, many contractors for the French units of the Army of the Orient chose to have their fees deposited in France, a decision foreshadowing their own imminent resettlement. After the war, a considerable amount of local capital left the city along with its holders, as the majority of emigrants belonged to the comfortable middle and upper strata. One report estimates that the 4,000 Jews who relocated to Paris took around 120 million French francs with them.37 This massive outflow of capital had profound

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implications, given the close interconnection between Jewish entrepreneurship and the local economy. In early 1920, even the impeccably patriotic Greek president of the Commercial Association, recognizing the severity of the situation, urgently appealed to state authorities about “the major damage in the economic standing of our city” caused by the flight of Jewish capital, and pressed for measures to halt it.38 Undoubtedly, the depletion of Jewish financial resources had significantly weakened Jewish economic predominance, indirectly shifting ethnic hierarchies. Yet, given the pivotal role Jews played in Salonica’s multiethnic economy, their withdrawal was now pushing the entire local business scene into recession, affecting all ethnicities. The loss of Jewish power was everyone’s loss. Furthermore, Jewish emigration significantly weakened the citywide social networks that had underpinned Jewish commercial dominance. For decades, prominent Jewish merchants had built networks connecting the community, European colonies, the world of associations, and local governing institutions, thereby facilitating access to various power centers—state, municipal, and consular. These networks had fostered interethnic contact, supported businesses, and ultimately endowed Jewish merchants with unparalleled economic and social power. However, between 1918 and 1920, key figures like Joseph Misrahi, Hugo Mosseri and Saul Amar—all communal notables, civic leaders, and board members of the chamber of commerce— departed for Europe. Misrahi’s exit, in particular, was exceptionally impactful, given his additional role as a prominent member of the French colony in Salonica.39 This collective departure of influential merchants in such a short span drastically diminished the breadth and depth of Jewish entrepreneurial networks, particularly because the Greek and other Jewish merchants who filled their shoes were generally of lesser economic stature and social prominence. Their smaller networks could not replicate the same level of influence or serve the same functions as those of their predecessors. As a result, Jewish and by extension Salonican business making lost its openness and became more introvert. However, what made emigration particularly impactful was that it shook all the power bases of Jewish merchants, not just their business standing. It significantly altered power dynamics within the Jewish community itself by weakening the Alliancist group in every conceivable

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way—demographically, institutionally, and politically. In 1916, the Alumni Association of the Mission Laïque Française, graduates of the renowned Lycée, the city’s elite French High School, lost almost a hundred members and managed to stay afloat only with additional funding from the French consulate.40 A similar situation likely affected the Alliance Alumni Association. Things further worsened in 1920 when seven members of the prestigious local committee of the Alliance schools, mostly prominent merchants like Hugo Mosseri, Lazare Nefussy and Leon Modiano, left Salonica. Their departure dealt a severe blow to the Alliancist group, depriving it of the economic power, leadership, and status that the support of the Jewish merchant elite had long provided. Joseph Misrahi’s emigration, in particular, was deeply felt. As Nehama noted, his departure left “a huge gap in our committee,” for Misrahi had “acquired a prestige and an authority that had made him the guide and adviser of the [entire] Jewish population.”41 With his and his peers’ exit, the Alliancists faced a hard challenge in maintaining their former influence. In contrast, the Zionist movement in Salonica was less severely affected by emigration. During the 1910s and early 1920s, few Salonicans chose to “make aliyah” and immigrate to the Land of Israel, even after Palestine was conceded to the British in 1918 and turned into a Mandate in 1920. Zionism was not seen as an exit strategy but rather as a political movement advocating for legal equality and the preservation of Salonican Jews as ethnically distinct citizens of Greece. This focus on “local” issues was evident in the Zionists’ organizational culture, where cultural and sports associations predominated, overshadowing the few initiatives for capital investment or settlement in Palestine. The first and most important of these Zionist business ventures, the Salonika-Palestine Company, was founded quite late, in 1924.42 Moreover, after World War I, almost all Zionist leaders opted to stay in Salonica, bolstering their position in communal politics and engaging in intense public action. 1919 saw the successful hosting of the first panhellenic Zionist congress in the city, and the same year, the Zionist-friendly Jacob Cazes was re-elected president of the community. In the coming decade, the Zionists would relentlessly battle against the Alliancist model of assimilated Jewishness, striving to turn Salonica Jewry from a religious community to an ethnic minority of “good Jews” and “loyal Greeks.”43 For the time being,

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they would be committed to forging a properly Jewish future within Greek Salonica, not in Mandate Palestine. In the immediate postwar period, then, Jewish merchants faced a complex set of challenges due to emigration. Not only were their numbers reduced, but their capital base had also shrunk, their social networks had diminished, and their once solid communal authority was now being strongly contested. In essence, emigration had stripped them of the four key pillars that had previously underpinned their dominance. At the other end of the spectrum, demographic gains among the Greek merchants completed the reshuffling of Salonica’s commercial world, a process begun by the exodus of Muslims, Dönme, and Jews. During the Balkan Wars and World War I, violence against Greek Orthodox communities in Bulgaria, Ottoman Thrace, and Asia Minor led to massive refugee influxes into Salonica, significantly bolstering the Greek presence in the city. Many of these refugees were likely urban dwellers and possibly merchants. However, the lack of detailed data makes it impossible to ascertain their exact numbers or fully understand how they adapted to Salonica’s business environment. Most refugee merchants, violently and hastily uprooted, probably arrived with minimal capital. In the initial years, they may have engaged in manual labor or small-scale trade, operating on the fringes of the market. No board member from the refugee-heavy Thracian and Asia Minor associations (both established in 1914) featured in the governance of major professional organizations, a sign of refugee merchants’ marginal position in the city’s business hierarchy. The political alliance of these two associations with the Greek Guilds’ Association further indicates an alignment of refugee merchants with the lower-middle strata rather than the upper echelons.44 Moreover, whatever impact these refugees might have had on Salonica’s market, it is likely to have been transient. The end of the war in 1918 and Greece’s imminent territorial expansion into Ottoman Thrace and Asia Minor in 1920 may have prompted many to repatriate. Among the thousands departing from Salonica to Ayvalık, Izmir, Foça, Alexandroupoli, Xanthi, and elsewhere in the early months of 1920, there were several merchants who liquidated their shops and shipped their merchandise eastward, seeking to resume business in their hometown or exploit emerging trade opportunities in those soon-to-be Greek territories.45

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Some refugee merchants, however, leveraged their social capital and skills to successfully integrate into Salonica’s local economy. Those previously active in thriving trades, such as Gregorios Karagiannidis, managed to bounce back after initial setbacks. Karagiannidis ran a box making and a tobacco processing factory in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and was also involved in the local tobacco leaf trade. Expelled by Bulgarian authorities in the early months of World War I, he arrived in Salonica penniless, but by 1917 he had already found success in the familiar and profitable tobacco leaf trade.46 The integration of the Marintsoglou family from the Bulgarian province of Eastern Rumelia was even more impressive. Before the war, brothers Georgios, Kyriakos, and Achilleas Marintsoglou had a diverse business portfolio, including investments in the Stenimachos (present-day Asenovgrad) to Sofia railway line, sunflower oil production, a winery, and travel accommodation. Their entire enterprise was destroyed by the Bulgarians early in the Great War, forcing them to flee to Salonica. In their new home, they capitalized on the wartime economic boom and quickly established a foothold in the wine trade, setting up an “industrial unit” that employed twelve refugees from Bulgarian-ruled Aghialos (present-day Pomorie). By 1920 they had expanded into grain and colonial goods, taking on commissioning and dealership roles. During this period, Achilleas Marintsoglou, the company’s director, also tapped into Salonica’s burgeoning Venizelist networks. He was active in various local Red Cross committees, served as the secretary of the Soldier’s Sister charitable patriotic organization, and was a founder and board member of the local Liberal Party Club. His rapid ascent in Salonica’s Greek merchant milieu culminated in 1921 when he was appointed to the board of the Commercial Association and participated in two joint business ventures.47 Marintsoglou’s successful integration was surprisingly quick, highlighting the importance of political networks for the social and economic advancement of new merchants in the city. Alongside Greek Orthodox refugee merchants from Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, another notable group consisted of Greek-speaking Vlachs from northern Macedonia, particularly from Bitola. The Serbian annexation of the city after the Balkan Wars triggered an initial wave of immigration to Greece. This was then followed by a more intense flight during World War I due to mobilization and Bulgarian occupation. Finally, Serbian

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nationalization policies in the immediate postwar period made a return to their homeland impossible, sealing their permanent relocation to Greece. Among those fleeing merchants, the wealthiest primarily settled in Salonica, with others choosing Athens or the town of Florina in northwestern Greek Macedonia. Notably, those from Bitola formed a particularly cohesive group. They organized themselves around the aptly named Perseverance Association, and cultivated for years a staunchly pro-Royalist, strongly localist, and resolutely irredentist political identity.48 Surprisingly, the integration of refugee merchants from northern Macedonia was not as rapid as one might expect. This is notable considering that Vlach Greek speakers especially had been among the most dynamic groups in the city’s market since the late nineteenth century and were well integrated into Salonica’s Greek communal and business structures. Similar to the refugees from Asia Minor and Thrace, board members from northern Macedonian refugee associations like Perseverance, Tiverioupolis (the Greek name for present-day Strumitsa), and Idomeni were not represented on the boards of the chamber of commerce or the Commercial Association. Instead, these refugee associations were sometimes paternalistically led by the older generation of established northern Macedonian merchants. Spyridon Doumas, for example, a colonial goods merchant and former secretary of the New Club, presided over the Perseverance Association in 1917.49 The merchants’ social and economic integration might also have been impeded by a yearning for return. Many refugees from Bitola and nearby areas maintained their real estate back home, held onto their Serbian citizenship, and even harbored hopes for a redrawing of borders after the war. These aspirations were quashed only in the early 1920s, when the nationalizing policies of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes kicked in in earnest, making them realize that their future lay solely in Salonica.50 Overall, between 1912 and 1922, wars and the influx of forced migrants from the Balkans and Ottoman Anatolia led to a significant increase in the Greek population of Salonica. Already in March 1916, their number had risen to 68,000, including 31,000 refugees, making them for the first time the strongest ethnic group in the city.51 However, despite this spectacular demographic growth, the expansion of the Greek merchant group was much less pronounced. The success of Achilleas Marintsoglou was more an exception

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than a norm. Yet, by the early 1920s, Greek merchants found themselves in a better position compared with their Jewish counterparts. Their modest numerical increase, combined with the decline of the Jews, indicated a shift in the ethnic balance of the city’s economy. Even before the 1923 Greco-Turkish population exchange, the Greeks had become the only demographically expanding segment in Salonica’s merchant community. Although Jews were still numerically the strongest, a clear trend was emerging. Business Moves: Jewish Defense, Greek Offense While demographic trends were irreversibly pointing toward Hellenization, their pace was slow, and their immediate impact barely noticeable. However, changes in the business profile of the two main ethnoreligious groups were both swifter and more profound. As Orly Meron has shown, by 1921 Jews owned 52 percent of the city’s businesses and Greeks 36.6 percent. Muslims and Dönme had virtually disappeared, falling precipitously to a mere 3.4  percent. Compared to the overall ethnoreligious makeup of Salonica’s population, Jews continued to be overrepresented in the business sector. Yet, their share was gradually diminishing, dropping almost 7 percent since 1912. Importantly, Jews also tended to retract. They lost control of all key sectors and concentrated their business ventures into fewer areas. Specifically, within the first decade of Greek rule, financial services shifted from Jewishto Greek-owned banks, and major Jewish exporters faced a sharp decline in grain exports due to the wartime protectionist policies of the Greek state and the initiation of land redistribution in Northern Greece. Furthermore, Jewish traders of colonial goods, a key import trade, now limited their reach by primarily serving their fire-stricken coreligionists rather than the city at large. Consequently, Jewish dominance was restricted to a handful of specialized sectors, like luxury goods and high-end manufactured products. As Meron convincingly suggests, this shift toward marketing easily movable and expensive commodities reflected an uncertainty about the long-term business prospects for Jews in Salonica. It indicated a preference for quick-profit investments with minimal capital commitments and reliance on direct contact with buyers rather than dependance on state subsidies or institutional support which a manufacturing establishment would typically require. Jewish business choices reflected an acceptance of their

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temporary presence in Salonica, a marginal role in the local economy, and the looming possibility of forced relocation. Although a numerical majority, Jewish merchants were adopting the business mindset of a weakened minority.52 In stark contrast to the Jews, Greek businesses experienced remarkable growth, more than doubling from 17.6 percent in 1912 to 36.6 percent in 1921. Crucially, they were not only growing in number but also diversifying, rapidly expanding into a host of new sectors. Greek merchants not only caught up with Jews in several key areas of commerce but even surpassed them in the critical industry sector. Initially, the steep increase in the local Greek population, along with the establishment of exclusive Greek cooperatives during World War I, enabled them to strengthen their presence in the lucrative import trade of staple goods such as sugar, coffee, and tea. Furthermore, Greek merchants secured access to necessary funding and began making significant, long-term investments by establishing sizable processing units.53 This dynamic foray into local manufacturing represented a critical qualitative shift in their business behavior. It marked their evolution from a minor economic group in a multiethnic Ottoman city to an important regional player in a national economy. Reverse-mirroring their Jewish counterparts, Greek merchants, although still a numerical minority, had adopted the assertive business attitude of a majority. Remarkably, this development unfolded piecemeal within a very narrow timeframe, right before but primarily right after World War  I. Signs of change in Greek investment strategies had already become apparent following the Balkan Wars. In 1913, for instance, the Hadjilazarou family and Athanasios Makris expressed interest in acquiring the bankrupt textile factory of the Société Anonyme Ottomane pour la fabrication de fez et tissus (Ottoman Joint Stock Company for the Manufacture of Fezzes and Fabrics). Furthermore, during the same period, there was a notable surge in investment in tobacco processing, with groups of merchants establishing the successful Atlas and Nestos tobacco and cigarette companies in 1915.54 However, World War  I briefly interrupted this emerging trend, and thus, the main wave of new industries only materialized after the cessation of hostilities, between 1918 and 1922. In just four years, Greek merchants had largely managed to dominate Salonica’s industrial sector.

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The rapid success of Greek businesses can be attributed to three key developments. First, nearly all Greek factories established in the late Ottoman period managed to remain operational through the late 1910s, despite facing serious challenges after the Balkan Wars and during World War I. In contrast, key industrial establishments owned by Jews (and Dönme), such as the Ottoman Fez Company of Kapandji and Yahiel and the Nouvelle Filature of Torres and Misrahi, were less resilient and had shut down already in 1914.55 Second, in the late 1910s, Greek merchants capitalized on these closures by acquiring these and other bankrupt companies, thereby expanding their industrial footprint. Third, they led the way in establishing new units immediately after the war’s end. During the same period, Jewish industry stagnated. The Great Fire caused extensive damage to several plants, including the Saias spinning mill, resulting in their closure or reduced operational capacity.56 Additionally, there was minimal investment in upgrading machinery in existing units or establishing new ones. A prime example of this reversal in business strategies between Greeks and Jews is the Olympos-Naoussa Brewery. In 1920, the Olympos Brewery, co-owned by Fernandez and Misrahi, merged with Tsitsis and Georgiadis’ Naoussa Brewery to form the Olympos-Naoussa Co. Although Jews maintained a majority on the board and held most of the shares, the merger itself highlighted the growing necessity for Jewish firms to cooperate with their Greek counterparts in order to preserve their position in an increasingly nationalized market.57 This merger, much like the Jewish concentration in specific market sectors, was a calculated strategy of adaptation—a well thought out response to the new economic realities of the nation-state. Jewish merchants were active designers of their own, albeit narrower, “Greek” future. Greek Merchants, Salonican Merchants? As Greeks ascended in the commercial world of Salonica, their ranks underwent a significant renewal, resulting in a group that was visibly different from their late Ottoman predecessors. Throughout the 1910s, this transformation manifested in several ways: some established Greek merchants and industrialists advanced further whereas others faded away; meanwhile, several previously minor figures rose spectacularly; finally, many newcomers settled in the city, coming from other parts of Greece and beyond.

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During the first decade of Greek rule, the paths of major Greek merchants from the late Ottoman era diverged significantly. Some, like Athanasios Makris, successfully consolidated their position in the city by expanding into local manufacturing. Before the Balkan Wars, Makris, an up-and-coming merchant, had invested in industrial ventures outside Salonica, particularly in Naoussa and Edessa, involving himself in the establishment of the Eria textile manufacturing company. Although he continued to invest in central Macedonia, founding the Vermion textile manufacturing unit in Veria in 1912, once Salonica became Greek, he increasingly focused his business endeavors there. Between 1919 and 1922, Makris collaborated with other local merchants to establish the Ergani textile factory and the Franco-Greek Company of Industrial Enterprises. Additionally, he was elected as a board member of both the First Building Company of Salonica and the Salonica Freezers Co.58 Makris exemplifies the rapid ascent of Salonica’s late Ottoman Greek Orthodox merchants who, within just a few years, transformed into leading industrialists in their city and region. His story is one of local continuities and organic growth. However, not all prominent Salonican businessmen successfully navigated the transition from Ottoman to Greek rule. The most emblematic case is Cleon Hadjilazarou, whose Ottoman riches rapidly disintegrated into Greek rags. Before 1912, as the director of the Banque d’Orient and a major shareholder in the Eria textile manufacturing company, Hadjilazarou was a figure of considerable wealth. Immediately following Salonica’s annexation, he added several high-profile roles to his business portfolio, becoming president of the Anglo-Hellenic Company, chief executive officer of the Tramway and Electric Lighting Company, and also rising to head of Eria. During these early years of Greek rule, Hadjilazarou leveraged his family’s long-standing involvement in communal and public affairs (his father Pericles was longtime president of the Cercle de Salonique), as well as his connections to the royal family (Crown Prince Constantine had baptized his daughter) to assume a pivotal role in the Hellenization of existing Ottoman institutions and the establishment of new “Greek” ones. By mid-1915, he was a member of the prefectural council and the Refugee Committee, president of the local committee of the Greek Red Cross, and a board member of the city’s first Pulmonary Clinic. Finally, in March 1916, he succeeded his father as president of the Industrialists’ Association of Macedonia, and by early

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Figure 8.  Letterhead of the Hadjilazarou & Co. textile mill, 1911. Source: Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 183, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece

1917 he became the first Greek president of the chamber of commerce.59 His trajectory made Hellenization look like a one-man show. The meteoric rise of Cleon Hadjilazarou to an all-Salonica Greek leader highlights the significance of social networks and symbolic capital in the early post-Ottoman years. Not only had Hadjilazarou won the recognition of his peers among the Greek notables, but he was also endorsed by the highest Greek state authority, the royal family. Additionally, he earned the trust of the Jewish communal and merchant elite who saw in him a knowledgeable defender of their interests. Already in 1911, Hadjilazarou and the Banque d’Orient had come to the rescue of the Jewish Banque Saul, and in 1913, he had been a vocal advocate for making Salonica a free port city. Furthermore, following the capture of Salonica by the Greek troops, he spearheaded a cross-ethnic initiative to establish a Greco-Jewish association aimed at easing tensions between the two communities. Finally, in 1915, he was elected president of the newly established multiethnic Landowners’ Association.60 Hadjilazarou’s ascent was largely due to his ability to act as an ambassador of sorts, bridging the gap between local and national interests and between Greeks and Jews. During a period marked by acute uncertainty and heightened ethnic tensions, his extensive, cross-ethnic networks demonstrate that Hellenizing Salonica’s public sphere could be achieved not only through confrontation and marginalization of its non-Greek populations, but also through consensus: by securing the cooperation of the mighty Jewish merchant stratum.

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However, Hadjilazarou’s rise to city leader was ultimately truncated. In early 1917, his financial stability was rocked when his deceased father effectively disinherited him. The vast family fortune was left to Cleon’s stepmother, with Cleon keeping only his mansion and his personal shares in Eria.61 This financial blow coincided with significant political upheavals: first, the fierce clash between King Constantine and prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos in 1915 that tore Greek society and politics apart; then, the arrival of the pro-Venizelist Entente forces in Salonica later that year; and, finally, the National Defense movement among Salonica-based Venizelist officers and the subsequent establishment of Venizelos’ Provisional Government in the city in 1916. These developments rendered a prominent Royalist like Hadjilazarou, who was also married to a German woman, persona non grata. By April 1917, he found himself compelled to resign from his various posts and eventually leave Salonica altogether. Following a brief stay in Marseille, Hadjilazarou relocated to Athens, transferring all his remaining business activities there.62 He would never return to Salonica, a city that he had once almost made his own. The contrasting fortunes of Makris and Hadjilazarou highlight how the volatile environment of the 1910s differentially impacted late Ottoman Greek Orthodox entrepreneurs. While some leveraged the transition to their advantage, others succumbed to the period’s political instability. Indeed, the tumultuous war decade had a paradoxical effect on the formation of Salonica’s post-Ottoman Greek merchant elite. The National Schism and the Great War, although particularly detrimental to Hadjilazarou, created new business opportunities for several emerging entrepreneurs. In particular, providing supplies to the Army of the Orient opened up profitable avenues, whereas supporting Eleftherios Venizelos secured the political influence necessary to venture into new business realms, especially in manufacturing. In late 1918, Theagenis Trompetas, a supplier for the Entente, used his war profits to establish a distillery, aptly naming it National Defense to honor his Venizelist ideals and no less his patrons.63 Similarly, in 1919, a consortium of pro-Venizelist Greek businessmen, including Stylianos Negrepontis and the brothers Alexandros and Konstantinos Zannas, formed the Franco-Greek Industrial Businesses Co. They acquired the facilities left by the departing French Army in Karaburnu and launched various enterprises, including a hat-making unit, a carpentry shop, a tannery, and a nail and needle factory.64

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Evidently, then, during the first decade of Greek rule, Salonica’s Greek merchants-industrialists, both established and emerging, made considerable progress. However, as in the late Ottoman period, their small size and limited financial resources inhibited further expansion, especially within capital-intensive sectors like manufacturing. The infusion of capital from other regions of Greece was imperative.65 The strengthening of the city’s Greek merchants would have to be a regional and national process as much as it was a strictly local one. Indeed, the gradual Hellenization of key sectors in Salonica’s economy was largely enabled by the arrival or investments of entrepreneurs from other parts of Greece. Among the newcomers, merchants and industrialists from the Greek Macedonian town of Naoussa stood out as both distinct and familiar. In the late Ottoman period, these industrialists recognized that expansion into Salonica, the major center of Ottoman Europe, was essential if they were to break out of their local confines and attain the status of an imperial business elite. However, their aspirations were tempered by the existing Jewish economic dominance in the city.66 Consequently, prior to 1912, Naoussa entrepreneurs prudently confined their operations to small-scale commercial ventures. Even the most ambitious among them never achieved first- or second-class membership in Salonica’s chamber of commerce, typically being listed only as third- or fourth-class members.67 With the advent of Greek rule, merchants and industrialists from Naoussa grabbed the opportunity to widen the geographical scope of their activities and reorient their business strategies. In the decade that followed, central Macedonia certainly remained an important industrial hub for Greek entrepreneurship. Existing units like Eria expanded and new ones, such as Vermion, were established in 1921. However, post-1912, Naoussa’s business families, including the Platsoukas, Tourpalis, and Kirtsis, increasingly turned their attention to Salonican industry. In 1918, Ioannis Platsoukas and Thrasyvoulos Tourpalis, representing the second generation of their families, acquired significant shares in Proteus, the well-established distillery of the Georgiadis Brothers. In 1919, Kyros Kirtsis expanded from trade and real estate into manufacturing, contributing to the launch of the Franco-Greek Industrial Company of Salonica. Additionally, Naoussa-based firms like Eria relocated their headquarters to Salonica as they transitioned

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into joint-stock companies. Above all, Naoussa merchant-industrialists increasingly took the lead in establishing large industries in Salonica, venturing into both emerging sectors as well as familiar ones like textiles. In 1921, the sons of Gregorios Tsitsis, a pioneer in the Naoussa textile industry, joined forces with the Kirtsis brothers, Kyros and Panagis, to establish a new cotton thread-making facility. Two years earlier, Iraklis Hadjidimoulas had adeptly extended his manufacturing reach beyond textiles by launching Industrial Hearth, which manufactured agricultural tools.68 Substantial capital transfers and large investments in manufacturing marked an aggressive expansion, making Naoussa businessmen more visible in Salonica than ever before. However, their expansion did not raise issues of integration, as Naoussa merchants and industrialists had long been a familiar face in the city. Their geographic proximity and extensive family and business ties to Salonica during the late Ottoman period had already rendered them insiders, seamlessly integrating them into the local Greek Orthodox merchant elite well before 1912.69 As such, Naoussa merchants and industrialists cannot be neatly labeled as outsiders, nor can their movement be strictly defined as migration. For this reason, the strengthening of Greek entrepreneurship in Salonica and the remaking of its Greek merchant community cannot be accurately interpreted as merely the result of migratory flows alone. Instead, these developments should be viewed as essentially regional, effectively blurring the economic, social, and symbolic boundaries between (Greek) Salonica and (Greek) Macedonia. In this context, the true outsiders were actually those businessmen who came from other parts of Greece and abroad. Between 1912 and 1922, they were the ones who made significant investments in the most important sectors of the local economy. Early on, Doukas Sahinis, a leather merchant originally from Siatista but based in Dresden, transferred his operations to Salonica. Here, he founded the Atlas cigarette factory in the first half of 1915. That same year, Athanasios Stalios and Miltiadis Petridis, prominent tobacco merchants from Xanthi in Thrace, joined forces with Konstantinos Tornivoukas to establish the Nestos tobacco company. The influx of newcomers intensified after World War I. In 1919, the Pierrakos family, owners of a textile factory in Piraeus, took over the Jewish-owned Nouvelle Filature of Torres and Misrahi to form the Pierrakos, Economopoulos & Co. General

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Figure 9.  Share issued by the Salonica Cold Storage Warehouses, owned by Epaminondas Charilaos, 1923. Source: Collection 013.01, General State Archives—Historical Archive of Macedonia, Greece

Partnership. Similarly, the Philippou family, long active in the ceramics industry on the Greek island of Syros, moved to Salonica in 1919. Upon their arrival, they immediately established a ceramics unit, breaking the Jewish monopoly previously held by the Allatinis.70 Among the influx of new investors, the most important—and equally controversial—figure was Epaminondas Charilaos, a major businessman from Athens. In 1920, Charilaos acquired the freezers left by the departing French Army. He then partnered with the Piraeus-based ice-making company of the Sifneos brothers and Salonican businessmen Athanasios Makris and Alexandros Zannas to form the Salonica Cold Storage Warehouses Co. In the same year, seizing the lucrative opportunities presented by Salonica’s reconstruction, he also established the First Construction Company of

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Salonica. This company became a major force in real estate development, but it also served as a primary conduit for Athenian business involvement in the city. Charilaos held the position of president, while several prominent Athenian capitalists, including Striggos, Empirikos, Nikoletopoulos, and Deltas, were among its major shareholders.71 The new Salonica, it seemed, was an Athenian work. In the first decade of Greek rule, then, the Greek merchant elite of Salonica was strengthened by renewing itself, just as it had done in the late Ottoman period. This process of reproduction extended beyond the city, reaching not only the surrounding region of Greek Macedonia but also the rest of Greece, the Greek Orthodox communities in the former Ottoman Balkans, and even the Greek commercial diaspora in Central Europe, if we are to take into account the resettlement of Doukas Sahinis, Siatista-born but Dresden-based. Newcomers were the driving force behind the gradual Hellenization of key business sectors, but they also brought to the fore the question of Salonicanness—how to achieve their organic integration into the city’s business institutions and its social and cultural fabric. Macedonian entrepreneurs like Sahinis generally integrated smoothly into local political, social, and professional networks. Within less than a year of relocating to Salonica, Sahinis had become vice-president of the newly established Siatista Association of Salonica, joined various tobacco manufacturers committees, and even ran for office with the intensely localist Party of the Independents in the May 1915 general elections.72 His successful integration was facilitated by the presence of fellow Siatista compatriots in the city, but perhaps more so by the particularities of Greek Salonican identity, which prioritized regional attachments over urban affiliations, viewing individuals like Sahinis as regional insiders rather than urban outsiders. Among Greek merchants in Salonica, the region of Greek Macedonia, not the city, informed their poetics of similarity. Greek Macedonianism, however, did not extend to entrepreneurs from Old Greece, like Charilaos. On the contrary, they faced a hostile public discourse which dreaded and denounced their massive and uncontrolled influx and held them accountable for Salonica’s imminent economic collapse. Immediately after the Great Fire of 1917, the totality of Salonica’s business world, regardless of religion, was resolutely against the government’s new

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plan, especially its stipulation that all large plots in the burned zone were to be surveyed and auctioned off. Due to the financial difficulties Salonica’s entrepreneurs were facing, they were unable to match the unusually high prices set for the auctioned plots in the zone’s most lucrative sectors. Speaking in unison, Greek and Jewish newspapers, alongside Jewish community leaders and property owners, expressed grave concerns that the government’s reconstruction plan was in reality a plot against Salonica, tailored to benefit wealthy and powerful Athenian financiers at the expense of the hard-pressed, fire-stricken local businesses. As Nehama warned, “The proposed measure is highly appreciated by the capitalists of Athens who have, it seems, already arranged to have all these lands granted to them at a very low price.” Flirting with conspiracy theories, L’Indépendant was absolutely convinced that “a group of Athenian capitalists have planned to expropriate the fire-ravaged lands in Salonica and have forbidden even temporary repairs of the burned shops and stores.” Despite repeated denials from Minister Alexandros Papanastasiou and the actual legal provisions, the pervasive sentiment in Salonica was that the Venizelist government “was actively working to establish a group of Athenian capitalists [in the city].” “This alien group,” locals argued, would “economically enslave [Salonica] and crash its commerce to make as high a profit as possible.” “The current owners will inevitably be eliminated and replaced by foreigners [sic] with capital and enjoying an influence that has not yet been given to the newcomers in the Greek family.” By contrast, “our population who created their own city and who made it a commercial emporium through their labor, honesty, and patience” would be “ruin[ed].”73 These apprehensions persisted well into the 1920s. It took a decade for Athenian industrialists Nikolaos and Ioannis Pierrakos to be elected to the board of Salonica’s newly relabeled Chamber of Commerce and Industry, despite their active presence in the city since 1918. For entrepreneurs from Old Greece, integration into Salonica’s business community was a prolonged and challenging endeavor.74 *** In the first decade of Greek rule, Salonica’s Greek merchants underwent a complex transformation evolving into a group distinct from their late Ottoman predecessors. The new Greek merchant elite was not post-Ottoman.

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Rather, it was made anew, a product of both regional and national mobility, and marked as much by ruptures as by continuities with the Ottoman past. Hellenization dramatically altered the internal dynamics of this group, as its reconstruction intertwined with its integration. This twin process tended to redefine the relationship between the local and the national, further complicating the already ambiguous interplay between Salonican and Greek identities. Making Salonica Greek was marked by paradoxes and dilemmas. The exodus of Jewish merchants undeniably strengthened the position of their local Greek peers. However, the massive outflow of capital also threatened to reduce the entire city to ruins. Similarly, the gradual influx of entrepreneurs from Old Greece brought the promise of much-needed capital injection; yet it also risked marginalizing the local Greek merchants in a process resembling internal colonialism. Integration into the national economy was pushing toward Hellenization, but it also exerted unique pressures on Salonica’s Greek merchants. As a result, the more Salonica’s merchants were tied to Greece, the more tense the relationship between their Salonican and Greek allegiances became. As they were turning into Greeks, they were also becoming ever more Salonican.

SEVEN

From Clubs to Associations New Sociabilities, New Identities

In August 1917, amid World War I, the Greek newspaper To Phos reflected on what the future might hold for Salonica, observing that “every citizen is a member of at least one association. This is the first taste of the postwar era.”1 This statement would have sounded familiar to many Salonicans, both Greeks and Jews. In 1911, the Jewish newspaper La Epoka highlighted the significant increase in public engagement and civic spirit following the Young Turk Revolution by proudly stating that, “in no part of the empire, not even in the capital, does one find so many clubs where people gather [together].”2 Similarly, Joseph Nehama, tracing back to the last third of the nineteenth century, emphasized the social and economic transformation of Salonica by pointing to the astounding proliferation of voluntary associations. In his triumphant narrative, he considered associationism a safe index of his city’s advancement toward bourgeois modernity, remarking that “every respectable Salonican is member to at least two or three of these groupings.”3 If there was one thing contemporaries never failed to notice, it was the persistent importance of associations in public life and politics. 243

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They were a prominent feature in Salonica’s social fabric during both the late Ottoman period and the first decade of Greek government. For Greek and Jewish observers, associations consistently signaled the coming of a new social, political, and cultural order, be that Hamidian modernization, Young Turk Constitutionalism, or Greek rule. Despite being mentioned under completely different socio-political circumstances, they were nevertheless repeatedly brought up at every critical juncture in Salonica’s history. Somewhat paradoxically then, public discourse treated associations as the constant element that signposted change. As the words of Nehama and the above articles in the Greek and Jewish press show, associations were as much an enduring feature of Salonica’s ever-shifting social landscape as they were a prominent indicator of new developments. Having emerged in the 1870s, they had by the 1920s established themselves as a staple of sociability for every “citizen” and “respectable Salonican.” At a period marked by cultural shifts, political upheavals, territorial changes, and social tensions, their uninterrupted and sizable presence constituted an element of stability and continuity, providing a link between Ottoman and Greek Salonica. Associations were here to stay. However, this apparent continuity masked underlying changes. Once Salonica was annexed to Greece, all the main features of its associational world were challenged and ultimately overturned. As the city began its transition from Ottoman to Greek rule, associations underwent major changes with regards to their ethnic and class composition, their formal characteristics, the cultural values that underpinned them, as well as the aims and objectives they served. This change was most clear in the merchants’ associations. In the late Ottoman period, the newly introduced commercial club had become the central feature of an emerging associational culture. It was instrumental in shaping a new multiethnic bourgeois identity and no less in establishing a distinctly Jewish urban hegemony. Yet, by 1919, less than a decade into Greek rule, the club was effectively a thing of the past. In its place, there stood the professional association, around which Salonica’s merchant community was now coalescing. Nowhere was the change that Greek rule brought more rapid, radical, and complete than in the field of merchant sociability. Where Nehama, La Epoka and To Phos once saw progress, there was in fact acute discontinuity and deep rupture.

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A Class Remade: The Rise of Professional Associations In the 1910s, under the leadership of prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos, the ruling Greek Liberals advanced an innovative understanding of social organization and state–society relations. They viewed society as the totality of organized social forces, with the state acting as an impartial arbitrator between them. Consequently, between 1910 and 1915, the policy of the Venizelist Liberal Party was to regulate social conflicts through legislation, seeking to integrate broader and previously marginalized social strata into the existing social and political fabric. Notably, Venizelist legislation was as much about ethnic incorporation as it was about class integration. The dramatic territorial expansion of Greece following the Balkan Wars and the annexation of economically promising, yet war-torn and ethnically mixed lands, necessitated a structured presence of the state in the political, economic, as well as social spheres of “New Greece.” In response, the government enacted key laws in 1914—Law 184 on chambers of commerce and Law 281 on associations—and extended protective labor legislation to the newly acquired territories.4 For the merchants of Salonica, much like their counterparts elsewhere, such concerted legislative action demonstrated the Venizelist government’s intent to redefine the relationship between the state and (multiethnic) society. Specifically, Laws 184 and 281 principally aimed to weaken personal power networks and existing ethnoreligious communal institutions by establishing a well-defined framework for state interactions with specific, clearly delineated social groups. These groups would represent distinct economic interests and would be organized around civil society institutions like voluntary associations and chambers of commerce. The government’s goal was to consolidate (Greek) state power in the marketplace and, no less, gradually assimilate Jewish and Muslim merchants and businessmen into the new (and Greek) social structures. However, the Liberals’ strategy should not be understood as a linear, progressive replacement of ethnic ties with class bonds. On the contrary, in Salonica, the Venizelist liberal project followed a more intricate, dual logic: on one hand, it involved redrawing existing ethnic hierarchies and establishing Greek dominance in the city; on the other, it entailed redefining the merchants’ bourgeois identity. Each process was the flip side of the other.5

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The passage from commercial clubs to commercial associations during the 1910s and early 1920s vividly demonstrates the impact of new legislation on class and ethnic dynamics within Salonica’s commercial world. In the late 1910s, clubs still constituted a noticeable part of the city’s associational landscape. Long-established ones like the Cercle de Salonique, New Club, and Grand Cercle Commercial remained active. Additionally, between 1915 and 1921 three more were founded: the Ellenike Lesche Thessalonikes (Greek Club of Salonica) in 1915; the Emporike Lesche Thessalonikes (Commercial Club of Salonica) later that year; and, finally, the Ellenoisraelitike Emporike Lesche (Greek-Jewish Commercial Club) in 1921.6 All these clubs, both old and new, still adhered to the late Ottoman template of balanced merchant sociability, combining business with pleasure. They aimed to offer their male members a comfortable, socially exclusive space of reasoned and ethical recreation alongside the opportunity to engage with each other, “strengthen their relationships,” build bonds of “moral solidarity,” and eventually “advance commerce and the land’s productive forces.”7 However, by the early 1920s, a shift could already be observed. Clubs were clearly moving away from the center and into the margins of merchant associational life. To begin with, the upper merchant stratum was absent from any of the newly formed clubs. Not a single founding member of the Commercial Club or the board of the Greek-Jewish Commercial Club was a notable figure from Salonica’s merchant elite. Similarly, the Greek Club also counted very few merchants among its founders; by contrast, military and state officials abounded in the members’ lists—a new social group fast gaining prominence in Salonica’s public sphere.8 Moreover, by the early 1920s commercial clubs experienced a significant decline in visibility and influence. Among the newer ones, the Commercial Club was effectively stillborn, as it was never even registered in the registry of associations at Salonica’s Court of First Instance. Likewise, the Greco-Jewish Commercial Club did not become a key meeting place of Greek and Jewish merchants despite its stated intentions. It remained virtually unnoticed, with both the Greek and Jewish press, as well as commercial directories and city guides, overlooking its existence. Concomitantly, the older clubs, like the Grand Cercle Commercial, followed a downward trend. Although the Grand Cercle remained an important part of the Interclub—a federation of the eight principal Jewish associations—its

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public presence outside the Jewish community waned.9 It no longer served as a voice for Jewish commercial interests, as evidenced by its absence in the French-language Jewish press of the time. To top it all, in the early 1910s the Grand Cercle enthusiastically embraced Zionism, becoming one of the three most important Zionist associations in Greek Salonica. Taking sides, however, drew it ever more deeply into the bitter intra-communal strife between Zionists and Alliancists, likely limiting its appeal among the many non-Zionist Jewish merchants.10 Paradoxically, even the Greek New Club saw its influence swiftly decline after an initial peak. In the years immediately following Salonica’s annexation to Greece, the club evolved from a modest commercial association of Greek newcomers into a powerhouse of local politics. Between 1912 and 1915, it became the face and space of Greek Salonica. In 1914, Prime Minister Venizelos paid a visit to its offices, while Governor General of Macedonia Themistocles Sophoulis hailed the club as a place where “all [was] Greek: Greek names, Greek colors, Greek club.”11 Greek state officials treated it as equal in stature to the existing Ottoman chamber of commerce and lauded it as a bastion of Hellenism in the multiethnic city. Quickly, the club had risen to become a principal means of symbolically asserting Salonica’s fragile Greekness. In the same years, its influence expanded even further as the club additionally assumed a central position in the city at large. In 1914, it repeatedly collaborated with Jewish associations and coordinated the protest efforts of both Greek and Jewish merchants. Speaking on behalf of the “[Greek] Macedonian people” and defending the “city’s interests,” it opposed Salonica’s exclusion from the key railway line connecting Greece to Europe in March 1914, and advocated for a free port zone a month later.12 In less than two years since Salonica became Greek, the New Club had thus risen to become the principal representative of the broader Greek and local multiethnic business interests. Such was the authority it exerted that it even fielded an independent ticket in the first general elections of May 1915. Allying with the lower-middle-class Greek Guilds’ Association, the two organizations formed the Party of the Independents, running a campaign blending staunch Greek nationalism with acute Macedonian localism.13 By now the club had succeeded in playing a unifying role not only across ethnic but also class divides, bringing Greek and Jewish Salonicans, upper- and lower-class alike, together.

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Yet, the summer of 1915 also marked the zenith of the New Club’s power. For reasons that remain unknown, after the elections, the club ceased its active involvement in business matters and its overall public presence diminished significantly. As the dearth of references in the local press indicates, in the second half of the 1910s, the New Club had faded from prominence. Once a hub for Greek Orthodox merchants and other middle-class professionals interested in commercial matters, it was now nowhere to be found. Professional associations, by contrast, were fast appearing on stage, taking over the commercial functions previously held by clubs. On the eve of the Balkan Wars, there were only two employers’ associations in Salonica: the Association of Fire Insurance Companies and the much younger Chambre Maritime (Chamber of Shipping), established as late as 1909.14 These associations were somewhat niche, uniting local agents of foreign companies and representing two of the city’s most “modern” economic sectors, closely linked to European business presence in Salonica. However, after the Balkan Wars, and within a span of just ten years, the landscape of professional associations had undergone a complete transformation, both in quantity and quality. During World War  I and its aftermath professional associations mushroomed, infiltrating even the most historic market sectors like grain and salt trading. In these years, employers organized themselves as extensively as their employees, founding the Industrialists’ Association in 1914, the Commercial Association in 1916, and a host of other specialized professional organizations representing all of Salonica’s key business interests, from salt, grain, and cheese (1918), to tobacco (1920), colonial goods and timber (1921), and, finally, flour, wood, and cloth (1922).15 These associations quickly rose to prominence, engaging in vigorous activities and soon becoming the exclusive spokespersons of Salonica’s business world. Their rise marked a significant shift in merchant associationism, moving from club-based networks to a more structured and diverse landscape of professional organizations. The domineering presence of professional associations brought a far-reaching shift in the cultural meanings of entrepreneurial sociability. Unlike commercial clubs, which consciously mixed business with pleasure, professional associations detached occupational deliberations from the broader field of leisure practices and general merchant sociability. They offered a new and unique time and space solely focused on managing

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professional “interests.” Venues like those of the Commercial and the Industrialists’ Associations were reserved for merchants and industrialists only to engage exclusively in purely professional matters. This marked a significant change in the way merchants maintained their coherence. Previously, their unity was rooted in a specific kind of formal sociability and on a particular management of leisure, notably through clubs. Now, however, it was informed by the concept of “professional interest” cultivated by their own professional associations. The merchant identity which associationism promoted had evolved, acquiring a radically new content. This shift in the merchants’ associational landscape transformed the symbolic meanings of commerce. Before, commerce was a multifaceted core symbol and a constitutive element of a broader bourgeois complexion. Now, however, it was quickly taking on a more restricted meaning. The transition from commercial clubs to commercial associations closely tied commerce to a specific professional identity and a more partial, particular notion of interest. In this context, commerce was transformed from an umbrella value unifying occupationally different bourgeois segments (and middle-class groups more broadly) to a key reference for a community of “experts”—the merchants and their associations. Importantly, the establishment of professional associations in Salonica during the 1910s did more than just reconfigure the semantic relationship between bourgeois and professional identities: it signaled an even deeper transformation in the very notion of bourgeois identity. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, Salonica’s social landscape grew increasingly complex as industrialization, urbanization, and occupational diversification were pushing toward a more layered social stratification. Meanwhile, heightened tensions between the upper and lower-middle-class strata during World War I, along with numerous and exceptionally intense labor strikes in the years bookending the conflict, increased social conflict.16 In the same years, the rhetoric and policies of Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos were also consolidating a new social imaginary. Departing from earlier views of Greece as a homogeneous society without class distinctions, Venizelos and his Liberal Party recognized for the first time the legitimate existence of distinct social classes with opposing interests. The aim of his government was therefore not to oppose but on the contrary to facilitate the organization

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of these different classes in order to prevent unchecked class conflict and preserve social order. Venizelos encapsulated his decade-long approach to social policy in 1920, stating, “the class struggle is the slogan of the elements which reject the social order as it exists today and look forward to its radical overthrow. . . . If the social order is to be conserved, it will only be conserved through the implementation of pro-labor policy.”17 Consequently, and in line with this approach, the Liberals of the early 1910s enacted protective labor legislation and supported the creation of labor centers to promote “the principle of social solidarity” over the impending realities of class struggle. The combined result of social transformations in Salonica and changing political discourse in Greece was that by the late 1910s society was reimagined as a field of conflict, composed of diverging social groups, each advancing its own specific agenda. In this new imagining, the state emerged as the only entity capable of mediating and harmonizing these competing class interests through appropriate legislation and the introduction of arbitration mechanisms.18 As this new vision of society caught up, it led to a shift in the perception of the bourgeois class. Previously seen as the embodiment of a unified, rational public opinion, the bourgeoisie had now become one of many conflicting social groups. The late Ottoman idea of society organized around a single, idealized bourgeois viewpoint was giving way to a more fragmented understanding, with multiple classes each vying for influence. As these broader semantic processes unfolded, in Salonica, the scope, function, and purpose of associations underwent a significant shift. Beginning in the Second Constitutional Period, associationism expanded into the lower-middle classes and the laboring strata. In 1909, the Socialist Workers’ Federation was formed, while the year before, several other associations for commercial employees had also been established, including the Clerks’ and Employees’ Union.19 Their emergence sent a strong signal that associationism would no longer be characteristic solely of bourgeois sociability. A few years later, in 1914, the enactment of Law 281 further reinforced this evolving understanding of associations, by framing them as formal vehicles for representing diverse, and often opposing, social interests. Consequently, the number of lower-middle-class and working-class associations in Salonica surged. Between 1914 and 1922, over two hundred societies of all imaginable kinds were established ranging from the beekeepers’ association—The

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Bee (1915), and the Blue- and White-Collar Employees Christian Center of Salonica (1917), to Labor (the Association of Jewish Builders, 1919) and Pheidias (the Union of Marble Sculptors and Stonemasons, 1919).20 By the late 1910s, associations had transformed from organizations shaping a unified, egalitarian public space and expressing purportedly universal moral values to becoming tools for organizing and advocating specific, competing “class” interests. Their role was effectively reversed. The convergence of these developments—social transformations, political discourses, and associational trends—led to a radical change in the identity of the bourgeoisie. Its male representatives no longer embodied “common interest” and “public opinion.” Facing challenges in the public arena and with their role particularized in the social imaginary, the bourgeoisie could no longer claim, nor was it viewed any longer as representing a comprehensive set of values that shaped society in its entirety. Furthermore, the bourgeoisie no longer stood as the “moral pinnacle” of society, a role it had held during the late Ottoman period. Instead, being bourgeois now denoted a particular interest, distinct and often in direct opposition to the interests of other social groups. For merchants in Salonica, this shift was particularly impactful. The rise of professional associations which Greek rule had brought about was nothing short of a rite of passage, a pivotal transition marking their entry into the “modern,” “class society.” Greeks Redux: Forging a Majority Both Greek and Jewish merchants adopted this new class identity. At its core, however, this reformulated sense of being bourgeois was unquestionably Greek. During these years, key developments like the establishment of the Industrialists’ Association, the Commercial Association, and the restructuring of the chamber of commerce in 1919, marked not only a significant organizational shift but also a reversal of ethnic hierarchies in the marketplace. By the mid-1910s, these three organizations had quickly become the principal forums for both Greek and Jewish merchants and industrialists. In theory, their foundational principles of inclusivity and equal participation for all members structured interethnic relations on the basis of equality and proportional representation. In practice, however, their underlying dynamics decisively favored the advancement of Greek hegemony in the business

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world, reshaping the commercial landscape of Salonica and, by extension, the city at large. After the regime change in 1912, Salonica’s existing “Ottoman” institutions were delegitimized, more as an unintended result of on-the-ground developments than deliberate government policy. The Venizelist government, in fact, preferred a gradual incorporation of newly annexed territories and thus chose to retain much of Ottoman legislation, institutions, and even personnel for several years. This cautious approach was due to concerns about international reactions and the risks associated with rapid integration.21 In contrast, the Greek public in Salonica viewed incorporation as an opportunity to assert its dominance over the city. Consequently, the Greek press sharply criticized the surviving multiethnic chamber of commerce, labeling it “illegal” and accusing its Dönme president, Mehmet Kapandji, of disrespecting Greek authorities. The chamber’s advocacy for turning Salonica into a free port was also condemned as anti-Greek, seen as a threat to unconditional Greek state sovereignty over the city.22 Similarly, Greek newspapers attacked the Cercle de Salonique for being “not only foreign, but also closed to the Greeks,” and clamored for its forced Hellenization—an act they deemed both a “social” and a “national” necessity.23 Furthermore, these newspapers urged support for Greek merchants to achieve the “commercial conquest of Salonica,” and promoted [Greek] Macedonian manufacturing as a “purely national industry.”24 This fiercely nationalistic local ideological climate set the stage for Greek merchants to adopt a more assertive stance. They began to bypass existing business organizations and launch transethnic initiatives aimed at consolidating their commercial and urban dominance. Between 1914 and 1916 Greek merchants spearheaded the establishment of both the Industrialists’ and the Commercial Associations. Notably, the inaugural meeting of the Industrialists’ Association took place in the shop of Athanasios Makris and the drafting of the charter was assigned to another Greek, Dimitrios Chatzopoulos, the Deputy Director of the Labor Office at the General Government of Macedonia.25 Although a select few Jews participated, Greeks dominated the initial councils of both associations. Pericles Hadjilazarou, the first president of the Industrialists’ Association, and five of its nine council members were Greeks. In the next years—pace Joseph Misrahi’s brief tenure from 1919 to 1920—the presidency and council majority

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remained predominantly in Greek hands, setting a trend that would continue unabated throughout the interwar period. A similar pattern emerged in the Commercial Association, where Greeks formed its provisional committee and subsequently controlled its presidency and all councils.26 Importantly, Hellenization extended well beyond these two major associations, with Greeks dominating the councils of most first-degree professional organizations established after 1914. By 1922, associations representing wood factory owners, colonial product merchants, commission merchants, cheese producers and merchants, tobacco merchants and tobacco industrialists all had Greek presidents and often a Greek secretary, too. In contrast, Jews held leadership positions or a majority on the boards only in those few professional associations that represented either historical or emerging Jewish business niches, like coal, textiles, and maritime agencies.27 The advent of professional associations proved a game-changer, accelerating the passing of the leadership baton in Salonica’s commercial world from Jewish to Greek hands. Greek state authorities actively supported the new merchants’ and industrialists’ associations for both immediate and long-term strategic reasons. One way they did this was by indirectly marginalizing the multiethnic chamber of commerce, favoring the Commercial Association instead. In 1918, Greek officials fully endorsed the association’s proposal to establish a powerful consultative council, responsible for regulating food prices throughout Greek Macedonia.28 Once the council was formed, the Commercial Association was represented with two members while the chamber only had one. Moreover, the association was tasked with several key responsibilities: publicizing government orders, overseeing the distribution of essential food items like olive oil and wheat, allocating storage space in the limited rail wagons and freight ships, issuing weekly price lists, and providing all kinds of certificates for importing and exporting goods.29 Backed by the Greek state, the association’s role and influence in the region rapidly expanded, encroaching on areas that were typically under the purview of the chamber of commerce. The extent of the Greek state’s backing raises questions about its underlying motivations, specifically whether it was primarily driven by exclusionary nationalism. Jews very much thought so. Community leaders were convinced that the founding of the Commercial Association was a deliberate

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attempt by the Greek authorities to empower Greek merchants and shift ethnic hierarchies in the local market. As they vehemently complained to their coreligionists abroad, “The chamber of commerce, an offshoot of local trade, included a large number of Jews within it; [the Greeks] treated it as an insignificant quantity and all the favors and trust of the authorities went to the Greek Commercial Association, established alongside the chamber with the same responsibilities.”30 That might hold true, although speaking the language of victimhood was a staple rhetorical device of Salonican communal elites as they sought to generate sympathy for their plight from abroad. However, it is equally plausible that Greek policy was motivated by the urgent need to control the local market in times of war by supporting a trusted commercial institution. The organization of the war economy in Salonica did not solely rely on the expansion of new Greek state mechanisms, which were anyway only beginning to be introduced in Greek Macedonia.31 On the contrary, it also depended on delegating substantial responsibilities to the Commercial Association, transforming it into an essential tool for consultation, distribution, and regulation, in close collaboration with the local authorities. This involvement of second-degree professional associations in the war economy led to their strengthening beyond expectations. It is therefore possible to assume that given the circumstances, Hellenization was actually a side effect of hastily improvised, ad hoc state policies rather than their primary, calculated objective. By establishing new and powerful professional associations Greek merchants completed the transition from the margins to the center of Salonica’s associational life. Moreover, these associations provided them with the necessary coherence and leadership, which as an emerging group they lacked. On paper, the Industrialists’ Association, the Commercial Association, and the chamber of commerce each served distinct purposes. While, for example, the Commercial Association “catered for the promotion and development of trade,” the Industrialists’ Association sought by contrast “to pursue and secure every protectionist [sic] measure or legislation that contributes to the promotion and development of industry in Macedonia.”32 Normally, then, the operations of the two associations should have furthered the differentiation between merchants and industrialists leading to the formation of two distinct professional groups. The categories of the “merchant” and

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the “industrialist” which were tightly knitted together in the late Ottoman period due to the polyvalent business practices of prominent Jewish and Greek “merchant-industrialists,” would be disentangled. In practice, however, these associations blurred any occupational lines separating these two entities. This was evidenced by the frequent movement of individuals among the three organizations. Up-and-coming industrialists like Kyros Kirtsis and Doukas Sahinis often joined the Commercial Association, while owners and directors of tobacco trading companies could become regular members of the Industrialists’ Association.33 Similarly, Cleon Hadjilazarou was simultaneously president of the Industrialists’ Association and the chamber of commerce throughout 1916 and 1917.34 There is probably no better example to illustrate the rise of a unified merchant-industrialist group than the trajectory of Athanasios Makris. A founding member of the Industrialists’ Association (playing host to its inaugural meeting), Makris also became president first of the Commercial Association in 1917 and then of the chamber of commerce in 1919.35 Notably, Makris did not come from a long-established Salonican family nor was he a prominent figure in late Ottoman commercial circles. His meteoric rise thus highlights how the new “Greek” institutions not only brought merchants and industrialists together, but also fostered a new leadership that included not just the established Greek entrepreneurs and late Ottoman communal notables, but also up-and-coming merchants and industrialists as well as newcomers. In terms of institutional control, the emergent Greek merchant-industrialist group represented a break from the Ottoman past. It was not post-Ottoman, but Greek, the outcome of a rupture rather than the corollary of continuity with Ottoman social and political structures. Overlapping memberships and cross-institutional mobility thus brought the chamber of commerce, the Industrialists’ Association, and the Commercial Association closer together. Their harmonious collaboration in numerous instances further cemented their bonds. Remarkably, conflicts among these organizations were rare, even in situations where the interests of industrialists and merchants diverged. That was the case in early 1922 when the Industrialists’ Association supported a petition advanced by the Commercial Association to abolish the doubling of income tax instead of pushing for tax exemptions on reinvested profits for non-limited companies, which would

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have more directly benefited the industrialists. In fact, as time passed, coordination on a wide array of issues soon became routine among these organizations. In March 1917, the Industrialists’ and the Commercial Association agreed to jointly issue the Commercial-Industrial Bulletin, first published in 1918. They also shared office space and split the usher’s salary between 1918 and 1919. Similarly, the Commercial Association and the chamber of commerce shared premises for several years after 1919.36 Moreover, joint committees of the three organizations frequently collaborated on various initiatives, from drafting and submitting petitions to the government on tax matters to organizing fundraising drives for Greek Macedonian refugees and arranging visits to international fairs for Salonica’s merchants and industrialists. Characteristically, in May 1919 a committee comprising representatives from all three organizations submitted a common petition regarding the law on net return.37 Another instance saw the chamber of commerce and the Commercial Association working together to call the local business world into action by convening local businessmen and financial and government authorities in November 1920 to discuss surging inflation.38 Through such concerted efforts, the numerically feeble but closely knit group of Greek merchants and industrialists amassed considerable institutional power, morphing into a cohesive force. They evolved from a communal elite to becoming the foremost representatives of the city’s business interests, gaining recognition from the broader merchant community and state authorities alike. By assuming the role previously held by the Jews, this new Greek merchant group effectively aligned its interests with those of the city at large. In doing so, however, it effectively integrated the Salonican identity with the broader Greek Macedonian identity. The establishment of new associations did not just strengthen Greek merchants and industrialists in general, but mainly those from Central Greek Macedonia and, more specifically, from the town of Naoussa. Notably, the Commercial Association of Salonica had a regional outreach. It opposed the creation of a separate chamber of commerce in Edessa, a nearby town in central Macedonia, and advocated for wider representation in the first chamber of commerce elections, including ballot-boxes outside Salonica and eligibility for non-residents.39 The regional focus of the Industrialists’ Association was even more pronounced. As stated in its title and statute, its goal was to

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“cater for the strengthening and promotion of industry in Macedonia” with membership being open to “all industrialists in Macedonia”—not in Salonica alone.40 The association did much to fulfill this commitment. Already in 1914, it sent its secretary, Dimitrios Chatzopoulos, on a tour of the tobacco centers of Drama, Serres and Kavala in eastern Greek Macedonia to study tobacco production and manufacturing there and recruit new members to the association. Most importantly, 11 out of the 13 members present in the inaugural General Assembly of January 1914 represented companies owned by Naoussa industrialists, whereas the first council included five Greeks, all with strong business ties to this Greek Macedonian town. Three were from prominent and interrelated Naoussa business families (Gregorios Longos, Dimitrios Tourpalis, Iraklis Hadjidimoulas), while the remaining two, President Pericles Hadjilazarou and Secretary General Theodoros Danos, were also key figures in Naoussa’s industrial sector. Danos had initially been director of the Vermion spinning mill and was later involved in the cotton spinning mill of Goutas and Karatzas, while Hadjilazarou was president of the Eria wool factory. In particular, Hadjilazarou’s good relations with Salonica’s Jews and his extensive commercial and financial activities there were instrumental in connecting the business world of Naoussa with that of Salonica.41 The Industrialists’ Association did much to serve the interests of Naoussa’s industry at a time of acute pressure. By early 1913, Greek Macedonian spinning mills were in a dire state. So much was their livelihood dependent on government intervention that in January of that year, Athanasios Makris, the general manager of Eria, directly appealed to Prime Minister Venizelos for support, asking him to take the factory “under his protection” by placing an order for 120,000 fleeces for the Greek army. Furthermore, the existence of two different tariff regimes posed a severe threat to Greek Macedonian manufacturing. Until 1914, Old Greece and the newly conquered territories, including Greek Macedonia, operated under different tariffs, since the Ottoman regime was still in effect. As a result, Greek Macedonian industrial products faced higher taxes when imported to Old Greece, while by contrast products from Old Greece enjoyed the advantage of lower Ottoman tariffs when entering Greek Macedonia. By late 1914, however, the persistent efforts of the Industrialists’ Association to redress this imbalance had paid

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off. Their numerous petitions and relentless protests led to the enactment of a law integrating Greek Macedonia into the Greek tax and tariff system, thereby enhancing the competitiveness of “Macedonian industry” in a unified national market. The association’s systematic action thus went some way to mitigate the harsh impacts of assimilation. At the same time, Naoussa industrialists also strengthened their position relative to their Jewish counterparts in Salonica, by successfully lobbying for reduced municipal duties and rail tariffs on all raw materials imported to Salonica but destined for the interior.42 Naoussa businessmen then used their involvement in the Industrialists’ Association and other similar organizations to extend their influence beyond their hometown. Parallel to their economic expansion in the Salonican market, their associational activity broadened both the institutional and political reach of their power. By gaining direct access to central and regional authorities, and offsetting the economic power of Salonica’s Jews, they eventually evolved into the business elite of Greek Macedonia in its entirety, with Salonica as their base. This transformation highlights the importance of a Greek Macedonian identity in uniting the city’s new dominant class. The region, rather than the city or the nation alone, became their primary point of spatial reference. Somewhat paradoxically, the new Greek merchant–industrial bourgeoisie embedded itself into Salonica’s urban fabric by “regionalizing” the city. This represented a dramatic shift in the politics of bourgeois spatialities, that is, the ways Salonica’s bourgeoisie understood its relationship to space, assigned meaning to it, and hence, made it its own. Previously, Jewish merchants and their associational networks had shaped Salonica as a bourgeois urban identity. Now, the emerging Greek Salonican bourgeois identity was no longer just urban, or generically Greek: it was regionalized and integrated into a broader Greek Macedonian set of associational discourses and practices. Minority by Choice? Jews in “Greek” Associations Jews featured prominently in the new associations, despite the changing ethnic dynamics of the time. True, between 1914 and 1922 they were numerically surpassed by the Greek merchants in almost every important professional organization. The meteoric rise of Greek associational membership

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coupled with the limited involvement of Muslims and Dönme had deeply shaken the late Ottoman ethnic hierarchies, eclipsing Jewish numerical majority. However, Jewish presence in the “Greek” professional associations remained substantial, even compared to the late Ottoman era. In 1908, Jews made up about 52 percent of the Ottoman chamber of commerce with 205 out of 398 members. Thirteen years later, the Commercial Association still counted 96 Jews among its 239 members compared to 134 Greeks. This high figure is all the more impressive considering the challenges of the time, including Jewish emigration and the Commercial Association’s strongly Greek character. In fact, within four years the number of Jews in the association had almost doubled, reaching 40 percent in 1921 from a rather low 23 percent (or 51 Jews) in 1917.43 This marked increase indicates that the significant Jewish participation overall in the new associational world was not merely a reflection of their demographic weight. Rather, it was the outcome of a dynamic process influenced by a complex set of factors that went way beyond ethnicity. These factors included an ethos of embracing modern institutions of sociability, internal communal developments, the impact of the war economy, localism, and, finally, political allegiances. Although I will examine them separately, it was their combined effect that eventually remade Jewish commercial sociability, endowing the merchants’ culture of coexistence with novel meanings and a new legitimacy. Since the late Ottoman period, Jewish merchants had embraced associations more enthusiastically than any other group, recognizing their importance for advancing commercial interests as well as their critical role in shaping power relations in the city. Additionally, in the chamber of commerce, the long coexistence of a Jewish majority with a Dönme president had nurtured a culture of negotiation and accommodation, while the direct supervision of the chamber by the Ottoman state highlighted the importance of government authorities for business making. Late Ottoman Jewish merchants had therefore become adept at navigating the intricacies and exploring the possibilities of associationism. After 1912, this form of cultural capital would enable them to quickly embrace the new “Greek” institutions in ways their Muslim and Dönme peers did not. This adaptability was evident in 1918, when 50 of the 66 new registrations in the Commercial Association were Jewish. Registration numbers in the restructured chamber of

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commerce were similarly high—167 out of 300 between August and October 1919.44 In fact, the Jews’ active participation extended beyond mere registration. In the chamber of commerce’s first “Greek” elections in April 1919, Jewish engagement was substantial, making up two-thirds of the 130 voters, while Greeks formed the remaining third. Such a high level of involvement indicates that their participation was more than just a formality; rather, it reflected a deep interest in these evolving commercial institutions. This interest was in fact reflective of the broader value that Jewish merchants, and the Jewish middle class in general, placed on new mechanisms of popular representation and the opportunities these mechanisms offered. In the lead-up to the first general elections in May 1915, for instance, Jewish associations worked tirelessly to ensure eligible Jewish voters were registered. On election day, their mobilization further secured a significant turnout. The Greek press, taking note of these efforts, often contrasted the Jews’ exemplary organizational skills and their systematic approach to voter registration with the relative indifference and lack of engagement shown by the Greeks.45 Whether in commerce or in politics, then, Jews took a proactive approach adeptly adapting to and utilizing the new “Greek” representational mechanisms. Their strong associational ethos empowered them to articulate their professional interests and political demands directly, beyond the confines of their community and without relying on its mediation. Indeed, the significant involvement of leading Jewish merchants in new professional associations may have also been influenced by intra-communal developments. As we saw, ever since the Second Constitutional Period, the Jewish community had experienced tectonic shifts. The rise of the Jewish-led Socialist Federation had been radicalizing the laboring Jewish classes, whereas the spectacular growth of the Zionist movement politicized the lower-middle class and divided both the middle and upper classes. These movements signaled the advent of mass politics, transforming the community into an arena of ideological conflict. Developments after 1912 further turned involvement in communal affairs into more of a liability than an asset. The outbreak of World War  I deeply fractured the community, leading to the emergence of two opposing factions—the Alliancist “Francophiles” and the pro-Zionist “Germanophiles.” These groups engaged in intense propaganda battles through the press and associations, mobilizing

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their supporters and eventually clashing violently on the streets of Salonica. On June  16, 1915, members of the Zionist associations Maccabi, Max Nordau, Nouveau Club, and Bene Sion passed by Jewish shops in the central marketplace, pressing their owners to boycott the Francophile and Alliancist newspaper L’Indépendant. Moving through the streets and squares like “bands of Apache Indians,” they tore up pages of the newspaper in public, beat a young vendor, distributed fliers calling the “good Jews” to boycott the newspaper, sent threatening letters to its subscribers, and requested its advertisers to stop publicizing—all in a systematic attempt to silence a paper that, in their view, ran a “vile campaign against the Jewish nation.”46 The ideological divide was further highlighted a few months later, in September 1915, during a film screening at the Alhambra cinema. The event, organized to support Belgian war victims, saw the Jewish audience split in two: one group jeered at the sight of the Russian flag and the image of the czar, while the other protested against Germany with cries of “Down with the Kaiser” during scenes featuring a German sentry.47 Physical violence was recurrent, and opponents were lynched in street demonstrations. This, indeed, was the case in August 1916 during a pro-Ententist rally against Germany’s ally Bulgaria, when an angry Francophile Jewish crowd pursued and nearly killed three coreligionists for shouting pro-German slogans.48 World War I exacerbated the existing ideological rifts within Salonica’s Jewry. Taking sides intertwined with communal divisions generating a mishmash of competing allegiances that tore the community further apart.49 There were signs everywhere that the ideological hegemony which the old Ottoman merchant elite exerted through philanthropy, their efforts to modernize the community, and the uncontested promotion of the assimilationist ideology of the Alliance was fast eroding. As a result, their control over the community, once a vital source of power, was becoming increasingly challenging. During the same period, an ever-expanding array of issues caused endemic friction between the Jewish community and the Greek authorities. The two parties could not find common ground regarding the extent of communal jurisdiction and diverged on matters such as the question of Sunday rest, Jewish military service, allocation of state welfare funds, police arrests of Jews, and the reorganization of communal educational institutions. Making matters worse, the Greek public discourse often framed these

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issues in terms of national allegiance, continually questioning the loyalty of the Jewish community. Within the community, by contrast, there was early and heavy criticism of the council’s consensual approach toward Greek authorities, which was perceived as being “weak.”50 For Jewish merchants, rule over the community was no longer a path to economic empowerment but rather an encumbrance.51 Thus, their active participation in the new professional associations can be seen as a counter-balancing act, a strategic move to maintain their influence. For the elite Italian Jewish merchants in particular, these associations offered vital networking opportunities, access to central authorities, and the credentials of Greekness. The latter was especially crucial during a time when tensions between Greeks and Jews, as well as Greco-Italian rivalry for control over the Eastern Mediterranean, cast a double shadow of suspicion over their Italian Jewish identity.52 Business considerations also weighed in. Adopting the new professional organizations was a pragmatic response to the economic circumstances of the time, a necessary adjustment to the pressing demands of war. World War I, along with the arrival of the Ententist Army of the Orient, the establishment of the Greek Provisional Government in Salonica, and, finally, the ongoing war effort in Asia Minor post 1918, radically changed the business landscape in the city. The introduction of countless regulations, controls, and restrictions bolstered the importance of professional organizations. Both the Commercial and the Industrialists’ Associations saw a dramatic expansion in their jurisdiction. Their representatives sat on nearly every committee tasked with price regulation and resource allocation, whereas their councils were responsible for issuing the precious import and export permits. Never before did membership in a professional association entail so many privileges, with export permits, for example, being issued to members of the Commercial Association only.53 Historically, Jewish prevalence in the lucrative import and export trade relied on extensive familial networks that connected Salonica to Europe and beyond. However, the conditions of total war had rendered these networks fragile and insufficient, if not outright suspect. Specifically, during the Allied blockade against the Central Powers, intense scrutiny of international trade led to accusations against many prominent Jewish merchants of “trading with the enemy.” The Entente authorities were convinced that Jewish importers and exporters were utilizing their robust

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trans-Mediterranean and continental business networks to bypass Greek commercial restrictions and the Allied embargo especially in the early years of the war. They believed that these merchants were engaging in a lucrative trade by importing goods from Britain, France, Italy, and the United States only to re-export them through neutral Salonica to Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire. By the summer of 1915, British naval authorities had come to view all transit trade through Salonica as inherently contraband, believing that all imports to the city, transit or not, were being redirected to Bulgaria and other enemy nations. As a result, many Jewish merchants found themselves on the Allied blacklists due to their extensive cross-European networks. Being blacklisted was akin to an economic death sentence, as it barred these merchants from conducting business with any British subject or accessing any British service—both crucial for international trade.54 In this ominous environment, joining a professional association was no longer merely advantageous: it was the only viable means Jewish merchants had at their disposal to safeguard their business interests under the stringent conditions of wartime trade. Professional associations proved attractive to Jewish merchants because they aligned with their fundamental but jeopardized roles as civil society organizers, communal notables, and businessmen. They also turned out to be relatively inclusive, further facilitating the Jews’ smooth integration. Remarkably, there were no recorded conflicts between Greek and Jewish members. Nor were professional associations ever drawn into the broader Greco-Jewish conflicts. On the contrary, in some instances, they even adopted a consensual stance. Thus, after the Great Fire of 1917, the chamber of commerce advocated for European insurance companies to quickly compensate their predominantly Jewish clients, and even made representations to the London and Paris chambers of commerce on behalf of these clients. Additionally, in a move that aligned with Jewish business interests, the chamber, alongside the Commercial Association, opposed the Venizelist government’s plan to expropriate the entire area affected by the fire, most of which was Jewish-owned.55 To a large extent, the chamber’s position was unavoidable considering the interdependence of Salonica’s multiethnic market and the crucial role played by the Jews within it. Any adversity affecting the Jews had serious repercussions for all merchants.56 However, the associations

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also addressed Jewish concerns in more nationally sensitive matters. In February 1919, the chamber of commerce requested the government to suspend the law mandating traders to keep their books exclusively in Greek. Similarly, in June 1920, the Commercial Association appealed to the Ministry of Finance for an extension on tax returns deadlines, acknowledging that many merchants could not read Greek.57 Thus, while the new professional associations were instrumental in promoting Greek dominance, they simultaneously opened up spaces for the articulation and consideration of specifically Jewish concerns and interests. Associations tolerated ethnic difference. At the same time, they were instrumental in creating a sense of sameness, serving as a reference point for Jewish and Greek merchants alike. The two groups often came together to demand that their associations protect them against harmful government and Allied policies. Hence, in June 1918, Greek and Jewish merchants collectively approached the Commercial Association, requesting its intervention with the British military authorities to ensure a fair price was set for the purchase of their confiscated products.58 Moreover, Jews were active participants in numerous associational committees, engaging in tasks that ranged from price fixing to fundraising. They also represented their colleagues in key governing bodies—for example, as delegates of the Commercial Association and the chamber of commerce in the Commission Mixte de Ravitaillement (Mixed Provisions Commission), the most important inter-Allied committee in Salonica.59 In fact, in January 1915, all wheat merchants attending a crucial meeting with the chamber of commerce, the prefect, and the police chief were Jewish.60 Undoubtedly, their expertise and dominance in the food market made their participation imperative. However, the role of Jewish representatives could also carry broader symbolic meaning, reflecting an association’s high stature. In 1918, for instance, the chamber of commerce unanimously appointed Jacob Cazes as its sole delegate to the first-ever panhellenic conference of commercial associations, an event of heightened national importance.61 Jews and their unfair treatment could also generate strong shared emotions and reinforce core associational values as an incident in November 1916 clearly makes evident. When Salonica’s port director declined to confirm Jacob Molho’s appointment to a new commission, asking the chamber to appoint a maritime agent belonging to the “Greek race”

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instead, both Jewish and Greek board members resolutely refused to do so. They united in protest to the government, defending “the [offended] dignity of the chamber.”62 Through such actions, professional associations forged an esprit de corps among their members which transcended ethnic boundaries. They cultivated a collective attitude strong enough to uphold even such core values as the “dignity” of Salonican merchants and their institutions. In doing so, these associations effectively fostered a shared professional ethos based on the principle of equality and the importance of specialized knowledge, thereby recognizing Jews as Greek citizens, not just in name but in essence. The adoption of a localist “Salonican” discourse significantly reinforced this shared ethos, providing all merchants regardless of their ethnicity with a common language of protest. In June 1915, for instance, Jews and Greeks came together to contest the preferential treatment of “foreigners” in the allocation of goods wagons. They emphasized the detrimental effects on Salonica’s merchants and demanded that the chamber of commerce participate in the wagon distribution committee. Their grievance was explicitly stated in unequivocally localist terms: “Foreign merchants coming into our market  .  .  . manage to get goods wagons more easily than the locals, thus harming the merchants of our [sic] market.”63 This brand of associational localism successfully bridged ethnic divisions, creating a united front of Salonican merchants facing common challenges. Not only did it tolerate Jews, but it offered enough discursive room for them to be included in the broader, legitimate identity of the wronged “Salonican” merchant alongside their Greek peers. As the new associations worked toward rebuilding a community of local “Salonicans,” they simultaneously played a key role in integrating this community into the broader national context. This was primarily achieved through participation in panhellenic conferences and regular communications with professional associations across Greece. As early as June 1914, the Industrialists’ Association and the chamber of commerce were instrumental in organizing the Fourth Panhellenic Congress on Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture scheduled to be held in Salonica. By November 1917, there was further consideration within the chamber of commerce of organizing a national congress of merchants, aimed at addressing the new law on

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profiteering by forming a united front of all Greek merchants. Furthermore, in February 1918, the Ministry of Finance invited the chamber to send a delegate to a national congress of merchant associations set to discuss changes in the tariff regime. Importantly, respected Jewish merchants were often at the forefront of such efforts. In November 1917, Joseph Misrahi proposed that chambers of commerce in Salonica, Athens, Piraeus, and other major Greek trade centers collaborate to organize a national conference. Later in the same year, Jacob Cazes, the chamber’s vice-president, was invited to participate in the national standing committee on tariffs and commercial treaties.64 These instances highlight the role Jews played in bringing about a national network of professional associations. By participating as Salonican merchants on the national stage, they were integrating into Greece while acquiring a professional identity with both national and local dimensions. As was the case with their Greek peers, associations promoted their Hellenization by supporting the production of both a national and a local identity. Finally, political alignment played a significant role in bringing Greek and Jewish merchants closer together. Most active members of the major professional organizations, regardless of their ethnicity, were ardent supporters of Eleftherios Venizelos. Prominent Greek merchants like the omnipresent Athanasios Makris and Doukas Sahinis had strong connections to the local Liberal Club, while several Jewish board members were also active Venizelists. Moise Assael and Jacob Cazes had been candidates of the Liberal Party in the May 1915 general elections, whereas Nico Saltiel led the party’s Jewish electoral committee. Moreover, the councils of both the Industrialists’ Association and the chamber of commerce included members from notable Jewish merchant families like Amar, Mosseri, Errera, and Misrahi, all of whom had fervently backed Venizelos in 1915.65 By contrast, there appears to be a lack of Jewish anti-Venizelist representatives in all three organizations. Upon comparing the list of anti-Venizelist candidates from the general elections in May and December 1915 with the council members of the Industrialists’ Association, the Commercial Association and the chamber of commerce, no names are found to overlap.66 It is therefore highly possible that prominent Jewish figures in the anti-Venizelist camp did not hold leading roles in any of these associations. Venizelism, in short, furnished yet another crucial link between Greek and Jewish merchants. Political convergence

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reinforced Jewish participation in the new “Greek” commercial institutions, facilitating their national integration. However, although Jews were smoothly incorporated into the new professional associations, they became increasingly minorized by the late 1910s.67 Despite still owning most local businesses and dominating Salonica’s wealthier strata, they constituted a clear minority on the associations’ councils. Out of the nine board members in the Industrialists’ Association, only three were Jews. A similar trend emerged in the Commercial Association, where Jewish participation was initially non-existent.68 Minorization was particularly evident in the way Jewish representation was managed as the first elections of the chamber of commerce in April 1919 starkly illustrate. The ballot paper included candidates from all of Salonica’s ethnoreligious groups but was structured to ensure a Greek majority on the thirty-seat council. The list comprised exactly 30 names, 15 Greeks, 13 Jews, one Armenian, and one Muslim. To no one’s surprise the outcome of the election was a Greek majority, even though two-thirds of the voters were Jewish.69 The balanced ethnic distribution and the exact number of candidates to seats suggest that the candidate list was likely predetermined, representing a mutually beneficial compromise between Greeks and Jews. For Greeks, this arrangement lent institutional legitimacy to Greek rule by “correcting” the unfavorable ethnic imbalance in the marketplace. For Jews, it ensured they would continue to play an important role in the local business organizations. However, this role would now, by their own accord, be indisputably secondary. Consequently, the way Greeks and Jews handled the market’s representation mechanisms contributed to the construction and internalization of a minority identity among Jewish merchants. The process of minorization was not just imposed from above; it was also enacted from below, a Jewish strategy of adaptation to the changing dynamics of a nationalizing business environment. The multiple ties binding Jewish merchants with the new institutions demonstrate the complex nature of their integration into the Greek economy and society. At a time when their Jewishness was called into question, they participated energetically for reasons that had little to do with their ethnoreligious identity, but much more so with their communal authority, urban attachment, business concerns, political orientation, and civic engagement. Social class, locality, and politics uniquely shaped their experience, marking

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a distinct path from other Jewish groups. The Jewish working classes, for instance, and their advocate, the Socialist Federation, experienced integration as a deeply traumatic process marked by fierce clashes with a suppressive state apparatus. They embraced an agonistic identity by actively joining (and shaping) the nascent Greek labor movement, yet their deep immersion in national politics brought about their double marginalization—as socialists and as Jews.70 In contrast, for Jewish merchants transition was smoother being influenced by a host of different factors. Still, their positive relationship with the new institutions was contingent upon an implicit recognition of Greek institutional primacy, an acknowledgment that formal equality in professional associations presupposed ethnic inequality. By the late 1910s, Jewish merchants were already adjusting their culture of sociability as much as they were their business strategies, adapting to the new socioeconomic conditions by internalizing a minority mentality. *** Scholars of the long nineteenth century in Europe and the Ottoman Empire have for some time now extensively documented the importance of associations in the construction of national identities and, alternatively, the formation of middle classes on the Continent and beyond.71 Rarely however, has the study of associations moved past the long nineteenth century and into the post-imperial successor states of East Central Europe and the Mediterranean. Since historians mainly treat voluntary associations as a prominent feature of bourgeois ascendancy, their interwar fortunes seem axiomatically irrelevant for a historiography that primarily set out to explain the very demise of this bourgeois world after the Great War. In the field of Mediterranean and Central European urban history in particular, these general historiographic limitations are exacerbated due to the landmark event of the fall of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires. The triumph of nationalism and the overnight transformation of these empires’ ethnicities into either dominant nations or dominated minorities has led to prioritizing the role of the state, nationalism, and the concomitant response of minorities.72 As a result, when studying the passage from empire to nation-state, the afterlife of late Ottoman or Habsburg bourgeois cultures and the fate of their multiethnic associationism are almost totally ignored.73

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Nowhere, however, was the new order and its ethnic logic more visible than in Salonica’s radically restructured associational world. Professional associations helped Jewish and Greek merchants navigate, even shape, a period of radical economic, social, cultural, and political change. In the space of a few years, Greeks first established and then led a host of new multiethnic professional associations quickly advancing the institutional Hellenization of the local economy. Jews were quick to embrace them but the price they paid was accepting, indeed internalizing, their relegation to second-class status. Associations thus impacted heavily on how Greeks and Jews transitioned from Ottoman to Greek modernity. They (re)defined bourgeois identity, shaped ethnicity, impacted on urbanity, and helped mold ethnic hierarchies in the business world. In the 1910s, Jewish Salonica was already being unmade, but the process was less the result of state policies and more the outcome of latent shifts in bourgeois sociability, its practices and semantics. The chapter thus ends where other histories of national integration begin, by locating “nationalization” and the restructuring of Greco-Jewish ethnic hierarchies at the level of individual behavior and civil society institutions rather than state action alone. Hellenizing Salonica and its business world involved much more than marginalizing or assimilating its Jews. Rather, it was a process involving a radical resignification of all aspects of a merchants’ identity—ethnicity, of course, but also profession, locality, and, above all, class. The passage from the late Ottoman commercial club to the Greek professional association dissociated commerce from the broader culture of bourgeois leisure and turned merchants and their bourgeois identity from a universal ideal (to which Salonica’s modernizing population had hitherto aspired) into a narrower professional interest pitted against those of other social groups. What it meant to be a merchant in Greek Salonica was very different from what it used to be in the late Ottoman Empire. In truth, the very meanings of bourgeois identity had changed as well. Once a corollary of Jewishness, being bourgeois was now attached to Greekness. Hellenization relied on the formation of new class identities and so Salonican Jewish merchants were made “Greek” as a class years before they would become “Greek” as an ethnoreligious minority.

Conclusion “My end is my beginning”1

The history of Salonica’s merchants during the late Ottoman and post-Ottoman period is framed by the establishment and dissolution of the city’s Ottoman chamber of commerce between 1882 and 1919. In its first quarter-century, from 1882 to 1908, the Greek Orthodox and Jewish merchants cultivated distinct bourgeois identities through contrasting conceptualizations of class and ethnicity. For the Greek Orthodox merchants— newcomers to the city—their migration paths, entrepreneurial strategies, and irredentist aspirations rendered “Greek Macedonia” the core of their ethnic and class identity. They informed a “minority mentality,” making them a bourgeois group both separate and marginal in the multiethnic city. In contrast, Jewish merchants—major beneficiaries of the empire’s integration into the global economy—tied commerce to Jewishness. They constructed a multilayered, open bourgeois identity that blended communal hegemony with Europeanness, allowing them to shape and eventually claim the modernizing city’s public sphere. While Greek Orthodox merchants identified as “Greek Macedonians,” Jews were first and foremost “Salonicans.” 270

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The two groups interacted in the city’s spaces of commerce fostering a culture of coexistence with subtle yet clear boundaries. Interethnic institutions like the Cercle de Salonique, the Commercial Club, and the chamber of commerce, alongside a strong sense of local pride and a positive empire-wide valuation of commerce, helped shape the shared social world of Salonica’s merchants. However, these forces were not powerful enough to loosen ethnic business ties, or to prevent tensions and periodic clashes at the market’s margins. Yet, if ethnic conflict did not eventually escalate, this owed as much to Jewish merchants as it did to the power of the local Ottoman authorities. The Jews’ central position in the local economy prevented the fragmentation of Salonica’s market into isolated ethnic enclaves. Their prominence helped bolster its multiethnic character, thereby strengthening their own position and eventually cementing their bourgeois hegemony. Merchant and by extension urban coexistence was predicated on a specific arrangement of ethnic hierarchies, with Jewish merchants at the apex. Standing at the top conferred hegemonic characteristics to their ethnic and class identity, establishing them as the city’s quintessential bourgeoisie. In Hamidian Salonica, being bourgeois was intrinsically linked to Jewishness. The Young Turk Revolution, the Balkan Wars, and World War I dramatically altered the meanings of class and ethnicity. They reshaped ethnic hierarchies in Salonica’s marketplace, redefined the relationship of merchants with their city, and ultimately transformed their bourgeois identity. With the end of Ottoman rule, Muslim and Dönme merchants faced severe setbacks. Although they continued to reside in Salonica and remained active in business, the Dönme did not engage with the new Muslim communal institutions, nor were they active in the local public sphere. Isolated and under surveillance, they receded into a state of invisibility, as if they had already left, until the Greco-Turkish population exchange in 1923 paradoxically rendered them “Salonicans” anew, this time though in their new places of residence, in Turkish Istanbul and Izmir.2 By contrast, between 1908 and 1919, Greek merchants followed an opposite, upward trajectory. They solidified their standing in the local economy, reorientated their business strategies, made inroads into the profitable manufacturing sector, played a key role in forming new associations, and

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ultimately positioned themselves as representatives of Salonica’s entire commercial world. Although by the late 1910s they were still financially and demographically behind their Jewish peers, they had adopted a “majority mentality.” By establishing their own prominence, they had managed to reverse ethnic hierarchies. In the course of this process, their ethnic identity maintained its core characteristics, continuing to be defined by Greek Macedonianism, albeit of an increasingly anti-Athenian hue. However, their transition from “Greek Orthodox” to “Greeks” also marked a shift from a “subaltern” to a “hegemonic” status, to use Antonio Gramsci’s lexicon of culture.3 In the marketplace, “Greekness” emerged as a broad and accommodating notion. By embracing locality through Greek Macedonianism, it effectively integrated Salonica into the space of the nation(-state). Yet, by articulating a distinct, local “Salonican” interest, it also allowed for the subtle expression of ethnic difference. During the Great War, the Greek Macedonian and anti-Athenian rhetoric of Greek merchants resonated with their Jewish peers. Additionally, a shared language of “Salonica’s people” helped renew the bonds between all merchants and their city. The “commercial conquest of Salonica,” which the local Greek press fantasized, took the form of Greek hegemony, not domination. For Jewish merchants, nonetheless, these same years marked an abrupt shift, characterized by a sudden disconnection between commerce and Jewishness and a gradual detachment of commerce from (Jewish) bourgeois identity. Failure to protect the Jewish lower strata from the rising Greek Orthodox artisans and workers during the Second Constitutional Period, the consolidation of Zionism among the middle strata and the broader crisis in Jewish identity exacerbated by the sudden and unexpected annexation of Salonica to Greece posed formidable challenges. These tumultuous developments not only questioned the dominant position of the Alliancist merchants inside the community but also destabilized the three pillars of their identity: as model Jews, loyal Greeks, and Salonicans par excellence. By 1919, when Salonica’s chamber of commerce was reconstituted, their once broad and multifaceted ethnic identity had significantly diminished, and their business strategies had shifted. Jewish merchants increasingly exhibited a “minority mentality,” despite their still dominant position in the local

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market, their broad participation in the new commercial organizations, and the considerable economic, social and cultural capital they still managed to maintain. The shifts in the semantics of ethnicity and what it meant to be a prominent “Greek” or “Jewish” merchant in Salonica were mirrored by a parallel, indeed intertwined, transformation in the meanings of class. During the late Ottoman period, the bourgeois identity of Salonica’s merchants was shaped by voluntary associations, especially by commercial clubs. The culture of sociability these clubs nurtured entwined leisure with business discussions, imbuing commerce with broader meanings and positive values. Associationism constructed a world of equal men, attributed universal values to them, and so rendered bourgeois merchants the natural spokespersons of Salonica’s “public opinion.” However, following the Young Turk Revolution, and particularly after the Balkan Wars, the class identity of Salonica’s merchants changed. Commercial associations emerged as their new spaces of sociability, whereas new meanings, less universal and more particular, were assigned to “commerce.” Merchants were remaking themselves into a community of professionals, a group defined by its specific interests in opposition to other similarly distinct social groups like the blue-collar workers and the commercial employees. Greek merchants were instrumental in forming, staffing, managing, and leading these professional associations. Consequently, their active participation imparted a unique ethnic character to this redefined bourgeois identity. In Greek Salonica, being bourgeois became increasingly associated with Greekness. The city’s foremost bourgeois were now not Jews, but Greeks. For the merchants, then, the reorganization of Salonica’s chamber of commerce in 1919 marked not only the end of the post-Ottoman era in the city but also the conclusion of the first phase of its Hellenization. 1919 constitutes both an end and a beginning. The commencement of the chamber’s operation under Greek law was quickly followed by the national elections of November 1920, the ousting of the ruling Venizelist Liberal Party, Greece’s catastrophic defeat in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919 to 1922, and, finally, the subsequent population exchange between the two countries. These major developments impacted heavily on the merchants’ Greekness, Jewishness, Salonicanness, and class identity. Taken as a whole, they signal a rupture in

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the city’s Hellenizing process, a radical break that is nevertheless built upon a series of continuities: the legacies of the years between 1912 and 1919. In existing historiography, the period post 1922 is characterized by an acceleration and intensification of Salonica’s Hellenization. However, the change from the preceding years is not merely in scale but also in nature. After 1922, the agents driving Hellenization increased and diversified. The focus shifted from the city to the central authority in Athens, and the process began to involve the lower strata as well. Following the Greco-Turkish population exchange in 1923, the exigencies of refugee resettlement and the reconstruction of Salonica, together with the imperatives to redistribute land, (forcibly) assimilate Salonica’s Jews, and counteract “foreign propagandas,” galvanized the central state into more extensive and determined action. State involvement manifested itself in the enactment and strict enforcement of various laws pertaining to nationality, property ownership, labor, and education, which shook the power base of both Jewish and Greek merchants. The exclusion of Jewish foreign nationals from communal governance, mandatory Sunday rest, the establishment of a separate Jewish electoral college, stricter oversight of foreign educational institutions, and compulsory military service targeted the Jews. On the other hand, land reform in Greek Macedonia (directly affecting properties owned by notable Greek Salonicans), the expropriation of Greek communal property, and the nationalization of the Greek Orthodox community’s welfare and educational institutions impacted on the Greeks. Taken together, all these state policies indicate that after 1922, Hellenization transcended the confines of the city and its local players, evolving into a comprehensive, state-driven project which concerned all of Salonica’s groups. Local merchants found themselves becoming as much the objects of Hellenization as they were its agents.4 A corollary to these developments was the diffusion of a fiercely nationalistic, anti-communist, and anti-Jewish rhetoric in the local Greek-language press.5 More importantly, there emerged numerous nationalist, anti-​ communist, and anti-Jewish groups of varying shades, motivations, and objectives.6 Their visible presence within the Greek lower strata introduced a new element in the dynamics of Greco-Jewish relations. Admittedly, the involvement of familiar figures in them, like Georgios Hadjikyriakou, known for his intense anti-Jewish sentiments and connections to the Greek Orthodox

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merchants since the days of the Young Turks, could hint at a curious undercurrent linking these groups to the Greek bourgeoisie.7 However, the swift radicalization of the Ethnike Enosis “Ellas” (National Union “Greece”), a leading nationalist and fiercely antisemitic organization, also indicates their growing independence. Much like the central state, though this time at a grassroots level, these groups further constrained the ability of both Greek and Jewish merchants to autonomously steer the process of Hellenization.8 The post-1922 period in Salonica is therefore marked by a noticeable retreat of local merchants, which nevertheless follows an earlier decline of their power. During the late Hamidian era, Salonica’s merchants were central figures in extensive and interconnected networks, both weak and strong, inward- and outward-looking. As communal notables, they shaped and leveraged intra-communal bonds of ethnic solidarity. As civic leaders, they played a pivotal role in constructing Salonica’s public sphere, establishing horizontal ties of interaction by monopolizing voluntary associations, modern urban establishments (from restaurants to theaters), and the new market institutions of the reforming Ottoman state. They were instrumental in defining the terms, meanings, and limits of coexistence, which although ethnically hierarchical ensured their class hegemony over the city. Finally, as holders of foreign citizenship and with strong business and cultural ties to Europe and its local representatives, they leveraged imperial rivalries and the polycentric local power system so characteristic of late Ottoman port cities.9 Thanks to all these extensive networks, which connected the communal to the urban and the local to the global, Salonica’s merchants were able to establish themselves as public men and consolidate their authority over the city. When the Young Turk Revolution erupted in July 1908, they distinguished themselves as the only occupational group marching independently through the city’s streets, a testament to their prominent status, high visibility, and unique place in Salonica’s social fabric. However, between 1908 and 1919 their influential networks gradually disintegrated and their hegemony receded. Adapting to the new political landscape proved challenging. During the Second Constitutional Period, ethnic tensions altered the perception of the “merchant” from a symbol of Salonicanness to an embodiment of the ethnic opponent. After 1912, the merchants’ influence waned further. Their unsuccessful effort to retain the

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cross-national jurisdiction of Salonica’s Ottoman commercial tribunal in 1913, and the electoral defeat of the Greek New Club in June 1915 (which aimed to unite all merchants under an independent platform in Salonica’s first national elections) demonstrated the limits of their power in the emerging era of mass politics. These initiatives represented their last major attempts to affirm their hegemony and mold “Greek” Salonica according to their own priorities and interests. Paradoxically, the arrival of a “bourgeois” form of Greek liberal democratic governance eroded the power of the local commercial bourgeoisie. While Salonica continued to be lauded as “a city of commerce,” it was no longer the city of its merchants.10 Moreover, in the post-1922 environment, the identity of Salonica’s merchants was significantly shaped by processes that, again, originated in the 1910s. The Greco-Turkish population exchange finalized their transformation from a multiethnic collective to a firmly Greco-Jewish group. Meanwhile, the dominance of Greeks in new associations intensified. By 1919, Greek merchants (and industrialists) already constituted 50 percent of the board members of the chamber of commerce, and by 1936, this number had risen to 76 percent.11 Finally, their reproduction and consolidation was still dependent on the integration of outsiders—in this case, Athenian and refugee merchants. In 1927, the Fix company’s acquisition of the Olympos-Naoussa Brewery marked the culmination of Athenian economic encroachments in the city initiated by Epaminondas Charilaos in the late 1910s. The buyout underscored the increasingly limited power of Salonica’s local businessmen and the pivotal role of external capital in Hellenizing the local economy in the period bridging the 1910s and the interwar years.12 Simultaneously, on the eve of World War II, refugee entrepreneurs like Georgios Hadjiyannakis and Michael Altinalazis managed several companies, again following in the footsteps of earlier refugee businessmen, such as the Marintsoglou brothers.13 As for the Jews, the emigration waves that started after the Balkan Wars and World War I resumed and intensified in the 1920s, continuing to significantly impact the merchant corps.14 Thus, by the mid-1930s, a process that had started around 25 years earlier had culminated in a comprehensive renewal of Salonica’s commercial world. In 1936, of the 50 board members of the chamber of commerce, only five had been part of its original board in 1919. Among these five, four were Greek and just one, Jacob Molho, was

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Jewish, a sign that any continuities observed were now primarily a characteristic of the Greek, rather than the Jewish merchants of the 1930s.15 Paradoxically, the city’s erstwhile newcomers, the Greeks, now constituted its longest-standing commercial leaders. In the meantime, the new professional associations established in the 1910s remained the primary arena for Salonican merchants to cultivate their collective class and ethnic identities. The establishment of the Chamber of Small Industries and Professions in 1925 and of the Federation of Professionals and Small Industrialists of Northern Greece in 1928 further sealed the institutional separation of merchants from artisans and tradesmen.16 Simultaneously, the activities of the chamber of commerce linked the merchants’ bourgeois identity to anti-communism. The chamber funded conservative and sympathetic trade unions as well as nationalist groups, further politicizing the merchants’ identity. However, their selfhood remained defined by the defense of their collective interests against those of other social groups. In essence, their identity continued to revolve around the same core first formed in the late 1910s. Pre-1922, commercial associations were never arenas for Greco-Jewish conflict, and this trend continued well into the interwar period. Ethnic tensions were notably absent. The chamber of commerce, in particular, consistently refrained from taking sides or voicing opinions on issues that could potentially create divisions between Greek and Jewish merchants. It did not engage in debates over the introduction of mandatory Sunday rest and issued a neutral call for restraint following the antisemitic arson of the Jewish neighborhood of Campbell in 1931.17 However, its stance should not be interpreted as evidence of class bonds trumping ethnic divisions. Rather, it reflects the durability of the new ethnic hierarchies. Despite significant Jewish participation in the chamber’s administration and management, the Jewish community and its welfare institutions did not even once approach the chamber for financial assistance. Similarly, Jewish members of the chamber did not resist the provision of generous support to Greek philanthropic institutions nor did they protest the exclusion of Jewish ones. It had become clear to everyone involved that the symbolic status and authority associated with merchant philanthropy were recognized as legitimate only when marked as Greek and Christian. The behavior of Jewish merchants reveals

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that, until the very end of the interwar period, ethnic relations were still firmly rooted in a hierarchy already established by the late 1910s. The silence of the chamber of commerce during the deportations of its Jewish members in the spring of 1943 serves as the most tangible and tragic proof that however shared the class identity of Salonica’s merchants was, internalized ethnic hierarchies continued to cut across it.18 The bourgeois identity the chamber forged was therefore inescapably Greek, despite the chamber having several Jewish members.19 More specifically, it was Greek Macedonian and anti-Athenian. The uses of Greek Macedonian discourse, which had crystallized in the 1910s, remained consistent thereafter.20 For Salonica’s merchants, locality proved politically ineffective but socially beneficial. The failed attempt of the New Club in the national elections of June 1915, which utilized a politicized version of Greek Macedonianism and advocated for Greek Macedonian interests, highlighted the inability of the Greek merchants to emerge as an independent political force. The following decade further confirmed the difficulty they experienced in independently navigating their integration into the political structures of the Greek state as representatives of local Salonican interests. In the first municipal elections of 1925, several Greek merchants, long active in public affairs, tried but ultimately failed to form a non-partisan, “business” ticket demanding greater state support for Salonica.21 However, although politically stillborn, this anti-Athenian, Greek Macedonian, and fiercely localist rhetoric continued to be an effective and impactful public discourse. Criticism of Piraeus’ preferential treatment remained a staple of the chamber’s rhetoric throughout the 1920s, unifying an ethnically heterogeneous body of merchants.22 Beyond that, the chamber was instrumental in perpetuating a popular narrative on Salonica’s unfair treatment. “Salonica is decaying and dying,” the long investigation of a local newspaper concluded in 1933.23 This emotional discourse concurrent with the annual Salonica International Trade Fair (first held in 1926) underscored the merchants’ continued symbolic importance and thus helped them maintain their strong connections to a rapidly changing city. This Hellenized yet intensely anti-Athenian version of Salonicanness, a legacy of the turbulent 1910s, likely aided the smooth integration of Jewish merchants into the broader merchant community. However, the 1910s had

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Figure 10.  Letterhead of the Alvo Brothers’ “Hardware and Construction Materials Store,” 1929. Source: Private Collection of Yannis Megas

a broader impact on their ethnic identity and stance toward Greek nationalism. The rise of Zionism post 1908 and the corresponding decline of the Alliance and all it stood for evolved into structural elements of Jewish interwar political life. The merchants who emerged after the decline of the large, late Ottoman trade dynasties began to develop a different sense of Jewishness even before 1922. Simon Alvo, for instance—an ironware merchant who rose to prominence in the 1910s and became a board member of the chamber of commerce in 1922—played a significant role in organizing the First Panhellenic Jewish (that is, Zionist) Congress in 1917. Although he had been a member of the Alliance Alumni Association since 1909 and later a member of the assimilationist organization of B’nei B’rit, Alvo identified as a “nationalist,” advocating Jewish cultural nationalism. His interwar trajectory reflected this new, reconfigured Jewishness. Opposing aliyah, the Zionist call for repatriation to the Land of Israel, he continued to focus his business efforts on Salonica, culminating in the establishment of a factory in the early 1930s. Nonetheless, he and his wife Adina consistently supported the Jewish National Fund, prominently displaying the iconic blue box in their home.24 Alvo’s apparently paradoxical stance represented a dual conception of identity, as theorized by Michael Berkowitz, where Jewishness and Greekness harmonized to form a “supplementary nationality.”25 Being a “good Jew” did not necessarily conflict with being a “loyal Greek,” and this newly found sense of Jewish belonging could peacefully coexist with allegiance to

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Greece. For Alvo, this personal and no less political journey had begun as early as 1917. *** The years 1908 to 1919 follow in the footsteps first of a revolution and then a war, marking the end of the Ottoman order of things and the dawn of the new Greek order. They can therefore be conceived as an eleven-year phase, a passage from one state to another, when time accelerates, the field of action expands, the agents’ strategies multiply, and much is in the air and up for grabs. A close reading of this condensed timeframe and a systematic mapping of the merchants’ multi-directional trajectories better capture the nature and course of Hellenization. Hellenization was not a straightforward, unidirectional process. Describing it as a transition might therefore be misleading due to the linearity, teleology, and fixity the term implies, and the same could be said when the term is applied to other concurrent passages from empire to nation-state in the post-Ottoman Balkans and post-Habsburg East Central Europe. In reality, Hellenization followed a rather crooked line, especially if the focus is on the period from 1908 to 1919 rather than the interwar years only. The Second Constitutional Period and the simultaneous ascent of Greek Orthodox merchants suggest that some key aspects of Hellenization were already present before the Balkan Wars. However, the impact of the Army of the Orient on the local economy, society, and ultimately the Greco-Jewish power balance also shows that Hellenization could at times take a step back. Hellenization was heterogeneous, self-contradictory, and full of stopgaps, slow- and fast-paced at once. For that reason, understanding Hellenization (and any other passage from empire to nation-state, for that matter) requires moving beyond the master narratives of majority–minority relations. Instead, it should be approached as a history of transformations, a series of often haphazard moments and events shaped by local, national, and global conjunctures, and impacting on many aspects of the groups involved. What binds together the various moments and events and connects the various facets of the passage from empire to nation-state are the historical actors and their endeavors, the ways they navigated an ever-shifting landscape, how they understood their actions, and how these were understood by others. By engaging in economic, social, and political relations, the merchants

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of Salonica resignified those fields and generated new understandings of the self—what it meant to be a Jew, a Greek, a Salonican, and a bourgeois (man). Hellenization was complex and filled with contradictions. It was a transformative process that extended beyond the mere notion of “becoming Greek,” ultimately leading to the production of a whole new set of identities. For Salonica’s merchants—the most powerful social group in the city— this process of identity (re)formation was already completed before the major assimilating efforts of the 1920s. Their integration was relatively smooth, despite the cataclysmic changes of the 1910s, the hostile attitude of the Greek press, and Jewish suspicion toward the Greek state. Several factors made this possible. First, Salonica’s merchants, both Greek and especially Jewish, were an adaptable group thanks to their significant economic, social, and cultural capital. Second, the annexation of Salonica to Greece brought about both new challenges and opportunities, which helped mitigate the harshness of transition. Finally, the long 1910s, a period marked by increasing social differentiation and escalating class tensions, fostered a new interethnic consensus, prompting Salonica’s merchants and industrialists to close ranks. It is therefore crucial to examine how ethnicity intersected with class to fully understand Hellenization in particular and post-imperial transitions in general. Historically, three distinct modes of intersection can be identified. Each mode, I contend, can also be treated as a methodological proposition, as a way to analyze the changing relationship between class and ethnicity. First, social class significantly influenced how both Jews and Greeks adapted to the new realities of the nation-state. An analysis of the merchants’ experiences reveals that there was no uniform “Jewish” or “Greek” response to the challenges of annexation. Instead, responses varied across social strata. Jewish merchants, for instance, integrated relatively smoothly into the new professional associations and trade organizations. Although downgraded, they were actively involved, and their collaboration with Greeks was generally unproblematic. Their path was thus markedly different from that of the Jewish working classes, particularly those aligned with the (Jewish) Socialist Federation. For this group, Hellenization was a deeply traumatic experience, resulting in their triple exclusion—as Jews, workers, and socialists. Second, while ethnicity and class constantly intersect, they do not always do so as equal partners. The significance and influence of each category of

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identification varies, depending on the specific historical conjuncture. For Salonica’s merchants, the Second Constitutional Period accentuated ethnic divisions. However, during the turbulent years of World War I, ethnic tensions subsided, whereas class conflict intensified. As the context shifted, certain fault lines emerged as more crucial than others in shaping collective identities. This movement was not and is not teleological; it does not lead to a final, definitive replacement of one set of bonds with another, to the complete erasure of ethnic differences in favor of class distinctions (or vice versa). Instead, the prominence of a particular fault line depends on the changing meanings assigned to class and ethnic difference—on how, that is, “difference” is produced and signified.26 In the case of Salonica’s merchants, much hinged on the new configurations of (anti-Greek) “Jewishness” in Greek public discourse. After the Balkan Wars, the figure of the “Jewish merchant,” central to Greek anti-Judaism during the Second Constitutional Period, was supplanted by the “Jewish socialist worker.” The highly visible and vocal actions of the Socialist Federation elevated the “Jewish socialist worker” as the primary adversary of Greek nationalism. As a result of this shift in the symbolic order, ethnic difference lost much of its ability to shape relations between Greek and Jewish merchants. The shift facilitated their coexistence as a “class,” rendering class-based connections more feasible than fissures based on ethnicity. This semantic shift in the meanings of (Jewish) difference leads us to the third mode of intersection between class and ethnicity. The historical trajectory of Salonica’s merchants reveals a close relationship between a specific bourgeois identity and a particular ethnic hierarchy. Different ethnicities not only develop distinct ways of being bourgeois, but also, a hegemonic form of bourgeois identity tends to align with a hegemonic version of ethnicity, that is, a dominant model of either Jewishness or Greekness. In late Ottoman Salonica, being a bourgeois man was a social ideal closely linked to the local hegemony of Jewish merchants. Conversely, in Greek Salonica, being a bourgeois (merchant) was associated with professional interests and tied to Greekness. Jewish and Greek merchants played a pivotal role in the construction and reconstruction of these two bourgeois identities. Jews diligently promoted and benefited from the formation of an interethnic bourgeois public sphere more than any other ethnoreligious group. Similarly,

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Greek merchants, after 1912, were instrumental in forming professional associations, thereby solidifying their position in the market and, by extension, in the city at large. As the political context was changing, the ways of being a bourgeois merchant, in the sense of a class identity to which all aspired, regardless of ethnicity, transitioned from “Jewish” and universal to “Greek” and particular. Thus, the dual processes of integration and exclusion were decisive in shaping not only the ethnic identity of Salonica’s merchants but also their class self-perception. Examining these different modes of interaction between class and ethnicity clearly demonstrates the continuous interplay between these two categories. Bourgeois identity, Greekness, and Jewishness are not distinct features, intersecting with and impacting on each other. Rather, they are fluid, intertwined, and, most importantly, mutually constitutive processes of group identity formation. Moreover, these categories form mutable constellations of discourses and practices. My separate analysis of discourses and practices of and about merchants was not intended to imply that “ideology” and “reality,” “text” and “world,” or symbolic “meaning” and human “action” are distinct. In reality, each practice is imbued with meanings, and each discourse prompts action. However, I have deliberately distinguished between discourses and practices to highlight one last specific transformation in the bourgeois identities of Salonica’s merchants. Contesting the late Ottoman ethnic hierarchies during the Second Constitutional Period and the initial years of Greek rule transformed the merchants’ class identity from “cultural” to “political.” In the late Hamidian period, the bourgeois identity of the merchant was largely defined by the near-ritualistic performance of numerous cultural practices, values, and customs. However, following the Young Turk Revolution, the “merchant” increasingly emerged as a product of mass political discourse. First, during the Second Constitutional Period, conflicting communal discourses recast the “merchant” as the embodiment of the ethnic opponent. Then, after the Balkan Wars, “merchants” and “commerce” turned into a stake. Not only did “commerce” reflect the Jewish predicament, symbolizing the crisis of Jewish identity among Jews; most importantly, in the wider context of the city and even beyond it, “merchants” and “commerce” became focal points in debates about the jurisdiction of Ottoman commercial

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institutions (like the commercial tribunal), and by extension, in disputes about the future of Salonica, territoriality, and the limits of sovereignty. Finally, during World War I, the prevalent language of profiteering introduced new portrayals of the “profiteering merchant” and reshaped representations of the social order. In short, throughout the late Ottoman and early post-Ottoman periods, the identity of the merchant was indeed constructed through both discourses and practices, but the emphasis shifted depending on the historical conjuncture. In other words, it is not enough to consider the merchants’ class identity solely as a cultural construction. The (bourgeois) “merchant” is “made,” “unmade,” and “remade” each time within the different realms of the “social” and the “political.” Recognizing this helps us better understand and assess the strengths and limitations of the two main approaches in the historiography of European bourgeoisies: one that emphasizes bourgeois cultural practices as indicators of social distinction, and the other that regards the bourgeoisie primarily as a political category.27 This understanding also facilitates a reconciliation of these two divergent perspectives, which is essential for comprehending complex historical processes, such as the passage from empire to nation-state. Bourgeois identity is constructed in diverse ways and across many fields. However, as evidenced by the case of Salonica’s merchants, the relative significance of these ways and fields varies with the historical context. For that reason, only by integrating different methods of historical analysis can we discern and highlight how the importance of discourses and practices in shaping class identities changes over time. *** The years of Salonica’s Ottoman chamber of commerce were “interesting times” for its merchants, both Jews and Greeks.28 Their relations, institutions, values, collective action, and discourses determined the path they would tread in a period of radical economic, social, cultural, and political change. Merchants made possible their city’s passage to an Ottoman “imperial” modernity and from there to the nation-state. The relationships they forged and the languages they spoke defined their bourgeois identity, shaped their ethnicity, impacted on their relationship with “their” city, and determined their ethnic hierarchies, not just once but twice. The Hellenization

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of Salonica, the making and unmaking of a multiethnic “Jewish Salonica,” was a complex process, the outcome of multiple class and ethnic transformations. If we focus on the points where different ethnoreligious groups meet, dissect the interweaving of class and ethnicity, unveil power relations and, ultimately, map both continuities and ruptures—in short, if we attend not to a singular transition, but to transformations of identity—then we can better understand the converging as well as diverging courses of the Jewish and Greek merchants as they set and crossed boundaries. And if the subject of history can ever shape the writing of history, if what we research in the past has a bearing on how we think about it, then Salonica’s merchants could help us reflect on our own historiographical and political boundaries; and perhaps, even encourage us to transition beyond them.

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Notes

Introduction 1. To Phos, June 15, 1915, 1. 2. On the early history of the city, see Apostolos E. Vakalopoulos, Istoria tes Thessalonikes (Thessaloniki: Stamoulis, 1983). On Ottoman and Greek Salonica, see Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430–1950 (London: Harper, 2004). On its Dönme, see Marc David Baer, The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009). 3. Georgios K. Christodoulou, E Thessalonike, polis tou emporiou (Thessaloniki: Nikolaidou, 1933). 4. On the Greek national narrative of continuity from antiquity to the present, see Antonis Liakos, “The Construction of National Time: The Making of the Modern Greek Historical Imagination,” in Political Uses of the Past: The Recent Mediterranean Experience, eds. Jacques Revel and Giovanni Levi (London: Frank Cass, 2002), 27–42. 5. P. Risal, La ville convoitée, Salonique (Paris: Perrin, 1914). On Nehama as a Jewish historian, see Devin Naar, Jewish Salonica Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016), 209–219. 6. Justin McCarthy, Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821–1922 (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1996); Muslim Community of Salonica, May 22, 1914, Ministère des  Affaires Étrangères, Centre des  Archives Diplomatiques de  Nantes (MAE CADN), Salonique, Série B, Box 22; Morgan, July  20, 1914, FO 286/580; Paris Papamichos Chronakis, “Global Conflict, Local Politics: The Jews of Salonica and World War I,”

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in World War I and the Jews, eds. Jonathan Karp and Marsha Rozenblit (New York: Berghahn Books, 2017), 175–200. 7. Risal, La ville convoitée, 263–265. 8. Nehama, December 10, 1912, Archives of Alliance Israélite Universelle (AAIU) Grèce Ι C 51. 9. Nehama, December 22, 1912, AAIU Grèce I C 51; Smart, March 25, 1920, FO 286/744. 10. Georgios Agelopoulos, “Political Practices and Multi-Culturalism: The Case of Salonica,” in Macedonia: The Politics of Identity and Difference, ed. Jane Cowan (London: Pluto Press, 2000), 139–155. 11. “Mpoutaris sto LSE. E Thessalonike ypo te demarchia mou vreke ton eauto tes,” To Proto Thema, December 11, 2014, 15. 12. Nehama, December 10, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 51. 13. Paris Papamichos Chronakis, “De-Judaicizing a Class, Hellenizing a City: Jewish Merchants and the Future of Salonica in Greek Public Discourse, 1913–1914,” Jewish History 28, no. 3/4 (2014): 373–403; Consul, December  7, 1915, MAE CADN, Athènes, Série A, Box 357. 14. G. N. Cofinas, Salonique, son avenir (Athens: Pyrsos, 1913). 15. Mazower, Salonica; Bernard Pierron, Juifs et chrétiens de  la  Grèce moderne (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2000); Katherine Elizabeth Fleming, “Becoming Greek: The Jews of Salonica, 1912–1917,” paper presented at the international conference “Religion, Identity, and Empire,” New Haven, March 24, 2005; Naar, Jewish Salonica. 16. Antonis Kamaras, “E Thessalonike choris Evraious,” Kathimerini, January  29, 2015, 7. 17. The singular exception is a handful of short articles by Evangelos A. Hekimoglou, “Enthymion Hadjilazarou: to ergo enos lesmonemenou prokritou tes Thessalonikes,” Makedonike Zoe 293–295 (1990): 23–25, 44–46, 42–43. 18. For a broader look at the silencing of the Ottoman past, see Şuhnaz Yilmaz and İpek K. Yosmaoglu, “Fighting the Spectres of the Past: Dilemmas of Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans and the Middle East,” Middle Eastern Studies 44, no. 5 (2008): 677–693. 19. Philippos Stefanou Dragoumis, Emerologio, Valkanikoi Polemoi 1912–1913 (Athens: Dodoni, 1988), 200. 20. Peter Mackridge and Eleni Yannakakis (eds.), Ourselves and Others: The Development of a Greek Macedonian Cultural Identity since 1912 (Oxford: Berg, 1997). A quick survey on the university’s online repository of MA and PhD dissertations generated only a handful of historical works on Salonica. 21. Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, February 17, 1919, Archive of the Commercial Association of Thessaloniki (ACAT), File “1916–1919”; Papamichos Chronakis, “DeJudaicizing a Class, Hellenizing a City”; Makedonia, July 22, 1915, 3. 22. On relational Jewish histories, see Till van Rahden, Jews and Other Germans. Civil Society, Religious Diversity, and Urban Politics in Breslau, 1860–1925 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008).

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23. Sarah Abrevaya Stein, “The Field of In Between,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 46, no. 3 (2014): 581–584. 24. Ekthesis ton gegonoton kai tes katastaseos en te perifereia Thessalonikes kata to etos 1908, Diplomatic and Historical Archive of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DHAGMFA), File ΑΑΚ/Γ; Benghiat, December 1, 1909, AAIU Grèce I C 48. 25. Orly Meron, Jewish Entrepreneurship in Salonica, 1912–1940: An Ethnic Economy in Transition (Brighton: Sussex University Press, 2011). 26. Mazower, Salonica; Katherine Elizabeth Fleming, Greece: A Jewish History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007); Pierron, Juifs et chrétiens; Minna Rozen, The Last Ottoman Century and Beyond: The Jews in Turkey and the Balkans, 1808–1945 (Tel Aviv: The Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center, 2005); Rena Molho, Oi Evraioi tes Thessalonikes, 1856–1919: mia idiaιtere koinoteta (Athens: Themelio, 2001). 27. Devin Naar makes a similar point: Naar, Jewish Salonica, 1–36. 28. Van  Rahden, Jews and Other Germans; Marsha Rozenblit, “Jewish Ethnicity in a New Nation-State: The Crisis of Identity in the Austrian Republic,” in In Search of Jewish Community: Jewish Identities in Germany and Austria, 1918–1933, eds. Michael Brenner and Derek J. Penslar (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 134–153; Sean Martin, Jewish Life in Cracow, 1918–1939 (London: Valentine-Mitchell, 2004). 29. I am echoing the famous statement by E.  P. Thompson whose argument that the English working class was present in its own making signaled the shift of social history to questions of agency and experience: Edward P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Gollancz, 1963), vi. 30. The bibliography on minorities is vast. On Greece, see Richard Clogg, ed., Minorities in Greece: Aspects of a Plural Society (London: Hurst, 2002); Harry Mylonas, The Politics of Nation-Building: Making Co-Nationals, Refugees, and Minorities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Konstantinos Tsitselikis, Old and New Islam in Greece: From Historical Minorities to Immigrant Newcomers (Leiden: Brill, 2012); Dia Anagnostou, “Minorities and the Making of the Nation-State in 20th century Greece,” Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans 5, no. 3 (2003): 381–386; Kevin Featherstone, Dimitris Papadimitriou, Argyris Mamarelis and Georgios Niarchos, The Last Ottomans. The Muslim Minority of Greece, 1940–1949 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). For a different reading of the post-Ottoman trajectory of Ottoman Jewry than the one proposed here, see Aron Rodrigue, “From Millet to Minority: Turkish Jewry,” in Paths of Emancipation: Jews, States, and Citizenship, eds. Pierre Birnbaum and Ira Katznelson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 238–261. 31. Karen Barkey and Mark von  Hagen, eds., After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building. The Soviet Union and the Russian, Ottoman, and Habsburg Empires (London: Routledge, 1997); Rogers Brubaker, “National Minorities, Nationalizing States, and External National Homelands in the New Europe,” Daedalus 124, no. 2 (1995): 107–132; Rogers Brubaker, “Nationalizing States in the Old ‘New Europe’—and the New,” in Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 79–106.

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32. Gilles Veinstein, ed., Salonique, 1850–1918: la “ville des Juifs” et le réveil des Balkans (Paris: Autrement, 1992); Mazower, Salonica; Naar, Jewish Salonica; Régis Darques, Salonique au XXe siècle: de la cité ottomane à la métropole grecque (Paris: CNRS, 2000); Bruce Clark, Twice a Stranger: How Mass Expulsion Forged Modern Greece and Turkey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 158–179. 33. Eleni Kallimopoulou, “Under One Dome? Rituals of Transition in Ottoman/Greek Thessaloniki.” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique Moderne et Contemporain 4 (2021): 55–86. 34. On hegemony, see Antonio Gramsci, Selection from the Prison Notebooks (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1971). My thinking on the “particular” and the “universal” has been enriched by similar analyses in feminist history: Gianna Pomata, “History, Particular and Universal: On Reading Some Recent Women’s History Textbooks,” Feminist Studies 19, no. 1 (1993): 7–50; Joan Wallach Scott, “Women in ‘The Making of the English Working Class,’” in Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 68–90. 35. On contemporary observations, see Mark Mazower, “Travellers and the Oriental City, c. 1840–1920,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 12 (2002): 59–111. 36. Devin Naar, “Fashioning the ‘Mother of Israel’: The Ottoman Jewish Historical Narrative and the Image of Jewish Salonica,” Jewish History 28, no. 3/4 (2014): 337–372; Julia Phillips Cohen, Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 37. Alexandra Yerolympos, “Conscience citadine et intérêt municipal à Salonique à la fin du XIXe siècle,” in Vivre dans L’Empire ottoman: sociabilités et relations intercommunautaires (XVIIIe–XXe siècles), eds. Paul Dumont and François Georgeon (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997), 123–144. 38. Pamela Ballinger, “Imperial Nostalgia: Mythologizing Habsburg Trieste,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 8, no. 1 (2003): 84–101; Reşat Kasaba, “İzmir 1922: A Port City Unravels,” in Modernity and Culture from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, eds. Leila Fawaz, C. A. Bayly, and Robert Ilbert (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 204–229; Winson Chu, The German Minority in Interwar Poland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 118–120. 39. On critiques of cosmopolitanism, Will Hanley, “Grieving Cosmopolitanism in Middle East Studies,” History Compass 6, no. 5 (2008): 1346–1367. On the limits of coexistence, Basil C. Gounaris, “Salonica,” Review 16, no. 4 (1993): 499–518; Meropi Anastassiadou, Salonique, 1830–1912: une ville ottomane à l’ âge des Réformes (Leiden: Brill, 1997). 40. Aron Rodrigue, “Difference and Tolerance in the Ottoman Empire,” interview with Nancy Reynolds, Stanford Humanities Review 5, no. 1 (1996): 81–92; Karen Barkey, Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 41. Naar, Jewish Salonica; Pierron, Juifs et chrétiens; Rozen, The Last Ottoman Century and Beyond; Mazower, Salonica; Alexandra Yerolympos, Urban Transformations in the

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Balkans (1820–1920): Aspects of Balkan Town Planning and the Remaking of Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 1996); Minna Rozen, “On Nationalizing Minorities: The Education of Salonikan Jewry, 1912–1941,” Archeion Analekta 3 (2018): 127–232. 42. Antonis Liakos and Nicholas Doumanis, The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 20th and Early 21st Centuries: Global Perspectives (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023). 43. Rena Molho, “Thessalonique après 1912: propagandes étrangères et communauté juive,” in La France et la Grèce dans la Grande Guerre, ed. Yannis Mourelos (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1992), 47–60. 44. Among others, Aleka Karadimou Gerolympou, E anoikodomese tes Thessalonikes (Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 1985); Rena Molho, “E antievraike nomothesia tou Venizelou ston Mesopolemo kai pos e demokratia mporei na ginei arogos tou antisemitismou,” Syghrona Themata 82 (2003): 53–59. 45. The most innovative works include Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Extraterritorial Dreams: European Citizenship, Sephardi Jews, and the Ottoman Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016); Michael Provence, The Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Adam Mestyan, Modern Arab Kingship: Remaking the Ottoman Political Order in the Interwar Middle East (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023). 46. Naar, Jewish Salonica. 47. As a cursory search on English-language texts using Google NGram indicates. 48. See the complaints of a local passerby in Makedonia, May 14, 1925, 3. 49. Evangelia A. Varella, “To Emporiko kai Viomechaniko Epimeleterio Thessalonikes kata ta chronia tou Mesopolemou,” Thessaloniki 4 (1994): 251–285. 50. Caglar Keyder, State and Class in Turkey: A Study in Capitalist Development (London: Verso, 1987). For a perceptive critique of earlier works focusing on the perceived lack of an Ottoman public sphere, see Nadir Ozbek, “Philanthropic Activity, Ottoman Patriotism, and the Hamidian Regime, 1876–1909,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 37 (2005): 59–81. 51. Fatma Müge Göçek, Rise of the Bourgeoisie, Demise of Empire: Ottoman Westernization and Social Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); Keyder, State and Class in Turkey; Reşat Kasaba, “Was There a Comprador Bourgeoisie in Mid-Nineteenth Century Western Anatolia?” Review 11, no. 2 (1988): 215–228. 52. Keyder, State and Class in Turkey. On weak middle-class formation in European imperial settings, see Jurgen Kocka, “The Middle Classes in Europe,” The Journal of Modern History 67 (1995): 783-806. 53. Michelle Campos, Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early 20th-Century Palestine (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010); Toufoul Abu-Hodeib, A Taste for Home: The Modern Middle Class in Ottoman Beirut (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017); Keith David Watenpaugh, Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, Colonialism and the Arab Middle Class (Princeton: Princeton University

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Press, 2012); Efi Kanner, Phtocheia kai philanthropia sten orthodoxe koinoteta tes Konstantinoupoles, 1753–1912 (Athens: Katarti, 2004); Ozbek, “Philanthropic Activity.” 54. Jens Hanssen, Fin de Siècle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Abu-Hodeib, A Taste for Home. 55. Campos, Ottoman Brothers. 56. Haris Exertzoglou, “E sygkrotese tou demosiou chorou sten Konstantinoupole ton 19o aiona,” in O exo-ellenismos: Konstantinoupole kai Smyrne, 1800–1922, ed. Etaireia Spoudon Neoellenikou Politismou (Athens: Etaireia Spoudon, 1998), 15–26; Haris Exertzoglou, “Koinonike ierarchia, ideologia kai ethnike tautoteta,” Ta Istorika 22 (1995): 85–118; Haris Exertzoglou, “‘Meta megales parataxeos’: symvolikes praktikes kai koinotike sygkrotese stis astikes orthodoxes koinotetes tes ysteres othomanikes periodou,” Ta Istorika 31 (1999): 349–380; Vangelis Kechriotis, “The Greeks of Izmir at the End of the Empire: A Non-Muslim Ottoman Community between Autonomy and Patriotism” (PhD diss., University of Leiden, 2005); Dina Danon, The Jews of Ottoman Izmir: A Modern History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2020); Sibel Zandi-Sayek, Ottoman Izmir: The Rise of a Cosmopolitan Port, 1840–1880 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011). 57. Athanasios (Sakis) Gekas, “Class and Cosmopolitanism: The Historiographical Fortunes of Merchants in Eastern Mediterranean Ports,” Mediterranean Historical Review 24, no. 2 (2009): 95–114. 58. The best example remains Robert Ilbert, Alexandrie, 1830-1930: histoire d’une communauté citadine (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1996). For a sustained critique of this trend, see Hanley, “Grieving Cosmopolitanism.” For one contemporary dismissal of Salonica’s Greek Orthodox bourgeoisie as “cosmopolitan,” see Dragoumis, Emerologio, 200. 59. Philanthropy is the most evident case. Compare Kanner, Phtocheia kai philanthropia, and Danon, The Jews of Ottoman Izmir. 60. Cited in Danon, The Jews of Ottoman Izmir, 8. 61. Danon, The Jews of Ottoman Izmir. For a nuanced attempt to discern a bourgeois Jewishness, see Leora Auslander, “The Boundaries of Jewishness, or When is a Cultural Practice Jewish?” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 8, no. 1 (2009): 47–64; Leora Auslander, “‘Jewish Taste’? Jews and the Aesthetics of Everyday Life in Paris and Berlin, 1933–1942,” in Histories of Leisure, ed. Rudy Koshar (Oxford: Berg, 2002), 299–318. 62. Athanasios Souliotis-Nikolaidis, O Makedonikos Agon: e “Organosis Thessalonikes” 1906–1908, apomnemoneumata (Thessaloniki: Etaireia Makedonikon Spoudon, 1959), 24. 63. Nikolaidis, O Makedonikos Agon, 20, 31–34. 64. To Phos, September 16, 1918, 1. 65. La Epoka, May 12, 1911, 1; Journal de Salonique, March 9, 1906, 1. 66. Nea Aletheia, January 11, 1918, 1. 67. Katerina Rozakou, “Koinonikoteta kai ‘koinonia allelengyes’: e periptose enos ethelontikou somateiou,” Ellenike Epitheorese Politikes Epistemes 32 (2008): 95–99.

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68. Most systematically in Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, “Beyond ‘Identity,’” Theory and Society 29, no. 1 (2000): 1–47. 69. Francesca Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009); Sebouh David Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). 70. Joan Wallach Scott, “On Language, Gender, and Working-Class History,” in Gender and the Politics of History, 53–67; Daniel J. Walkowitz, Working with Class: Social Workers and the Politics of Middle-Class Identity (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999); Simon Gunn, History and Cultural Theory (London: Routledge, 2006), 131–154. 71. Hanssen, Fin de Siècle Beirut; Göçek, Rise of the bourgeoisie. 72. Dekaton etos tou en Thessalonike Philekpaideutikou Syllogou. Ekthesis anagnostheisa te 14e Noembriou en genikei synedriasei ton melon (Thessaloniki: E Makedonia, 1882), 13. 73. Watenpaugh, Being Modern in the Middle East; Sherene Seikaly, Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015). 74. Ilbert, Alexandrie, 1830–1930; Anthony Hirst and Michael Silk, eds., Alexandria, Real and Imagined (London: Routledge, 2006); Robert Ilbert, Ilias Yannakakis, and Jacques Hassoun, eds., Alexandria 1860–1960: The Brief Life of a Cosmopolitan Community (Alexandria: Harpocrates, 1997); Edhem Eldem, “Istanbul: From Imperial to Peripheralized Capital,” in The Ottoman City between East and West, eds. Edhem Eldem, Daniel Goffman, and Bruce Masters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 135–205. 75. James Moore, “Between Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism: The Strange Death of Liberal Alexandria,” Journal of Urban History 38, no.  5 (2012): 879–900; Caglar Keyder, Y. Eyüp Özveren, and Donald Quataert, “Port-Cities in the Ottoman Empire: Some Theoretical and Historical Perspectives,” Review 16, no.  4 (1993): 519–558; Keyder, State and Class in Turkey; Robert L. Tignor, State, Private Enterprise and Economic Change in Egypt, 1918–1952 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). 76. Robert J. Morris, Graeme Morton, and Boudien de  Vries eds. Civil Society, Associations and Urban Places: Class, Nation and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006); Simon Gunn, The Public Culture of the Victorian Middle Class: Ritual and Authority in the English Industrial City, 1840–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007); Victoria Thompson, “Telling ‘Spatial Stories’: Urban Space and Bourgeois Identity in Early Nineteenth-Century Paris,” The Journal of Modern History 75 (2003): 523–556; Stéphane Gerson, The Pride of Place: Local Memories and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003). 77. Cohen, Becoming Ottomans; Kallimopoulou, “Under One Dome?”; for Izmir, Sibel Zandi-Sayek, “Ambiguities of Sovereignty: Property Rights and Spectacles of Statehood in Tanzimat Izmir,” in Imperial Geographies in Byzantine and Ottoman Space, eds. Sahar

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Bazzaz, Yota Batsaki, and Dimiter Angelov (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 133–150; Sibel Zandi-Sayek, “Orchestrating Difference, Performing Identity: Urban Space and Public Rituals in Nineteenth-Century Izmir,” in Nezar AlSayyad, Hybrid Urbanism: On the Identity Discourse and the Built Environment (Westport: Praeger, 2001), 42–66. 78. Basil Gounaris makes some first observations, albeit in passing, in “Doing Business in Macedonia: Greek Problems in British Perspective (1912–1921),” European Review of History 5, no. 2 (1998): 169–180. 79. Massimo Leone, “Melbourne versus Sydney: Semiotic Reflections on First and Second Cities,” GLocalism 3 (2014): 45–65. The most pertinent historical applications of the concept of “second cities” include Maiken Umbach, “A Tale of Second Cities: Autonomy, Culture, and the Law in Hamburg and Barcelona in the Late Nineteenth Century,” American Historical Review 110, no.  3 (2005): 659–692; and Louise Young, Beyond the Metropolis: Second Cities and Modern Life in Interwar Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013). 80. On national productions of locality in the Greek context, see Robert Shannan Peckham, National Histories, Natural States: Nationalism and the Politics of Place in Greece (London: I. B. Tauris, 2001); Michael Herzfeld, “Localism and the Logic of Nationalistic Folklore: Cretan Reflections,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 45, no. 2 (2003): 281–310. 81. On the notion of “situated ethnicity” in a German Jewish context, see Rahden, Jews and Other Germans. 82. Tara Zahra, “Imagined Noncommunities: National Indifference as a Category of Analysis,” Slavic Review 69, no. 1 (2010): 93–119. 83. Winson Chu, The German Minority in Interwar Poland; Jeremy King, Budweisers into Czechs and Germans: A Local History of Bohemian Politics, 1848–1948 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); Chad Bryant, Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007); James Bjork, Neither German nor Pole: Catholicism and National Indifference in a Central European Borderland (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008). 84. On foreign citizenship, see Stein, Extraterritorial Dreams. 85. A most surprising example is Mazower, Salonica. On Jewish Salonican “exceptionalism” in the past, see Naar, Jewish Salonica. On Greek “exceptionalism,” Ioannis K. Hassiotis, ed., Queen of the Worthy: Thessaloniki, History and Culture (Thessaloniki: Paratiritis, 1997), 1–30. 86. Indicatively, Chu, The German Minority in Interwar Poland; Angelo Ara, “The ‘Cultural Soul’ and the ‘Merchant Soul’: Trieste between Italian and Austrian Identities,” in The Habsburg Legacy, eds. Ritchie Robertson and Edward Trimms (Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press, 1994), 58–65; Philip Mansel, Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean (London: John Murray, 2011).

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Jacob Cazes 1. Minna Rozen, “Money, Power, Politics, and the Great Salonika Fire of 1917,” Jewish Social Studies 22, no. 2 (2017): 86, 88; Joseph Nehama, Histoire des Israélites de Salonique, vol. 7 (Thessaloniki: Communauté Israélite de Thessaloniki, 1978), 731; Almanach national au profit de l’ hôpital de Hirsch (Salonique: L’Hôpital, 1912), 314; Journal de Salonique, November 22, 1908, 1; Minna Rozen, “The Jewish Community of Salonika, 1912–1941: Organizational Patterns,” Archeion Analekta 1 (2016): 316; Journal de Salonique, April 9, 1906, 1; Cengiz Sisman, The Burden of Silence: Sabbatai Sevi and the Evolution of the Ottoman-Turkish Dönmes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 235; J. S. Modiano, Annuaire commercial & administratif du Vilayet de Salonique (Salonique, 1908), 38. 2. Journal de Salonique, November 8, 1906, 1; Journal de Salonique, February 26, 1906, 1; Sotirios Dimitriadis, “The Making of an Ottoman Port-City: The State, Local Elites and Urban Space in Salonika, 1870–1912” (PhD diss., School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2013), 68; Journal de Salonique, April 9, 1906, 1; Journal de Salonique, November 19, 1906, 1. 3. Risal, La ville convoitée, 283; Rena Molho, “Le Cercle de Salonique, 1873–1958. Lesche Thessalonikeon: symvole ste melete tes astikes taxes tes Thessalonikes,” in Oi Evraioi ston elleniko choro, ed. Etaireia Meletes Ellenikou Evraismou (Athens: Gavriilidis, 1995), 118; H. Sükrü Ilicak, “Jewish Socialism in Ottoman Salonica,” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 2, no. 3 (2002): 128; Journal de Salonique, November 12, 1906, 1; Association des anciens élèves de l’Alliance Israélite Universelle (AAEAIU), Bulletin annuel, 1905–1906 (Salonique, 1906), 9, 12. 4. Rozen, “Money, Power, Politics,” 86, 89, 109; Anastassiadou, Salonique, 362; Samuel D. Modiano, November 26, 1909, AAIU Grèce VI B 25; Panellenios Odegos (Athens: Pyrsos, 1915), 900; Journal de Salonique, October 15, 1908, 1; Nea Aletheia, March 20, 1909, 1; Journal de Salonique, May 10, 1910, 3. 5. Rozen, “Money, Power, Politics,” 85–87; Nehama, Histoire des Israélites, 7: 731–732; Emilia Themopoulou, “E ellenike emporike drasterioteta ste Thessalonike kata ton 19o aiona,” in XVI Panellenio Istoriko Synedrio. Praktika, ed. Greek Historical Society (Thessaloniki: Kyriakidi, 1996), 109–111; Eugene Abraham Cooperman, “Turco-Jewish Relations in the Ottoman City of Salonica, 1889–1912” (PhD diss., New York University, 1991), 205; Anonymous, November 1, 1933, AAIU Grèce XVIII E 202h; Samuel D. Modiano, November 26, 1909, AAIU Grèce VI B 25; Nikolaos Iggleses, Odegos tes Ellados, apases tes Makedonias. Year III, volume A, 1910–1911, Part 2 (Athens: Apostolopoulos, 1911), 29; Journal de  Salonique, November  8, 1906, 1; Benghiat, December  16, 1909, AAIU Grèce VI B 25; Rozen, “The Jewish Community of Salonika,” 315. 6. Ilicak, “Jewish Socialism,” 128; Journal de Salonique, June 13, 1904, 1; Journal de Salonique, August 4, 1908, 2; Journal de Salonique, August 25, 1908, 2; Journal de Salonique, September 14, 1909, 4; Annuaire Oriental, commerce, industrie, administration, magisture de l’Orient 1914 (Istanbul, 1914), 1811; Benghiat, December 1, 1909, AAIU Grèce I C 48; Nea Aletheia, August 12, 1910, 3; Journal de Salonique, May 10, 1910, 3.

296

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7. Rozen, “Money, Power, Politics,” 87; Modiano, Annuaire commercial, 34; Journal de Salonique, June 13, 1907, 1; Aletheia, August 31, 1904, 2; Journal de Salonique, June 30, 1909, 1; Journal de  Salonique, December  6, 1908, 1; Lamb, January  19, 1911, FO 195/2381; Lamb, May 7, 1911, FO 195/2381; Journal de Salonique, July 15, 1909, 1; Journal de Salonique, May 23, 1908, 1; Journal de Salonique, November 14, 1904, 1; Journal de Salonique, October 15, 1908, 1. Chapter 1 1. Minna Rozen, “Contest and Rivalry in Mediterranean Maritime Commerce in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century: The Jews of Salonika and the European Presence,” Revue des Études Juives 147, no. 3/4 (1988): 309–352. 2. Ilicak, “Jewish Socialism,” 141; Orly C. Meron, “Jewish Entrepreneurship in Salonica During the Final Decades of the Ottoman Regime in Macedonia (1881–1912),” in Frontiers of Ottoman Studies, eds. Colin Imber, Keiko Kiyotaki, and Murphey Rhoads (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), 275; Orly K. Meron, “Sub-Ethnicity and Elites: Jewish Italian Professionals and Entrepreneurs in Salonica (1881–1912),” Zakhor 8 (2005): 185; Kostis Moskof, Thessalonike 1700–1912 (Athens: Themelio, 1974), 73. 3. Anastassiadou, Salonique, 317–320, 360–363; Kostantinos Vakalopoulos, “To emporio tes Thessalonikes, 1796–1840 (symphona me anekdotes ektheseis europaion proxenon),” Makedonika 16 (1976): 100, 152; Bülent Özdemir, “The Jews of Salonica and the Reforms,” in Turkish-Jewish Encounters: Studies on Turkish-Jewish Relations Through the Ages, ed. Mehmet Tütüncü (Haarlem: SOTA, 2001), 122; Emilie Themopoulou, “Salonique, 1800–1875: conjuncture économique et mouvement commercial” (PhD diss., Université de Paris I, 1994), 299. 4. On the Allatinis, see Evangelos A. Hekimoglou, The “Immortal” Allatini: Ancestors and Relatives of Noemie Allatini-Bloch (1860–1928) (Thessaloniki: Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki, 2012). 5. Molho, Oi Evraioi tes Thessalonikes, 74–75, 82; Rozen, The Last Ottoman Century and Beyond, 144. 6. Molho, Oi Evraioi tes Thessalonikes, 84–88; Rozen, “Money, Power, Politics,” 74–115; Iggleses, Odegos tes Ellados, 29. 7. Molho, Oi Evraioi tes Thessalonikes, 86; Iggleses, Odegos tes Ellados, 29. 8. Molho, Oi Evraioi tes Thessalonikes, 93–107. 9. Rozen, The Last Ottoman Century and Beyond, 143. 10. Kechriotis, “The Greeks of Izmir at the End of the Empire,” 81–133. 11. Charalambos Papastathis, Oi kanonismoi ton orthodoxon ellenikon koinoteton tou othomanikou kratous kai tes diasporas, vol. 1 (Thessaloniki: Kyriakidi, 1984), 147–179. 12. Rozen, “Money, Power, Politics,” 82, 85. 13. Iggleses, Odegos tes Ellados, 29; Educational Society of Thessaloniki, annual reports of years 1873, 1880, 1889, 1895, 1905, 1909, and 1910.

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14. Julian Brooks, “The Education Race for Macedonia, 1878–1903,” Journal of Modern Hellenism 31 (2015): 23–58. 15. Sam Levy, Salonique à la fin du  XIXe siècle: mémoires (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2000), 34–40; Risal, La ville convoitée, 240–245; AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1907 (Salonique, 1907), 26. 16. On “usable pasts,” see Keith S. Brown and Yannis Hamilakis, “The Cupboard of the Yesterdays? Critical Perspectives on the Usable Past,” in The Usable Past. Greek Metahistories, eds. Keith S. Brown and Yannis Hamilakis (New York: Lexington Books, 2003), 1–19. 17. “Lo ke devemos azer,” La Nasyon (March 3, 1911): 1. 18. Stamatoula S. Zapante, “Oi endokoinotikes erides sten ellenike koinoteta tes Thessalonikes apo 1881 mechri to 1912,” in X Panellenio Istoriko Synedrio (Maios 1989). Praktika, ed. Greek Historical Society (Thessaloniki: Vanias, 1989), 121–147. 19. AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1908 (Salonique, 1908), 4, 10, 16–17. 20. AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1905–1906, 12, 16. AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1908, 9. 21. AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1907, 6–29. 22. Journal de Salonique, August 23, 1906, 2; Journal de Salonique, November 14, 1907, 2. 23. On the “citizen philanthropist,” see Yannis Yannitsiotis, E koinonike istoria tou Peiraia: e synkrotese tes astikes taxes, 1860–1910 (Athens: Nefeli, 2006), 300–306. 24. On constructing a Greek Orthodox community through public rituals, see Exertzoglou, “Meta megalis parataxeos.” 25. Molho, Oi Evraioi tes Thessalonikes, 217; Compte rendu sur les écoles israélites de Salonique pendant l’année 1878/79 (Salonique: L’Epoque, 1879), 35–36; Journal de Salonique, July 11, 1907, 1. 26. “Mission d’inspection en Orient,” Bulletin de l’Alliance Israélite Universelle (Paris, 1908), 41. 27. Aron Rodrigue, French Jews, Turkish Jews: The Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Politics of Jewish Schooling in Turkey, 1860–1925 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 58. 28. Compte rendu sur les écoles israélites de Salonique pendant l’année 1878/79, 77; Sarah Abrevaya Stein, “The Permeable Boundaries of Ottoman Jewry,” in Boundaries and Belonging: States and Societies in the Struggle to Shape Identities and Local Practices, ed. Joel S. Migdal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 57; Rodrigue, “From Millet to Minority,” 248; Journal de Salonique, August 6, 1906, 1. 29. Rodrigue, French Jews, Turkish Jews, 69–70; Compte rendu sur les écoles israélites de Salonique pendant l’année 1878/79, 14–15; Compte rendu sur les institutions de l’Alliance Israélite Universelle à Salonique pendant l’année scolaire 1889 par le Comité Local (Salonique: La Epoca, 1890). 30. Rodrigue, French Jews, Turkish Jews, 119. 31. Rodrigue, “From Millet to Minority,” 253. 32. Journal de Salonique, May 7, 1906, 1.

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33. Ioannis A. Skourtis, “Evraioitalike ekpaideutike drasterioteta ste Thessalonike (1870–1926),” in XIV Panellenio Istoriko Synedrio. Praktika, ed. Greek Historical Society (Thessaloniki: Vanias, 1994), 366–367, 369. 34. This new reformulation of Jewishness caused fierce reactions as attested by Marcel Yoel, a student of the Filarder School: “It was enough for you to say that you wanted to go to the Filarder school for them to call you a Christian.” Cited in Rena Molho, The Memoirs of Doctor Meir Yoel (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2011), 63. 35. Skourtes, “Evraioitalike ekpaideutike drasterioteta,” 373–375. 36. Aletheia, April 13, 1904, 3. 37. Journal de Salonique, May 13, 1907, 1; Journal de Salonique, November 28, 1907, 1; Journal de Salonique, December 2, 1907, 2; Journal de Salonique, April 19, 1906, 1. Aletheia, November 1, 1903, 2; Aletheia, March 11, 1904, 3. 38. Journal de Salonique, May 6, 1907, 1; Skourtes, “Evraioitalike ekpaideutike drasterioteta,” 387; Journal de Salonique, June 4, 1906, 1; Journal de Salonique, May 16, 1907, 1; Journal de Salonique, July 23, 1908, 2. 39. Journal de Salonique, March 21, 1904, 1; Pharos tes Makedonias, June 2, 1882, 1. 40. Aron Rodrigue, “Salonica in Jewish Historiography,” Jewish History 28, no.  3/4 (2014): 444. 41. Risal, La ville convoitée, 257–258. 42. Leila Tarazi Fawaz, Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth-Century Beirut (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983); Meropi Anastassiadou, “Greek Orthodox Immigrants and Modes of Integration Within the Urban Society of Istanbul (1850–1923),” Mediterranean Historical Review 24, no. 2 (2010): 151–167. 43. Basil C. Gounaris, Steam over Macedonia, 1870–1912: Socio-Economic Change and the Railway Factor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 257; Keyder et al., “Port-Cities in the Ottoman Empire,” 538–539; Devin Naar, “The ‘Mother of Israel’ or the ‘Sephardi Metropolis’? Sephardim, Ashkenazim, and Romaniotes in Salonica,” Jewish Social Studies 22, no. 1 (2016): 81–129. 44. Gelina Harlafti, Istoria tes ellenoktetes nautilias, 19os–20os aionas (Athens: Nefeli, 2001), 127–171. 45. Harlafti, Istoria tes ellenoktetes nautilias, 169–171; Vakalopoulos, Istoria tes Thessalonikes, 326–328; Harlafti, Istoria tes ellenoktetes nautilias, 147–173; Evrydiki Sifnaiou, “Oi allages sto rosiko sitemporio kai e prosarmostikoteta ton ellenikon emporikon oikon,” Ta Istorika 40 (2004): 69–87. 46. Risal, La ville convoitée, 160. 47. Gounaris, Steam over Macedonia. 48. Michael Palairet, The Balkan Economies c. 1800–1914: Evolution Without Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 345. 49. Christos Mandatzis, “Antartiko sto katofli mias ekchrematizomenes oikonomias: koinonike kai oikonomike diastase tou Makedonikou Agona,” Thessalonikeon Polis 16 (2004): 73.

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50. Efrosini Roupa and Evangelos Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, vol. 3 (Thessaloniki: Etaireia Epicheiremation, 2004), 166, 92. 51. Georgios Cofinas, Ta oikonomika tes Makedonias (Athens: National Printing House, 1914), 163. 52. Cofinas, Ta oikonomika tes Makedonias, 24–25, 80. 53. Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas 3: 258–263. 54. Cofinas, Ta oikonomika tes Makedonias, 214; Costas Lapavitsas, “Industrial Development and Social Transformation in Ottoman Macedonia,” Journal of European Economic History 35 (2006): 683–685. 55. Alexandros Dagas, “Recherches sur le développement socio-économique de la ville de Salonique (1908–1918) d’après des sources inédites” (MA diss., École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1989), 51–52; Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas 3: 442. 56. Iggleses, Odegos tes Ellados, 34; Federation of Western Macedonian Associations of Thessaloniki, accessed February 10, 2011, http://​odsth​.org/​somatia​.asp​?menu​=​4. 57. Yannitsiotis, E koinonike istoria tou Peiraia, 358–365; Yota Kaika-Mantanika, Patra, 1870–1900: e kathemerine zoe tes Patras sten auge tes Mpel Epok (Patra: Ahaikes Ekdoseis, 1998), 141. 58. See Association of Thessaly Jews in Thessaloniki, General Assembly minutes, March 26, 1917, Archive of the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki, File “Jewish Associations.” 59. Yannitsiotis, E koinonike istoria tou Peiraia, 360–361. 60. Iggleses, Odegos tes Ellados, 34. 61. Eustratios Eustratiades, Makedonia. E prote periodeia Ellenos demosiographou (Athens: Chairopoulos, 1903), 71. 62. Federation of Western Macedonian Associations of Thessaloniki. 63. Consul, December  1, 1908, Archive of the Museum of Macedonian Struggle (AMMS), ΜΜΑ5. 64. Nea Aletheia, July 28, 1910, 3. 65. To Phos (Bitola), July 3, 1911, 2. 66. Ioannis A. Tagarakis, To philanthropiko ergo sten ellenike orthodoxe koinoteta Thessalonikes (1840–1928) (Thessaloniki: Kentro Istorias Thessalonikes, 1994). 67. Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas, 3: 178. 68. On the concept of sites of memory, see Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire,” Representations 26 (1989): 7–24. 69. Anna Caraveli, “The Symbolic Village: Community Born in Performance,” The Journal of American Folklore 98, no. 389 (1985): 259–286. 70. I thank Dr. Katerina Papakonstantinou for sharing this information with me. 71. Vemund Aarbakke, Ethnic Rivalry and the Quest for Macedonia, 1870–1913 (Boulder: East European Monographs, 2003), 6. 72. Nikos Sigalas, “‘Ellenismos’ kai exellenismos: o schematismos tes neoellenikes ennoias ellenismos,” Ta Istorika 34 (2001): 13–24. 73. Alexis Politis, Romantika chronia: ideologies kai nootropies sten Ellada tou 1830–1880 (Athens: Mnemon, 1998), 39–47.

300

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74. Sigalas, “‘Ellenismos’ kai exellenismos”: 42–46. 75. Kyriakos Th. Bonides, Oi ellenikoi philekpaideutikoi syllogoi os phoreis ethnikes paideias kai politismou ste diaphilonikoumene Makedonia (1869–1914) (Thessaloniki: Kyriakidi, 1996), 47, 53–54. 76. Kanonismos tou en Thessalonike Philekpedeutikou Syllogou [1881], 3; Deuteron etos tou en Thessalonike Philekpaideutikou Syllogou. Ekthesis anagnostheisa ten 13 Oktovriou 1874 (Thessaloniki: E Makedonia, 1874), 9–10. 77. Proton etos tou en Thessalonike Philekpaideutikou Syllogou. Ekthesis anagnostheisa ten 6en Oktovriou 1873 (Thessaloniki: Vaglamales 1874), 30–31; 38on etos. Logodosia Philekpaideutikou Syllogou Thessalonikes (Thessaloniki: Christomanou, 1910), 11. 78. Eustratiades, Makedonia, 81–82. 79. Dekaton etos tou en Thessalonike Philekpaideutikou Syllogou, 12; 14οn, 15οn kai 16οn etos tou en Thessalonike Philekpaideutikou Syllogou. Ekthesis ton kata ten dialysin kai anasystasin tou syllogou kai ton kata to 16o syllogikon etos pepragmenon (Athens, 1889), 48–49; Τetarton etos tou en Thessalonike Philekpaideutikou Syllogou. Ekthesis anagnostheisa ten 24 Oktovriou 1876 (Thessaloniki: E Makedonia, 1877), 24–25; Carol E. Harrison, The Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth-Century France: Gender, Sociability, and the Uses of Emulation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 49–86; Joseph Bradley, Voluntary Associations in Tsarist Russia: Science, Patriotism, and Civil Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009). 80. Pempton kai Ekton etos tou en Thessalonike Philekpaideutikou Syllogou. Ekthesis anagnostheisa ten 5 Noembriou 1878 (Thessaloniki: Garpolas, 1879), 29; Deuteron etos tou en Thessalonike Philekpaideutikou Syllogou, 13, 15; Evdomon etos tou en Thessalonike Philekpaideutikou Syllogou. Ekthesis anagnostheisa ten 9 Demebriou (Thessaloniki: Garpolas, 1880), 13; 18on etos tou en Thessalonike Philekpaideutikou Syllogou. Ekthesis ton kata to 18o syllogikon etos pepragmenon (Athens, 1891), 23. 81. Zapante, “Oi endokoinotikes erides sten ellenike koinoteta tes Thessalonikes,” 121–147. 82. I. A. Nikolaides, “O Makedonikos Agonas ste Thessalonike,” Thessalonike 3 (1992): 194–200. Nikolaides, O Makedonikos Agon, 37; Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas 3: 218, 250. 83. Celia Applegate, “Localism and the German Bourgeoisie: The ‘Heimat’ Movement in the Rhenish Palatinate before 1914,” in The German Bourgeoisie, eds. David Blackbourn and Richard J. Evans (London: Routledge, 1991), 237–239. 84. Nikolaos K. Christodoulou, O Gymnastikos Syllogos Thessalonikes “O Erakles” kai e exelixis tou athletismou en Thessalonike (Thessaloniki, 1927), 18. 85. Yannitsiotis, E koinonike istoria tou Peiraia, 135. 86. Kanner, Phtocheia kai philanthropia, 147, 160–165, 170–172, 205, 251, 274, 276; Vangelis Kechriotis, “E ellenike Smyrne: koinotetes sto pantheon tes istorias,” in Smyrne, e lesmonemene pole? 1830–1930: mnemes enos megalou mesogeiakou limaniou, ed. Marie-Carmen Smyrnelli (Athens: Metaichmio, 2006), 75–91.

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87. Banu Turnaoğlu, “The New Ottoman Conception of War, State and Society in the Prelude to the First World War,” in European Revolutions and the Ottoman Balkans, ed. Dimitris Stamatopoulos (London: I. B. Tauris, 2019), 223. 88. 17on etos tou en Thessalonike Philekpaideutikou Syllogou. Ekthesis ton kata to 17o syllogikon etos pepragmenon (Athens, 1890), 11; Dekaton etos tou en Thessalonike Philekpaideutikou Syllogou, 5; Deuteron etos tou en Thessalonike Philekpaideutikou Syllogou, 12. Chapter 2 1. Risal, La ville convoitée, 282–283. 2. On the Ottoman bazaar, see Rodrigue, “Difference and Tolerance in the Ottoman Empire,” 81–92. 3. Nehama, Histoire des Israélites, 731–732; Evangelos A. Hekimoglou, Ypothese Modiano: trapeziko krach ste Thessalonike to 1911 (Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 1991), 34. 4. I here follow Jon Stobart, “Personal and Commercial Networks in an English Port: Chester in the Early Eighteenth Century,” Journal of Historical Geography 30 (2004): 278. 5. Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas, 3: 92, 446. 6. I here follow Yannitsiotis, E koinonike istoria tou Peiraia, 147–160. 7. Pantelis M. Kontogiannis, “Scholeia allophylon en Thessalonike,” Makedonikon Emerologion Pammakedonikou Syllogou 1910 (Athens: Akropolis, 1910), 157, 162–181; Rena Molho, “Ekpaideutike metarrythmise kai epangelmatike drasterioteta ton Evraion ste Thessalonike sten arche tou aiona,” in Thessalonike: epangelmata, paragoge-emporio, koinonike zoe, 18os–20os aionas (Thessaloniki: EVETH, 1998), 130; Makedonikon Emerologion 1908 (Athens: Akropolis, 1908), 130, 275; Marc Baer, “Cosmopolitanism and Morality: Dönme Schools in Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century Ottoman Salonica,” paper presented at the 8th Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting, Florence & Montecatini Terme, 2007; Journal de Salonique, July 13, 1908, 1. 8. Skourtis, “Evraioitalike ekpaideutike drasterioteta ste Thessalonike,” 385; French Consulate, December 29, 1912, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 87, File “Année 1912, Mission Laïque Française”; Makedonikon Emerologion 1908, 275. 9. Skourtis, “Evraioitalike ekpaideutike drasterioteta ste Thessalonike,” 378–379; Papastathis, Oi kanonismou ton orthodoxon ellenikon koinoteton, 163; Anonymous, “Eklipousai physiognomiai: Stauros Gregoriades,” Makedonikon Emerologion (1957), 161–162; Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas, 3: 92. 10. File “Syndicat des compagnies d’assurance contre l’incendie,” General State Archives-Historical Archive of Macedonia (GSA-HAM), Archive of Associations. 11. Christodoulou, E Thessalonike, polis tou emporiou, 30; Molho, Oi Evraioi tes Thessalonikes, 204; Esther Benbassa, “Associational Strategies in Ottoman Jewish Society in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” in The Jews of the Ottoman Empire, ed. Avigdor Levy, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 461–462. 12. Risal, La ville convoitée, 175–176; “Djudaizmo otomano. Ala ovra,” La Nasyon 1 (1909): 2.

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13. Malte Fuhrmann, “The Making of Competitive Internationally Standardized National Bourgeoisies: The Travelogue as Progress Report of Europeanization,” paper presented at the international conference “Bourgeois Seas: Revisiting the History of the Middle Classes in the Eastern Mediterranean Port Cities,” Florence, September 8–9, 2008. 14. Marcel Monmarché, De Paris à Constantinople (Paris: Hachette, 1912), 164; Frederick Moore, The Balkan Trail (London: Smith, Elder & Company, 1906), 128, quoted in Yannis Megas, Oi “Varkaredes” tes Thessalonikes: e anarchike voulgarike omada kai oi vomvistikes energeies tou 1903 (Athens: Trohalia, 1994), 131. 15. Journal de Salonique, May 5, 1898, 1; Journal de Salonique, January 14, 1904, 1; Journal de Salonique, February 25, 1904, 1. 16. Georgios K. Christodoulou, E Thessalonike kata ten teleutaian ekatontaetian (Thessaloniki: EVETH, 1936), 145–147; Journal de  Salonique, June  3, 1907, 1; Journal de  Salonique, July 4, 1907, 1. 17. Journal de Salonique, June 3, 1907, 2. 18. Journal de Salonique, June 9, 1907, 1. 19. Iggleses, Odegos tes Ellados, 45; Journal de Salonique, November 12, 1906, 1. 20. Exertzoglou, “Koinonike ierarchia, ideologia kai ethnike tautoteta,” 85–118; Molho, Oi Evraioi tes Thessalonikes, 111; Journal de Salonique, February 13, 1908, 2; Pharos tes Thessalonikes, January 22, 1908, 1. 21. Benbassa, “Associational Strategies in Ottoman Jewish Society,” 461–462; Molho, Oi Evraioi tes Thessalonikes, 204. 22. “Apospasma ek tou kanonismou tes Neas Lesches-Thessalonikes,” Deltion Emporikou Frontisteriou Neas Lesches-Thessalonikes 1 (1912); Pharos tes Thessalonikes, February 5, 1908, 1; Pharos tes Thessalonikes, February 5, 1908, 1. 23. Nea Lesche, February 27, 1905, Historical Archive of the National Bank of Greece (HANBG), 1/22/2/9. 24. Nikolaidis, O Makedonikos Agon, 49. 25. “Apospasma ek tou kanonismou tes Neas Lesches-Thessalonikes.” 26. Makedonia, June 9, 1914, 1; File “Lesche tes Thessalonikes,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations. 27. File “Lesche tes Thessalonikes,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations. 28. “Katastatikon Neas Lesches,” File “Emporike Lesche Thessalonikes,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations. 29. “Katastatikon Neas Lesches,” File “Emporike Lesche Thessalonikes,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations; Harrison, The Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth-Century France, 87. 30. Molho, “Le Cercle de Salonique,” 117–122; Nea Leschi, February 27, 1905, HANBG, 1/22/2/9; Katalogos melon Neas Lesches, GSA-HAM, Archive of the General Government of Macedonia (AGGM), Folder 27Α; Katastatikon Neas Lesches, File “Emporike Lesche Thessalonikes,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations; Journal de Salonique, February 24, 1908, 1. 31. I here follow Harrison, The Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth-Century France, 115–116.

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32. Molho, “Le Cercle de Salonique,” 117–122. 33. Journal de Salonique, December 31, 1903, 1; Journal de Salonique, January 25, 1904, 1; Journal de  Salonique, February  29, 1904, 3; Katastatikon Neas Lesches, File “Emporike Lesche Thessalonikes,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations; Katalogos melon Neas Lesches, GSA-HAM AGGM, Folder 27Α; Aletheia, February  14, 1904, 1; Journal de  Salonique, February 24, 1908, 2; Nea Aletheia, March 15, 1915, 3; To Phos, March 18, 1915, 3; Molho, “Le Cercle de Salonique,” 117–122. 34. Aletheia, July 26, 1903, 1; Aletheia, August 21, 1903, 2; Aletheia, August 12, 1903, 1; Pharos tes Makedonias, August 24, 1885, 1. 35. Reproduced in Journal de Salonique, January 21, 1907, 1. 36. Pharos tes Makedonias, August 24, 1885, 1; Aletheia, August 21, 1903, 2. 37. “Apospasma ek tou kanonismou tes Neas Lesches-Thessalonikes.” On engagement with sciences in voluntary associations, Bradley, Voluntary Associations in Tsarist Russia; Carol E. Harrison, “Citizens and Scientists: Toward a Gendered History of Scientific Practice in Post-Revolutionary France,” Gender & History 13 (2001): 444–480. 38. 17on etos tou en Thessalonike Philekpaideutikou Syllogou, 14; Aletheia, July  29, 1903, 1. 39. Christos Hadjiiossif, “E exostrepheia tes ellenikes oikonomias stis arches tou 20ou aiona kai oi synepeies tes sten exoterike politike,” in E Ellada ton Valkanikon Polemon, 1910–1914, ed. Greek Literary and Historical Archive (Athens: ELIA, 1993), 144–149; Spyros Karavas, “Makarioi oi katechontes ten gen”: gaioktetikoi schediasmoi pros apallotriose syneideseon ste Makedonia, 1880–1909 (Athens: Bibliorama, 2010). 40. Report on economic organization, n.d., DHAGMFA, ΑΑΚ/ΣΤ (1907). 41. Aletheia, July 29, 1903, 1. 42. AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1909 (Salonique, 1910), 25, 48–49. 43. Iggleses, Odegos tes Ellados, 147; Annuaire Oriental 1914, 1811. 44. “Apospasma ek tou kanonismou tes Neas Lesches-Thessalonikes”; AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1905–1906, 6; AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1907, 13–14. 45. Echoing Harrison, The Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth-Century France, 228. 46. Meropi Anastassiadou, “Sports d’élite et élites sportives à Salonique au tournant du siècle,” in Vivre dans L’Empire ottoman: sociabilités et relations intercommunautaires (XVIIIe–XXe siècles), eds. Paul Dumont and François Georgeon (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997), 146–147; Paul Dumont, “La Franc-maçonnerie d’obédience française à Salonique au début du XXe siècle,” Turcica 16 (1984): 65–94. 47. AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1907, 22; Journal de Salonique, March 5, 1906, 1. 48. Journal de Salonique, May 9, 1907, 1; Journal de Salonique, May 30, 1907, 1; AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1905–1906, 8–9. 49. Dumont, “La Franc-maçonnerie d’obédience française,” 72–73. 50. Ιggleses, Odegos tes Ellados, 36, 148; File “Syndicat des companies d’assurance contre l’incendie,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations. 51. Molho, Oi Evraioi tes Thessalonikes, 29–52.

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52. Mazower, “Travellers and the Oriental City,” 96; Levy, Salonique à la fin du XIXe siècle, 34; Eustratiades, Makedonia, 12. 53. Christos Christovasilis, Peri Evraion (Athens: Roes, 2007 [1894]), 57; Nikos Potamianos, “E rizospastike deksia kai to agrotiko zetema stis arches tou 20ou aiona. E periptose tou Chrestovasile kai tes etaireias ‘Ellenismos,’” Mnemon 26 (2004): 133–156. 54. On “pride of place,” Gerson, The Pride of Place. 55. Pandelis M. Nigdelis, Petrou N. Papageorgiou tou Thessalonikeos allelografia (1880–1912) (Thessaloniki: Etaireia Makedonikon Spoudon, 2004). 56. Thompson, “Telling ‘spatial stories,’” 523–556; Michael Herzfeld, “Localism and the Logic of Nationalistic Folklore,” 281–310. 57. As was the case in Habsburg Trieste where opposition to the “central government” fueled a supra-ethnic local discourse that ultimately served the interests of the dominant Italians: Ballinger, “Imperial Nostalgia,” 84–101. 58. Compte rendu sur les écoles israélites de Salonique pendant l’année 1878/79, 3, 4. On uses of the term “coreligionist,” see Compte rendu du Dr. M. Allatini sur les institutions israélites de Salonique pendant l’année 1879/80 (Salonique: La Epoca, 1880), 5. 59. Journal de Salonique, March 21, 1904, 1; Journal de Salonique, March 25, 1907, 1. 60. Jacques Abravanel, Mémoires posthumes et inachevées de Jacques Abravanel (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1999), 18; Christovasilis, Peri Evraion, 107–110. 61. Quoted in Molho, Oi Evraioi tes Thessalonikes, 286. 62. AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1908, 15. 63. Horton, July  11, 1911, AMMS, MMA4/b/24; Horton, May  15, 1911, AMMS, ΜΜΑ4/b/17. 64. On urban consciousness in late Ottoman Salonica, see Yerolympos, “Conscience citadine et intérêt municipal,” 123–144. 65. Henri Nahum, “Charisme et pouvoir d’un médecin juif. Moise Allatini (1809–1882), ‘le père de  Salonique,’” in Médecins et ingénieurs ottomans à l’ âge des nationalismes, ed. Meropi Anastasssiadou-Dumont (Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 2003), 49–62; Pharos tes Makedonias, September  11, 1882, 1; Pharos tes Makedonias, October  6, 1882, 1; Pharos tes Makedonias, May  5, 1884, 1; Journal de  Salonique, June  23, 1898, 1; Journal de  Salonique, March 28, 1904, 2; Aletheia, March 13, 1904, 1. 66. Journal de Salonique, May 4, 1908, 1. 67. I follow Kanner, Phtocheia kai philanthropia, 170. 68. Indicatively, Journal de Salonique, November 28, 1907, 1; Aletheia, November 1, 1903, 1; Skourtis, “Evraioitalike ekpaideutike drasterioteta ste Thessalonike,” 387. 69. AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1908, 15. 70. Journal de Salonique, August 4, 1908, 2. 71. Molho, “Le Cercle de Salonique,” 117–122; Dumont, “La Franc-maçonnerie d’obédience française,” 70–71; Aletheia, November 11, 1903, 1; Aletheia, April 20, 1904, 2. 72. Journal de Salonique, January 8, 1906, 1; Pharos tes Thessalonikes, January 8, 1908, 1; Αletheia, October 30, 1903, 1.

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73. Anastassiadou, “Sports d’élite et élites sportives à Salonique,” 146; Katastatikon Tektonikes Stoas Philippos (Thessaloniki: Papanestoros, 1920), 3. 74. Katastatikon Tektonikes Stoas Philippos, 3. 75. I use the concept of subculture as first coined by David Sorkin and subsequently employed by Till van Rahden to describe the embourgeoisement of German Jewry as an emulation of gentile bourgeois institutions. See Van Rahden, Jews and Other Germans, 89–93; David Sorkin, The Transformation of German Jewry, 1780–1840 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 107–123. 76. Molho, Oi Evraioi tes Thessalonikes, 43; Spyros Karavas, “Ekaton enas kanoniovolismoi gia te Thessalonike,” in Sten trochia tou Philippou Eliou: ideologikes chreseis kai emmones sten istoria kai ten politike, eds. Anna Matthaiou, Popi Polemi, and Stratis Bournazos (Athens: Benaki Museum, 2008), 84. 77. Pharos tes Makedonias, April 5, 1886, 1. 78. Ioannis A. Skourtis, “Prospatheies idryses austriakou emporikou epimeleteriou kai austriakes trapezas ste Thessalonike (1887–1894),” in XVI Panellenio Istoriko Synedrio. Praktika, ed. Greek Historical Society (Thessaloniki: Vanias, 1996), 313–316. 79. Hadjiiossif, “E exostrepheia tes ellenikes oikonomias,” 150–151. 80. Nikolaidis, O Makedonikos Agon, 43. 81. Journal de Salonique, June 11, 1908, 1. 82. On Salonica, see Gounaris, “Salonica;” Anastassiadou, Salonique; Mark Mazower, “Salonica between East and West, 1860–1912,” Dialogos: Hellenic Studies Review 1 (1994): 104–127. On other Eastern Mediterranean cities, see Ilbert, Alexandrie, 1830–1930; Campos, Ottoman Brothers; Hervé Georgelin, La fin de Smyrne: du cosmopolitisme aux nationalismes (Paris: CNRS, 2005). 83. Hanley, “Grieving Cosmopolitanism,” 1346–1367. 84. Fleming, Greece: A Jewish History, 52–54. Abram and David Errera 1. Kehl, September 6, 1912, AMMS, MMA4/b/27; Lamb, August 12, 1912, FO 295/22; Alexandros Dagas, Symvole sten ereuna gia ten oikonomike kai koinonike exelixe tes Thessalonikes: oikonomike dome kai koinonikos katamerismos tes ergasias, 1912–1940 (Thessaloniki: EVETH, 1998), 131; Evangelos A. Hekimoglou, “The Jewish Bourgeoisie in Thessaloniki, 1906–1911: Assets and Bankruptcies,” in The Jewish Communities of Southeastern Europe, ed. I. K. Hassiotis (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1997), 178; Horton, March 30, 1910, AMMS, MMA4/b/11; Margarita Dritsa, “Politismike idiateroteta kai epicheireseis: e periptose ton evraikon diktyon,” in O Ellenikos Evraismos: epistemoniko symposio, 3–4 Apriliou 1998, ed. Etaireia Spoudon Neoellenikou Politismou (Athens: Etaireia Spoudon, 1999), 328; Iggleses, Odegos tes Ellados, 45. 2. Archive of the Grand Orient de France, Box 1752; Journal de Salonique, April 9, 1906, 1; Yannis Megas, E Epanastase ton Neotourkon ste Thessalonike (Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 2003), 318.

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3. Makedonia, September  22, 1911, 1–2; Journal de  Salonique, September  6, 1908, 1; Megas, E Epanastase ton Neotourkon, 318; Journal de Salonique, September 15, 1908, 1; Journal de  Salonique, February  3, 1909, 2; Journal de  Salonique, February  4, 1909, 1; Journal de Salonique, February 11, 1909, 1; Journal de Salonique, February 14, 1909, 1; Nea Aletheia, December 29, 1909, 3. 4. Lamb, May 5, 1913, FO371/1820; Lamb, June 13, 1913, FO371/1820; Lamb, August 12, 1912, FO 295/22; Lamb, September 26, 1912, FO 295/22. 5. Barclay, February 11, 1913, FO 424/242; Lamb, March 12, 1913, FO 371/1806. 6. Journal de  Salonique, July  23, 1908, 2; Almanach national au profit de l’ hôpital de Hirsch, 81; Nea Aletheia, February 8, 1912, 3; Journal de Salonique, February 20, 1910, 3; Benghiat, December 1, 1909, AAIU Grèce I C 48; AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1910 (Salonique, 1911), 26, 58; Journal de Salonique, October 27, 1910, 3; Benghiat, June 17, 1909, AAIU Grèce I G 3. On Jewish intra-communal conflicts, see Cohen, Becoming Ottomans, 122–131. 7. Makedonia, December  18, 1912, 3; Lamb, December  31, 1912, FO 424/241; French Foreign Minister, April 2, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288. 8. Makedonia, December 19, 1914, 2; Board Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Salonica, June  16, 1915, Archive of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Thessaloniki (ACCIT), Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1914–1919; Hilary Pomeroy, “Memories of Salonica: Estrea Aelion Celebrates Her One Hundredth Birthday,” Meldar: Revista internacional de estudios sefardíes 1 (2020): 77; Spyros D. Loukatos, “E pyrkaia tes Thessalonikes, Augoustos 1917: dyo anekdotes ektheseis,” Thessaloniki 2 (1992): 320. Chapter 3 1. Journal de Salonique, July 23, 1908, 1. 2. Feroz Ahmad, “The Young Turk Revolution,” Journal of Contemporary History 3, no. 3 (1968): 19–36. 3. Journal de Salonique, July 25, 1908, 1. 4. Journal de  Salonique, July  27, 1908, 1; On Moise Cohen, see Jacob M. Landau, Tekinalp, Turkish Patriot, 1883–1961 (Istanbul: Peeters, 1984). 5. Journal de Salonique, July 27, 1908, 1. 6. Doğan Çetinkaya, The Young Turks and the Boycott Movement: Nationalism, Protest and the Working Classes in the Formation of Modern Turkey (London: I. B. Tauris, 2014); Aggelos Chotzidis, “Neotourkoi kai Kretiko Zetema (1908–1911): ethnikes kai oikonomikes parametroi ste Makedonia,” in XXVI Panellenio Istoriko Synedrio (27–29 May 2005). Praktika, ed. Greek Historical Society (Thessaloniki: Kyriakidi, 2006), 267–283; Peter Mentzel, “The Bulgarian Declaration of Independence and the 1908 Oriental Railway Strike: Conspiracy or Coincidence?” East European Quarterly 37, no. 4 (2003): 403–419. 7. Yavuz Selim Karakişla, “The 1908 Strike Wave in the Ottoman Empire,” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 16, no. 2 (1992): 153–177; Joshua Starr, “The Socialist Federation

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of Saloniki,” Jewish Social Studies 7, no.  4 (1945): 323–336; Ayfer Karakaya-Stump, “Debating Progress in a ‘Serious Newspaper for Muslim Women’: The Periodical Kadın of the Post-Revolutionary Salonica, 1908–1909,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 30, no. 2 (2003): 155–181. 8. Manolis Kandylakis, Ephemeridographia tes Thessalonikes, vol. 1 (Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 2000), 21. 9. AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1908, 27; “Muestra ovra,” La Nasyon 4 (1909): 11. 10. La Epoka, January 15, 1911, 1; “Atansyon!” La Nasyon 9 (1909): 3; AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1908, 3. 11. Paula Daccarett, “Jewish Social Services in Late Ottoman Salonica (1850–1912)” (PhD diss., Brandeis University, 2008), 40–43; Kanner, Phtocheia kai Philanhtropia; Danon, The Jews of Ottoman Izmir. 12. AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1905–1906, 11. 13. Rodrigue, French Jews, Turkish Jews, 116–118. 14. Palairet, The Balkan Economies, 353–354; Paul Dumont, “The Social Structure of the Jewish Community of Salonica at the End of the Nineteenth Century,” Southeastern Europe 5 (1979): 38–44; Nehama, ca. 1907, AAIU Grèce XVI E 202a. 15. Dumont, “The Social Structure,” 64. 16. Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigue, “L’artisanat juif en Turquie à la fin du XIXe siècle. L’Alliance Israélite Universelle et ses oeuvres d’apprentissage,” Turcica 17 (1985): 113–114; Molho, Oi Evraioi tes Thessalonikes, 170; AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1909, 5–6. 17. AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1909, 16–17, 48–49; Journal de  Salonique, October  5, 1909, 1; AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1908, 27; AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1910, 67. 18. AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1909, 16–17; Journal de  Salonique, October  5, 1909, 1; AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1908, 27; AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1910, 67. 19. AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1908, 27; Nehama, August 17, 1908, Archive of the Grand Orient de France, Box 1753. 20. Journal de Salonique, September 20, 1908, 1. 21. Journal de Salonique, June 20, 1909, 2; Journal de Salonique, December 21, 1908, 1; Journal de Salonique, January 17, 1909, 1. 22. Journal de Salonique, August 25, 1908, 2. 23. Journal de Salonique, August 9, 1908, 3; Journal de Salonique, August 25, 1908, 2. 24. Journal de Salonique, September 15, 1908, 1; Journal de Salonique, October 6, 1908, 1. 25. Journal de Salonique, June 19, 1910, 1. 26. Nehama, August 17, 1908, Archive of the Grand Orient de France, Box 1753. 27. See page 49. 28. AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1908, 49; AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1910, 51; Journal de Salonique, October 5, 1909, 2. 29. Cercle des Intimes, July 15, 1908, AAIU Grèce X E 147; Yosef Uziel, “Moadonim (Klubim) veAgudot Lesugehem,” in Saloniki, Ir va-em be Yisrael (Jerusalem: Centre de recherches sur le Judaïsme de Salonique, Union des Juifs de Grèce, 1967), 127–128; Molho, Oi

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Evraioi tes Thessalonikes, 84–85; La Epoka, January 15, 1911, 1; “El Klub dez Intim i el kavalyer Yakub Modiano,” La Nasyon 8 (1909): 7. 30. Journal de Salonique, August 23, 1908, 1; Cercle des Intimes, July 15, 1908, AAIU Grèce X E 147; Benghiat, March 24, 1909, AAIU Grèce XX bis E 265; Benghiat, December 1, 1909, AAIU Grèce Ι C 48; “La fyesta del lavoro,” La Nasyon 5 (1911): 3; “Por el byen de los ovradores,” La Nasyon 1 (1909): 7–9; “Muestra ovra,” 11; “Komunikado,” La Nasyon 2 (1909): 13; Journal de Salonique, December 18, 1908, 2; Journal de Salonique, January 10, 1909, 1; Abraham Benaroya, E prote stadiodromia tou ellenikou proletariatou (Athens: Stohastis, 1975), 48. 31. Journal de Salonique, January 10, 1909, 1; Benghiat, June 17, 1909, AAIU Grèce I G 3; La Epoka, January 6, 1911, 1; Journal de Salonique, July 19, 1910, 1; Journal de Salonique, October  27, 1910, 1; “Entre las korporasyones. Los lavoradores del tutun,” La Nasyon 3 (1909): 5–6. 32. Journal de Salonique, October 6, 1908, 1. 33. Journal de Salonique, October 1, 1908, 4; Journal de Salonique, June 20, 1909, 2. 34. Ilicak, “Jewish Socialism,” 56–57. 35. Benaroya, E prote stadiodromia, 24, 46–49; French consul, July  24, 1909, MAE CADN, Constantinople, Série D, Salonique, Box 37; Aletheia, May 29, 1911, 1; Cohen, Becoming Ottomans, 103–130. 36. Benghiat, December 31, 1909, AAIU Grèce IX E 119; Nehama, June 28, 1911, AAIU Grèce I G 3; Benghiat, January 17, 1910, AAIU Grèce IX E 119; Bulletin de la Grande Loge de district XI et de la Loge de Constantinople no. 678 (Février 1911–Février 1913) (Constantinople: Établissements Fratelli Haïm), 103; Benghiat, February17, 1909, AAIU Grèce XX bis E 265; Journal de Salonique, April 3, 1910, 3; List of Important Jews, Private Archive of Alfonso Levy; Benghiat, May 5, 1910, AAIU Grèce IX E 119. 37. Benghiat, January 26, 1909, AAIU Grèce XX bis E 265. 38. Benghiat, November 19, 1909, AAIU Grèce I G 3; Nehama, February 9, 1911, AAIU Grèce IX E 119; Report on the Meeting of the Local Committee of the Alliance, January 11, 1909, AAIU Grèce XX bis E 265; File “Bnei Zion,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations. On the rise of Zionism, Nehama, May 19, 1916, AAIU Grèce I G 3. 39. Tryphon Euaggelides, Nea Ellas, etoi istorike, geographike, topographike kai archaiologike perigraphe ton neon ellenikon choron (Athens: Saliveros, 1913), 22; Makedonia, October 12, 1911, 1; Ekthesis ton gegonoton kai tes katastaseos en te periphereia Thessalonikes kata to etos 1908, DHAGMFA, File AAK/Γ (1908). 40. Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas, 3: 120–121, 358–360; Makedonia, September 22, 1911, 1–2; Aletheia, June 13, 1909, 1. 41. Karavas “Makarioi oi katechontes ten gen.” 42. Aletheia, June 13, 1909, 1. 43. Makedonia, March 14, 1912, 1. 44. Aletheia, March 18, 1910, 1; Consul, January 28, 1908, DHAGMFA, File AAK/Γ (1908).

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45. Ekthesis ton gegonoton kai tes katastaseos en te periphereia Thessalonikes kata to etos 1908, DHAGMFA, File AAK/Γ (1908). 46. Chotzidis, “Neotourkoi kai Kretiko Zetema (1908–1911).” 47. Aletheia, December  20, 1908, 3; Logodosia tou dioiketikou symvouliou tou Philekpaideutikou Syllogou Thessalonikes (Thessaloniki: Divoles, 1909), 6–7; 38on etos. Logodosia Philekpaideutikou Syllogou Thessalonikes, 6; Empros, August 21, 1908, 1; Nea Aletheia, December  11, 1909, 1; File “Guilds’ Association,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations; Aletheia, October 24, 1908, 1. 48. Journal de Salonique, August 23, 1908, 3; Journal de Salonique, September 6, 1908, 1; Journal de Salonique, June 24, 1909, 1. 49. Pharos tes Thessalonikes, July 9, 1909, 1. 50. Aletheia, October 3, 1910, 3; Thermaikai Emerai, June 14, 1909, 73–74; “Somateia kai syntechniai en to nomo Thessalonikes,” Makedonikon Emerologion 1909 (Athens: Akropolis, 1909), 314; Banque d’Orient, May 8/21, 1909, GSA-HAM, Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 17; Ekthesis ton gegonoton kai tes katastaseos en te periphereia Thessalonikes kata to etos 1908, DHAGMFA, File AAK/Γ (1908); Makedonia, February 4, 1912, 1; Makedonia, March 13, 1912, 1. 51. Aletheia, February 15, 1909, 1; Aletheia, February 25, 1909, 3; Consul, February 21, 1909, DHAGMFA, File AAK/A (1909); Benghiat, December 1, 1909, AAIU Grèce IC 48. 52. Empros, December 27, 1908, 3. 53. Pharos tes Thessalonikes, February 12, 1909, 2–3. 54. “Nuestro nasyonalismo,” La Nasyon 7 (1909): 1–2. 55. Journal de Salonique, August 6, 1908, 1; Journal de Salonique, September 10, 1908, 1; Journal de Salonique, August 27, 1908, 1. 56. La Epoka, January 15, 1911, 1; “Djudaizmo Otomano. Unyon, Kongreso,” La Nasyon 1 (1909): 1; “Kongreso del Djudaizmo otomano (un puevlo ke no es puevlo),” La Nasyon 2 (1909): 4; “Muestra ovra,” 13; La Epoka, March 1, 1911, 1; “Nuestra kampanya Unyon i Kongreso,” La Nasyon 2 (1909): 2; “Nuestra kampanya Unyon i Kongreso,” La Nasyon 3 (1909): 9; Benghiat, November 21, 1909, AAIU Grèce XX bis E 265. 57. “Muestra ovra,” 11; Cercle des Intimes, July 15, 1908, AAIU Grèce X E 147; Benghiat, March 24, 1909, AAIU Grèce XX bis E 265. 58. “Muestra ovra,” 13. 59. Benghiat, December 1, 1909, AAIU Grèce I C 48; Nehama, March 20, 1909, AAIU Grèce XVII E 202. 60. Journal de Salonique, August 2, 1910, 3; Journal de Salonique, August 7, 1910, 3; Journal de Salonique, August 9, 1910, 1; Journal de Salonique, September 6, 1910, 3; Journal de Salonique, September 8, 1910, 3; Journal de Salonique, September 13, 1910, 3. 61. Lamb, February 23, 1910, FO 195/2357. 62. Journal de Salonique, September 6, 1908, 1. 63. Aletheia, November 9, 1908, 3; Satow, August 19, 1909, FO 195/2329; Satow, August 8, 1909, FO 195/2329; Aletheia, September 4, 1909, 3; Lamb, June 10, 1910, FO 195/2358.

310

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64. Lamb, June 28, 1910, FO 195/2358; Empros, July 11, 1910, 4; Çetinkaya, The Young Turks and the Boycott Movement. 65. Journal de Salonique, May 30, 1909, 1; Journal de Salonique, September 20, 1908, 1. 66. Aletheia, February 25, 1909, 3; Benghiat, December 1, 1909, AAIU Grèce I C 48; Aletheia, May 15, 1909, 1. 67. Consul, February 21, 1909, DHAGMFA, File AAK/A (1909). 68. Aletheia, May 20, 1909, 1. 69. Benghiat, December 1, 1909, AAIU Grèce, IC 48. 70. Georgios Hadjikyriakou, “Neotourkika,” Makedonikon Emerologion Pammakedonikou Syllogou 1912 (Athens: Akropolis, 1912), 100, 103–104. 71. Empros, February  22, 1911, 3–4; French consul, October  23, 1909, MAE CADN, Constantinople, Série D, Box 37. 72. Çetinkaya, The Young Turks and the Boycott Movement; Watenpaugh, Being Modern in the Middle East. 73. Hekimoglou, Ypothese Modiano. Chapter 4 1. Dominik Geppert, William Mulligan, and Andreas Rose, “Introduction,” in The Wars before the Great War: Conflict and International Politics before the Outbreak of the First World War, eds. Dominik Geppert, William Mulligan, and Andreas Rose (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 1–17. 2. Mazower, Salonica, 275–285. 3. Kehl, October  10, 1912, AMMS, MMA4/b/27; Kehl, October  25, 1912, AMMS, MMA4/b/27; Chief Rabbi Yaakov Meir, November  25, 1912, Gaster Papers, Albanian Committee (11.1912–10.01.1913), File 1. 4. Misrahi, November 14, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 50. 5. Bordereau des réclamations pour les dommages subis par des administrés français du fait des troupes bulgares, 1913, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Salonique, Série B, Box 134; Misrahi, November 25, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 50; Cohen, December  4, 1912, AAIU Grèce I C 49; Misrahi, November  14, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 50; Bordereau des réclamations pour les dommages subis par des administrés français du fait des troupes grecques, 1913, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Salonique, Série B, Box 134; Cohen, November 19, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 50; Foreign Ministry, February 3, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288; Foreign Ministry, December 19, 1912, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 134. 6. Misrahi, November 14, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 50. 7. Jean Leune, Une revanche, une étape (Paris: Librairie Chapelot, 1914), 402. 8. The American Jewish Yearbook 15 (1913) (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America), 299; Nehama, December 22, 1912, AAIU Grèce I C 49. 9. Nehama, November 12, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 51.

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10. Nehama, November 27, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 51; Nehama, January 13, 1913, AAIU Grèce XVI E 202a. 11. Derek J. Penslar, Shylock’s Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). 12. Bigart, November 7, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 50; Misrahi, November 25, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 50; Chief Rabbi, November  25, 1912, Gaster Papers, Albanian Committee (11.1912–10.01.1913), File 1; Local Committee, January 6, 1913, AAIU Grèce VI B 26. 13. Nehama, November 12, 1912, AAIU Grèce I C 51; D. Florentin, December 17, 1912, Central Zionist Archives, Z3/119. 14. El Avenir, December 1912; Press Bureau of the General Government of Macedonia, December 22, 1912, DHAGMFA, 1912/AAK/Θ (1912). 15. See pages 119–121. 16. “El konsilyo jen-israelit,” La Nasyon 5 (1909): 1; File “Jewish Associations,” Archive of the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki; Α. Maissa, February 28, 1911, Central Zionist Archives, A119.127. On youth in Zionist discourse, see Michael Berkowitz, Zionist Culture and West European Jewry before the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 99–118. 17. Nehama, November 30, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 51. 18. On the concept of the royal alliance, see Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, “‘Serviteurs des rois et non serviteurs des serviteurs’: sur quelques aspects de l’histoire politique des Juifs,” Raisons politiques 7 (2002): 19–52. On royal alliance in the Ottoman context, see Cohen, Becoming Ottomans, 1. 19. Cohen, December 4, 1912, AAIU Grèce I C 50; Nehama, November 27, 1912, AAIU Grèce I C 51; Makedonia, December 13, 1912, 2; Israelitike Epitheoresis 2/1 (March 1913): 13; Nehama, March 14, 1913, AAIU Grèce Ι G 3; Makedonia, January 3, 1913, 3; Cohen, November 19, 1912, AAIU Grèce I C 50; Elite young Jewish women also enrolled in the nurses’ corps: Israelitike Epitheoresis 2, no. 5 (July 1913): 87. 20. I here follow Ozbek, “Philanthropic Activity, Ottoman Patriotism, and the Hamidian regime.” 21. Nehama, November 30, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 51. 22. Nehama, November 30, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 51. 23. French Foreign Minister, April  14, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de  France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288. 24. Gounaris, Steam over Macedonia, 164–165; French consul, May  19, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de  France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288; Lamb, May  19, 1913, FO 424/242; Cofinas, Ta oikonomika tes Makedonias. 25. Ahmet Orhun Akarli, “Growth and Retardation in the Ottoman Economy, the Case of Ottoman Selanik, 1876–1912” (PhD diss., London School of Economics, 2001); Gounaris, Steam over Macedonia; Lamb, December 27, 1912, FO 368/872; Soterios Skleros, E Nea Ellas (Alexandria: Ptolemaios 1913), 66; Manchester Chamber of Commerce, October 1, 1913, FO 424/241.

312

Notes to Chapter 4

26. Lamb, December 27, 1912, FO 368/872. 27. Gounaris, Steam over Macedonia, 168–170; Demetres Takas and Yannis Megas, Metoches kai omologa: Makedonia-Thessalonike, 1870–1940 (Athens: Kapon, 2001), 32; Kostas Foundanopoulos, Ergasia kai ergatiko kinema ste Thessalonike, 1908–1936 (Athens: Nefeli, 2005), 26–27; Hekimoglou, Ypothese Modiano, 63. 28. Dritsa, “Politismike idiaiteroteta kai epicheireseis,” 336–337; Walter P. Zenner, “Streams of Immigration: Sephardic Immigration to Britain and the United States,” in From Iberia to Diaspora: Studies in Sephardic History and Culture, eds. Yedida Kalfon Stillman and Norman A. Stillman (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 139–150; Annie Benveniste, Le Bosphore à la Roquette: la communauté judéo-espagnol à Paris (1914–1940) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1989); Lida-Maria Dodou, “Emigration to the Habsburg Empire: The Case of Salonica Jews, 1867–1918,” Journal of Austrian Studies 56, no. 2 (2023): 53–62; Skourtis, “Prospatheies idryses austriakou emporikou epimeleteriou,” 309-331. 29. Gounaris, Steam over Macedonia, 197; Vasilis Ritzaleos, “Oi evraikes koinotetes sten Anatolike Makedonia kai te Thrake apo ta mesa tou 19ou aiona mechri ton B Pankosmio Polemo” (PhD diss., Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2007), 22, 103–104. 30. Nikolaidis, O Makedonikos Agon, 48; General Director, May 16/29, 1908, GSA-HAM, Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 15; File “Firm of Selim and Ahmed Avdi,” GSA-HAM, Archive of the Court of First Instance, Bankruptcies, ΑΕΕ: Β/Δικ.1.2; Leon Sciaky, Farewell to Salonica (London: W. H. Allen, 1946). 31. French consul, May 19, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288; Nehama, January 13, 1913, AAIU Grèce XVI E 202a. 32. McCarthy, Death and Exile; Lamb, December  27, 1912, FO 368/872; Rousso, March 27, 1914, AAIU Grèce VII B 27; Diplomatic and Consular Reports. Turkey. Report for the Year 1912 on the Trade of the Consular District of Salonica (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1913), 5. 33. Manchester Chamber of Commerce, January 18, 1913, FO 424/241. 34. As reprinted in Makedonia, December 18, 1912, 3; French consul, May 19, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288. 35. Paget, January 23, 1913, FO 424/241; Memorandum communicated by Count Trauttmansdorff, February 17, 1913, FO 424/242; Paget, March 5, 1913, FO 424/243. 36. See the letter of the Belgrade Chamber of Commerce to the Salonica Chamber of Commerce, Nea Aletheia, February 15, 1913, 3. 37. US consul, October  13, 1913, National Archives, Washington, DC, Archives of the United States Department of State, Series: Turkey, Microfilm 353; Grey, February 14, 1913, FO 424/242. For Bulgaria and the de Botton commercial company, see Bax-Ironside, April 30, 1913, FO 424/245. 38. Lamb, December 31, 1912, FO 424/241. 39. Press Bureau of the General Government of Macedonia, December  22, 1912, DHAGMFA, AAK/Θ (1912); Lamb, December 31, 1912, FO 424/241. 40. Lamb, March 12, 1913, FO 371/1806; Lamb, December 31, 1912, FO 424/241.

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41. Press Bureau of the General Government of Macedonia, December  22, 1912, DHAGMFA, AAK/Θ (1912). 42. French ambassador, June 15, 1914, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288. 43. Mc Carthy, Death and Exile. 44. Lamb (Salonica), December 31, 1912, FO 424/241; Makedonia December 19, 1912, 1; Nea Aletheia, December 19, 1912, 1; US consul, February 2, 1913, AMMS, MMA4/b/27; Makedonia, December  20, 1912, 1; Nea Aletheia, January  24, 1913, 1; Nea Aletheia, January 30, 1913, 1. 45. Makedonia, December 19, 1912, 1; Makedonia, December 21, 1912, 1. 46. French foreign minister, February 14, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288. 47. Makedonia, December 21, 1912, 1. 48. Molho, “Thessalonique après 1912,” 47–60; Lamb, March 12, 1913, FO 371/1806; Romanos, December 7, 1912, London Metropolitan Archives, Archive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews (LMA ABDBJ), ACC 3121/E3/158/2; [Illegible], April 7, 1913, LMA ABDBJ, ACC 3121/C11/2/4. 49. Cofinas interviewed in the Jewish newspaper L’Indépendant. Republished in Makedonia, April 14, 1913, 1. See also Papamichos Chronakis, “De-Judaicizing a Class, Hellenizing a City,” 373–403. 50. Sir F. Bertie, February 12, 1913, FO 424/242; Makedonia, January 15, 1913, 1; Nea Aletheia, January 30, 1913, 1; Grey, February 14, 1913, FO 424/242; Goschen, March 1, 1913, FO 424/243; Rodd, March 5, 1913, FO 424/243. Cofinas claimed the Greek policy was endorsed both in Salonica and throughout Europe: G. N. Cofinas, La question de Salonique. Pourquoi Salonique prétend demeurer grecque (extrait du journal «Le Progrès») (Athens: Estia, 1913). 51. Sir N. Helme, February 6, 1913, FO 424/242. 52. F. R. Bridge, “Tarde Venientibus Ossa: Austro-Hungarian Colonial Aspirations in Asia Minor 1913–14,” Middle Eastern Studies 6, no.  3 (1970): 319–330; M.  L. Flaningam, “German Economic Controls in Bulgaria: 1894–1914,” American Slavic and East European Review 20, no. 1 (1961): 99–108; Mika Suonpää, “Financial Speculation, Political Risks, and Legal Complications: British Commercial Policy in the Balkans, c. 1906–1914,” The Historical Journal 55, no. 1 (2012): 97–117; Angelo Tamborra, “The Rise of Italian Industry and the Balkans (1900–1914),” Journal of European Economic History 3 (1974): 87–120; Palairet, The Balkan Economies c. 1800–1914; Stein, Extraterritorial Dreams. 53. Makedonia, February 5, 1913, 1. 54. Foreign minister, April 15, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288; Foreign minister, April 8, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288; Foreign minister, April 5, 1913 and April 2, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288; Minister of commerce, April 3, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288; President of the Paris Chamber of Commerce, March 4, 1913, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288.

314

Notes to Chapter 4

55. Salonica Chamber of Commerce, January 8, 1913, FO 424/241; Manchester Chamber of Commerce, January 10, 1913, and January 18, 1913, FO 424/241; London Chamber of Commerce, January 2, 1913, FO 424/241; French foreign minister, April 5, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de  France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288; Grey, March  20, 1913, FO 371/1799. 56. Memorandum communicated by Count von Trauttmansdorff, February 17, 1913, FO 424/242; Sir E. Goschen, January 10, 1913, FO 424/241. 57. Count von Trauttmansdorff, August 2, 1913, FO 371/1799; Austro-Hungarian Embassy, October  29, 1913, FO 371/1799; Italian Embassy, October  30, 1913, FO 371/1799; Memorandum communicated by Count von Trauttmansdorff, August 2, 1913, FO 424/248; Grey, February 15, 1913, FO 424/242; Sir F. Bertie, February 12, 1913, FO 424/242; Sir F. Bertie, February 25, 1913, FO 424/242. 58. French consul, December 31, 1912, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Constantinople, Série D, Box 37. 59. French consul, February 12, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Constantinople, Série D, Box 37. 60. On Sephardi Jews in Paris, see Benveniste, Le Bosphore à la Roquette; in Manchester, Aviva Ben-Ur, “Identity Imperative: Ottoman Jews in Wartime and Interwar Britain,” Immigrants and Minorities 33, no. 2 (2015): 165–195; in Vienna, N. M. Gelber, “The Sephardic Community in Vienna,” Jewish Social Studies 10, no. 4 (1948): 359–396. Research in the archives of the local chambers of commerce might shed further light on these networks and substantiate this hypothesis. 61. John F. Laffey, “Municipal Imperialism in France: The Lyon Chamber of Commerce, 1900–1914,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 119, no. 1 (1975): 8–23. 62. Lamb, December 3, 1912, FO 368/872. Seventy-seven importers signed the petition: Manchester Chamber of Commerce, January 18, 1913, FO 424/241. 63. Foreign minister, September 16, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288. 64. El Liberal, March 1, 1913, included in Press Bureau of the General Government of Macedonia, December 22, 1912, DHAGMFA, ΑΑΚ/Θ (1912). 65. French consul, December 31, 1912, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Constantinople, Série D, Box 37. On the gendarmerie, Ipek Yosmaoglou, Blood Ties: Religion, Violence, and the Politics of Nationhood in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878–1908 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013). On the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, Murat Birdal, The Political Economy of Ottoman Public Debt: Insolvency and European Financial Control in the Late Nineteenth Century (London: I. B. Tauris, 2010). 66. Rena Molho, “E evraike koinoteta tes Thessalonikes kai e entaxe tes sto elleniko kratos (1912–1919),” in E Thessalonike meta to 1912, ed. Thessaloniki History Center (Thessaloniki: Kentro Istorias Thessalonikes, 1986), 285–301; Molho, “Thessalonique après 1912”; Mark Levene, “‘Ni grec, ni bulgare, ni turk’”—Salonika Jewry and the Balkan Wars, 1912–1913,” Jahrbuch des  Simon-Dubnow-Instituts 2 (2003): 65–97; N.  M. Gelber, “An

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Attempt to Internationalize Salonika, 1912–1913,” Jewish Social Studies 17, no.  2 (1955): 105–120. The merchants’ memorandum is mentioned in Foreign minister, June 7, 1913, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 288. 67. See pages 52–56. On extraterritorial protection, see Sarah Stein, Extraterritorial Dreams. 68. US consul, February 10, 1913, AMMS, MMA4/b/27. 69. Lamb, February 19, 1913, FO 424/242; Elliot, February 14, 1913, FO 424/242. 70. Yosmaoglou, Blood Ties; Andre Gerolumatos, The Balkan Wars: Myth, Reality, and the Eternal Conflict (London: Stoddart, 2001); Keith Brown, “‘Wiping out the Bulgar Race’: Hatred, Duty, and National Self-Fashioning in the Second Balkan War,” in Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands, eds. Omer Bartov and Erik D. Weitz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 298–316; McCarthy, Death and Exile; Richard C. Hall, The Balkan Wars 1912–1913: Prelude to the First World War (London: Routledge, 2000). 71. Indicatively, see Levene, “Ni grec, ni bulgare, ni turk”; Rozen, The Last Ottoman Century and beyond; Aristotle A. Kallis, “The Jewish Community of Salonica Under Siege: The Antisemitic Violence of the Summer of 1931,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 20, no. 1 (2006): 34–56; Fleming, Greece: A Jewish History. A thorough critique of the “decline” thesis is offered in Devin Naar, “Beyond the ‘Valley of Tears’: Reassessing the Narrative of Decline in Salonican Jewish Historiography,” Études Balkaniques 3 (2018): 536–567. 72. Lamb, May 25, 1913, FO 371/1826. 73. Kehl, October 12, 1912, AMMS, MMA4/b/27; Nea Aletheia, November 8, 1912, 3. 74. On the Muslim-Kutso Vlach-Jewish committee, see Lowther, February 18, 1913, FO 371/1794. Also note the arrest of Samuel Tiano, a rich Salonican Jewish merchant allegedly involved in advocating the autonomy of Macedonia while traveling in Europe. See Nehama, April 4, 1913, AAIU Grèce, XVI E 202a. Chapter 5 1. David A. Recanati, ed., Saloniki: Gedulata ve-hurbana shel Yerushalayim de-Balkan, vol.  2 (Tel Aviv: The Committee for the Publication of the Salonikan Memorial Book, 1972–1985), 211–213. 2. Yitzchak Kerem, “The Sea Activities of the Jews of Thessaloniki and Greece,” paper presented at the 41st Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies, Los Angeles, December 20–22, 2009. 3. L’Indépendant, July 16, 1915, 2. 4. Cambon, September 25, 1915, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 22. 5. George B. Leon, Greece and the Great Powers, 1914–1917 (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1974). 6. Alan Palmer, The Gardeners of Salonika (New York: Faber and Faber, 1965). Yohann Chanoir, “Army of the Orient,” in 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First

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World War, eds. Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson (Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, 2015), DOI: 10.15463/ ie1418.10628. 7. Nehama, Histoire des Israélites de Salonique 7: 1571. 8. Makedonia, September 27, 1915, 2; 40th Council Meeting, November 2, 1915, Thessaloniki Municipal Archives, Municipal Council Minutes; Ephemeris ton Valkanion, May 23, 1919, 3; 14th Council Meeting, March 3, 1917, Thessaloniki Municipal Archives, Municipal Council Minutes; Director of Supplies, Salonika Army, March  3, 1916, WO 95/4787. 9. Merchants’ letter, December  1, 1917, ACAT, File “1916–1919”; Minutes of the 16th Meeting of the Refugee Settlement Committee, July 12, 1914, GSA-HAM AGGM, File 64; Petition of soap manufacturers of Salonica, September 7, 1920, ACAT, File “1920–1929.” 10. Director of Supplies and Transport, British Salonica Force (BSF), March 22, 1918, WO 95/4791. 11. Nea Aletheia, August 24, 1915, 2; Salonica Branch of the National Bank of Greece, November 9, 1920, HANBG, Archive of the National Bank of Greece, 1/42/1/76; Société Anonyme Ottomane Industrielle & Commerciale de  Salonique. 22me assemblée générale ordinaire du 28 Juillet 1919. Rapport du conseil d’administration ([Salonique]: Yomtov & Stroumza, [1919]), 6. 12. Graillet, September 1, 1918, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 139. 13. Dagas, Symvole sten ereuna gia ten oikonomike kai koinonike exelixe tes Thessalonikes, 273–274. 14. Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, 3: 21; Director of Supplies and Transport, BSF, March 26, 1917, WO 95/4790. 15. Command Paymaster Salonika, April 4, 1916, WO 95/4789; Evangelos A. Hekimoglou, Thessalonike kai Ethnike Trapeza, 1913–1940 (Thessaloniki: National Bank of Greece, 1989), 34; Ephemeris ton Valkanion, November 22, 1919, 1. 16. Memorandum of the Commercial Association of Salonica, November 3, 1918, ACAT, File “1916–1919.” 17. Union Transit Company (Glasgow), August 27, 1915, CO 323/675; Joseph Saias, La Grèce et les Israélites de Salonique (Paris: Imprimerie de la Conférence de la Paix, 1919), 38; Kostas Kostis, Istoria tes Ethnikes Trapezas tes Ellados (Athens: Morphotiko Idryma Ethnikes Trapezas, 2003), 182; L’Οpinion, January 10, 1915, 2. 18. Board Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Salonica, April 20, 1915, ACCIT, Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1914–1919. 19. Smart, March 25, 1920, FO 286/744; L’Indépendant, July 14, 1915, 1; Directorate of National Economy, May 28, 1917, DHAGMFA, Thessaloniki Archive, Ε/10.1916; Memorandum of the Commercial Association of Salonica, November 3, 1918, ACAT, File “1916–1919.” 20. L’Écho de Salonique, September 8, 1915, 3. 21. Makedonia, September 1, 1915, 1; Nea Aletheia, September 5, 1915, 2.

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22. Delcassé, August 31, 1915, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 22. 23. Delcassé, September 25, 1915, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 22. 24. Capitaine Huguet, August  30, 1918, MAE CADN, Consulat général de  France à Salonique, Série B, Box 139; Graillet, September  1, 1918, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 139. 25. Kenya Gazette, March 20, 1918, 220; Commonwealth of Australia Gazette 92, June 20, 1918, 1315. 26. Sous-Lieutenant Duvernoy, January  22, 1918, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 139. 27. Graillet, September 1, 1918, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 139; Capitaine Huguet August  30, 1918, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 139. 28. Dolfini, October 20, 1917, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 139; Chief Rabbi Meir, February  21, 1919, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 141. 29. Phillip Dehne, “The Ministry of Blockade during the First World War and the Demise of Free Trade,” Twentieth Century British History 27, no. 3 (2016): 333–356; Christof Dejung and Andreas Zangger, “British Wartime Protectionism and Swiss Trading Companies in Asia during the First World War,” Past & Present 207, no. 1 (2010): 181–213; Marjorie Milbank Farrar, Conflict and Compromise: The Strategy, Politics and Diplomacy of the French Blockade, 1914–1918 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974); John McDermott, “Trading with the Enemy: British Business and the Law During the First World War,” Canadian Journal of History 32 (1997): 201–219. 30. Nikos Potamianos, “Rythmiseis tes agoras sten Ellada tou A Pankosmiou Polemou: diatimeseis, katadioxe tes aischrokerdeias kai enoikiostasio,” Archeiotaxio 17 (2015): 55–65. 31. Alexandros A. Pallis, “Racial Migrations in the Balkans during the Years 1912–1924,” The Geographical Journal 66, no. 4 (1925): 315–331. 32. Makedonia, July 11, 1915, 2. 33. Makedonia, July 2, 1915, 3; Board of the Commercial Association of Salonica, n.d. (circa October 1917), ACAT, File “1916–1919.” 34. To Phos, May 19, 1919, 1; Union Transit Company (Glasgow), August 27, 1915, CO 323/675; Minutes of the 16th Meeting of the Refugee Settlement Commission, July 12, 1914, GSA-HAM AGGM, File 64. 35. To Phos, June 15, 1916, 2. 36. George Th. Mavrogordatos, Stillborn Republic: Social Coalitions and Party Strategies in Greece, 1922–1936 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 236–237; Dimosthenis Dodos, Oi Evraioi tes Thessalonikes stis ekloges tou ellenikou kratous, 1915–1936 (Athens: Savvalas, 2005). 37. L’Indépendant, September 21, 1915, 6; L’Opinion, July 22, 1915, 1.

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38. Palmer, The Gardeners of Salonika, 68. 39. Director of Supplies and Transport, BSF, October 31, 1917, WO 95/4790. 40. Director of Supplies and Transport, BSF, Appendix C, May 1918, WO 95/4791. 41. Director of Supplies and Transport, BSF, Appendix F, January 1918, WO 95/4791. 42. L’Opinion, August 11, 1916, 3. 43. Albert Charles Wratislav, A Consul in the East (London: Blackwood & Sons, 1924), 323. 44. David Dutton, The Politics of Diplomacy: Britain and France in the Balkans in the First World War (London: I. B. Tauris, 1998), 143–166; Dimitris Baharas, “‘Symmachikes epemvaseis’ se oikonomies polemou: anglogallikos antagonismos kai oikonomika paichnidia ste Makedonia tou 1916–1917,” Archeiotaxio 17 (2015): 28–41. 45. D’Espèrey, November 19, 1918, HANBG, Archive of the French Foreign Ministry, Microfilm 418. Commandement en chef des Armées Alliées, February 14, 1917, Archives de la Défense, Box 7 N 723. 46. Wratislav, September 10, 1916, FO 368/1534. 47. D’Espèrey, November 19, 1918, HANBG, Archive of the French Foreign Ministry, Microfilm 418. 48. Thessaloniki Press Bureau, May 29, 1919, Private Archive of Rena Molho. 49. Deputy Adjutant and Quartermaster General’s Branch, BSF, November  16, 1916, WO 95/4764; Director of Supplies and Transport, BSF, December 27, 1917, WO 95/4790. 50. Quartermaster General’s Branch, BSF, August  5, 1918, WO 95/4769; Director of Supplies, Salonica Army, January  26, 1916, WO 95/4787; Deputy Adjutant and Quartermaster General’s Branch, BSF, November 16, 1916, WO 95/4764. 51. Director of Ordnance Services, November 28, 1916, WO 95/4787. 52. De Bilinski, August 14, 1917, FO 368/1755. 53. Nea Aletheia, May 21, 1915, 3. On the minor importance the British assigned to the Anglo-Greek League, see Wratislav, February 12, 1919, FO 286/708. 54. L’Opinion, August 26, 1915, 2; L’Opinion, August 20, 1916, 3; L’Indépendant, February 8, 1916, 2; Graillet, April 2, 1919, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 141. 55. Dolfini, October 20, 1917, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 139; Nehama, March  20, 1918, MAE CADN, Consulat général de  France à Salonique, Série B, Box 139. 56. David Dutton, “The Balkan Campaign and French War Aims in the Great War,” The English Historical Review 94 (1979): 97–113. 57. Office Commercial Français du  Levant, Agence de  Salonique, June  7, 1920, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 24; Commandement en chef des Armées Alliées, February 14, 1917, Archives de la Défense, Box 7 N 723. 58. Ministère du Commerce de l’Industrie des Postes et des Télégraphes, December 23, 1918, HANBG, Archive of the French Foreign Ministry, Microfilm 418.

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59. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard, trans. Archibald Colquhoun (London: Vintage, 2007), 40. 60. Derek Penslar, Jews and the Military (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 166–194; Eric Lohr, “The Russian Army and the Jews: Mass Deportation, Hostages, and Violence during World War I,” The Russian Review 60 (2001): 404–419; Bruce Pauley, From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 61–72; Robert Blobaum, “A Warsaw Story: Polish-Jewish Relations During the First World War,” in Warsaw: The Jewish Metropolis, eds. Glenn Dynner and François Guesnet (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 271–297; Yigit Akin, When the War Came Home: The Ottomans’ Great War and the Devastation of an Empire (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018), 163–190. 61. Only four such incidents were identified. See Nea Aletheia, September 28, 1915, 2; Petition of Maria Ath. Katsamene and Konstantinos Ath. Katsamenes, April  4, 1917, DHAGMFA, Thessaloniki Archive, Ε/5.1917; Ressos, April 12, 1917, DHAGMFA, Thessaloniki Archive, Ε/5.1917; Petition of the inhabitants of the villages of Saratsi, Kavalar, and Balaftsa, April 22, 1917, DHAGMFA, Thessaloniki Archive, Ε/5.1917. 62. To Phos, November 30, 1919, 1. 63. To Phos, November 7, 1918, 2. 64. Thessaloniki Press Bureau, October 17, 1919, DHAGMFA, New Archive of the History of Jews in Greece, Microfilm RG 45.001 M Reel 1. 65. L’Indépendant, February 20, 1919, 1; Ministry of National Economy, July 24, 1919, DHAGMFA, New Archive of the History of Jews in Greece, Microfilm RG 45.001 M Reel 1; Venizelos, July 8, 1919, DHAGMFA, New Archive of the History of Jews in Greece, Microfilm RG 45.001 M Reel 1. 66. Annexe à la dépêche du consulat de France à Salonique no. 7, January 9, 1918, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 275. 67. Guilds’ Association of Salonica, August 23, 1914, GSA-HAM AGGM, File 30.1; Nea Aletheia, January 5, 1915, 2; Makedonia, January 10, 1916, 2. 68. L’Écho de Salonique, July 25, 1915, 1. 69. Maureen Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 33. 70. To Phos, July 6, 1917, 1; To Phos, October 24, 1918, 2; Nea Aletheia, November 28, 1914, 3; L’Indépendant, January 9, 1918, 1. 71. Makedonia, November 5, 1914, 2; L’Indépendant, June 3, 1917, 3. 72. Ephemeris ton Valkanion, April 18, 1919, 2. 73. To Phos, February 13, 1919, 1; Makedonia, September 22, 1915, 3. 74. Nikos Potamianos, “E paradosiake mikroastike taxe tes Athenas: magazatores kai viotechnes, 1880–1925” (PhD diss., University of Crete, 2011), 1064–1074. 75. Nea Aletheia, September 23, 1915, 1; Nea Aletheia, August 21, 1914, 1. 76. To Phos, October 18, 1915, 1.

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77. Makedonia, August 11, 1914, 1. 78. To Phos, July 6, 1917, 1; Nea Aletheia, November 5, 1914, 2; Nea Aletheia, December 20, 1914, 1. 79. To Phos, July 6, 1917, 1. 80. To Phos, May 24, 1918, 1. 81. To Phos, November 16, 1918, 1. Similar references abounded in the French-language Jewish press, too: indicatively, see L’Opinion, January 22, 1916, 1. 82. To Phos, November 16, 1918, 1. 83. To Phos, June 30, 1919, 1; To Phos, June 26, 1919, 1; To Phos, July 13, 1919, 1. 84. To Phos, July 12, 1919, 1; To Phos, July 13, 1919, 1. 85. To Phos, July 12, 1919, 1. Although I rely on To Phos, most newspapers followed this tripartite system of social representation and the division between workers and consumers. 86. To Phos, July 13, 1919, 1. 87. To Phos, May 15, 1919, 1. 88. For important analyses of the social and cultural facets of food politics, see Belinda Davis and Thierry Bonzon, “Feeding the Cities,” in Capital Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin, 1914–1919, eds. Jay Winter and Jean-Louis Robert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 305–341; Belinda Davis, Home Fires Burning: Food, Politics, and Everyday Life in World War I Berlin (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000); Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire; Dana Frank, “Housewives, Socialists, and the Politics of Food: The 1917 New York Cost-of-Living Protests,” Feminist Studies 11, no. 2 (1985): 255–285; Maria Concetta Dentoni, “Questione alimentare e questione sociale durante la Prima Guerra Mondiale in Italia,” Società e Storia 37 (1987): 612–646; Roger Chickering, The Great War and Urban Life in Germany: Freiburg, 1914–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Melanie Tanielian, “Feeding the City: The Beirut Municipality and the Politics of Food during World War I,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 46, no. 4 (2014): 737–758; Elif Metinsoy, Ottoman Women during World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 41–62. 89. Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 61–72. 90. Belinda Davis, “Food Scarcity and the Empowerment of the Female Consumer in World War I Berlin,” in The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective, eds. Victoria De Grazia and Ellen Furlough (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 287–310. 91. On the notion of essential goods, see Barbara Alpern Engel, “Not by Bread Alone: Subsistence Riots in Russia during World War I,” The Journal of Modern History 69, no. 4 (1997): 718–721. On consumer politics, see Matthew Hilton, Consumerism in 20th Century Britain: The Search for a Historical Movement (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 92. A photograph from 1916 taken by French photographer Rogers Caudriller shows men and women queuing outside a Salonica bakery. Private collection of Paris Papamichos Chronakis.

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93. Μakedonia, September 26, 1919, 1; Morris, May 2, 1918, National Archives, Washington, DC, Archives of the United States Department of State, Series: Greece, Microfilm 443. 94. Nea Aletheia, September 2, 1915, 3; To Phos, November 13, 1917, 1; To Phos, July 6, 1917, 1; Nea Aletheia, August 25, 1914, 2–3; Nea Aletheia, August 3, 1915, 2; Makedonia, January 17, 1916, 1; To Phos, June 26, 1919, 1. 95. To Phos, May 8, 1919, 1. 96. For one of the few explicit references to a handful of Jewish sugar wholesalers “filling their pockets with thousands [of drachmas]” at the expense of “the Greek people,” see Nea Aletheia, June 30, 1915, 2. On wartime antisemitism in Vienna, see Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 61–62. 97. Makedonia, August  7, 1911, 1; Makedonia, February  9, 1914, 1; Efi Avdela, “Class, Ethnicity, and Gender in Post-Ottoman Thessaloniki: The Great Tobacco Strike of 1914,” in Borderlines: Genders and Identities in War and Peace, 1870–1930, ed. Billie Melman (London: Routledge, 1998), 421–438. 98. Makedonia, July 23, 1915, 2; Nea Aletheia, November 23, 1915, 2. 99. L’Opinion, March 18, 1916, 1. 100. Morris, May 2, 1918, National Archives, Washington, DC, Archives of the United States Department of State, Series: Greece, Microfilm 443. 101. To Phos, May 15, 1918, 2. 102. To Phos, January 27, 1915, 2. 103. Nea Aletheia, June 24, 1918, 1; On strikes, see Makedonia, March 8–27, 1919. On the establishment of the Labor Center of Salonica, see Foundanopoulos, Ergasia kai ergatiko kinema ste Thessalonike, 319–328. 104. L’Indépendant, January 9, 1918, 1. 105. L’Opinion, March 18, 1916, 3; Unknown newspaper, 1916, AAIU Grèce XIX E 213. 106. Makedonia, October 18, 1915, 2. 107. To Phos, January 27, 1915, 1. 108. L’Indépendant, March 5, 1919, 1. 109. To Phos, June 3, 1917, 2; Ephemeris ton Valkanion, May 4, 1919, 2. 110. Council Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Salonica, June 3, 1919, ACCIT, Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1914–1919; Makedonia, June 20, 1919, 1. 111. Nea Aletheia, August 28, 1914, 2; Nea Aletheia, June 16, 1915, 3. 112. Nea Aletheia, April 15, 1915, 2. 113. Indicatively, Nea Aletheia, August 6, 1914, 1. 114. Nea Aletheia, August 25, 1914, 2–3. 115. To Phos, September 20, 1915, 1. 116. Nea Aletheia, July 30, 1918, 2. 117. Nea Aletheia, January 27, 1915, 4. 118. Guild of Restaurant Owners, December  8, 1917, ACAT, File “Documents, 1916–1919;” To Phos, January 26, 1918, 2; To Phos, January 27, 1918, 1; To Phos, February 22, 1918, 1; Nea Aletheia, February 22, 1918, 1.

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119. To Phos, February 1, 1918, 1. 120. To Phos, June 3, 1917, 2; Makedonia, March 13, 1919, 3. 121. Council Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Salonica, July 21, 1919, ACCIT, Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1914–1919. 122. Nea Aletheia, August 24, 1914, 2. 123. L’Écho de Salonique, July 27, 1915, 2. 124. Memorandum of the Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, November 3, 1918, ACAT, File “1916–1919.” 125. Nea Aletheia, September 3, 1918, 1; L’Indépendant, August 12, 1918, 1; Evangelos A. Hekimoglou, Ypourgeio Makedonias-Thrakes: 50 chronia istorias-nees prooptikes (Thessaloniki: E.E.N. Karamanlis, 2005); L’Indépendant, July 14, 1915, 1. 126. Memorandum of the Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, November 3, 1918, ACAT, File “1916–1919.” 127. L’Indépendant, August 19, 1918, 1; Smart, March 25, 1920, FO 286/744; L’Indépendant, August 8, 1918, 1. 128. Nea Aletheia, December 11, 1918, 1; Nea Aletheia, October 14, 1918, 1; Nea Aletheia, September 9, 1915. 129. On the construction of Greek national time and the othering of Ottoman rule, see Liakos, “The Construction of National Time,” 27–42. 130. See also the remarks of Barbara Weinstein on similar uses of the colonial and racial trope in São Paulo, Brazil: Barbara Weinstein, The Color of Modernity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015). 131. Nehama, November  10, 1920, AAIU Grèce II C 53; Mémoire sur la portion de la Macédoine dévolue à la Grèce par le traité de Bucarest, December 22, 1918, AAIU Grèce II C 53; L’Indépendant, August 8, 1918, 1. 132. Graillet, February 25, 1919, MAE CADN, Ambassade de France à Athènes, Série A, Box 275; Makedonia, February 6, 1919, 1. 133. To Phos, January 9, 1915, 1; Nea Aletheia, May 8, 1915, 1; Nea Aletheia, March 27, 1915, 1; Nea Aletheia, May 23, 1915, 1; Nea Aletheia, May 9, 1915, 1. 134. Eric Storm, “Nation-Building in the Provinces: The Interplay between Local, Regional and National Identities in Central and Western Europe, 1870–1945,” European History Quarterly 42, no. 4 (2012): 659; Alexander B. Murphy, “Regions as Social Constructs: The Gap between Theory and Practice,” Progress in Human Geography 15, no. 1 (1991): 31. 135. Murphy, “Regions as Social Constructs”: 22–35. 136. Nea Aletheia, November 3, 1918, 1. 137. L’Indépendant, November 27, 1918, 1. 138. Cited in Alan Wakefield and Simon Moody, Under the Devil’s Eye: Britain’s Forgotten Army at Salonika, 1915–1918 (Stroud: The History Press, 2004), 44. 139. Demetra Vaka, In the Heart of German Intrigue (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918), 247–248. On the Salonica of Western travelers, see Mark Mazower, “Travellers and the Oriental City,” 59–111.

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140. Indicatively, see “Salonica: An impression,” The Balkan News, March 26, 1916, 3; Jean de Tournes, “Contes et nouvelles: Lidoire et Azyade,” Revue Franco-Macédonienne 1 (1916): 26–28; Ripert D’Alauzier, Un drame historique: la résurrection de l’armée serbe (Paris: Payot, 1923). 141. Giorgos Th. Vafopoulos, “La Grande Guerre,” in Salonique, 1850–1918: la “ville des  Juifs” et le réveil des  Balkans, ed. Gilles Veinstein (Paris: Autrement, 1992), 255–260; Vakalopoulos, Istoria tes Thessalonikes, 381–382; Giorgos Vafopoulos, To paramythi tes Thessalonikes (Thessaloniki: Paratiritis, 1992), 46–51; Mazower, Salonica, 286–296; Wakefield, Under the Devil’s Eye, 45–49; Miltiade Hatzopoulos and Véronique Hautefeuille, “Le journal intime de Léon Rey: un témoignage exceptionnel sur le service archéologique de l’Armée d’ Orient et sur la vie dans le camp retranché de Salonique,” in La France et la Grèce dans la Grande Guerre, ed. Yannis Mourelos (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1992), 191–199. 142. Wakefield, Under the Devil’s Eye, 158–179; Mazower, Salonica, 311–314; Loukianos Hassiotis, “Makedoniko Metopo, 1915–1918: mia prote istoriographike prosengise,” Valkanika Symmeikta 8 (1996): 168; Alexandra Karadimou Gerolympou and Evangelos Hekimoglou, “E Thessalonike tou Protou Pankosmiou Polemou, 1915–1919,” Thessalonikeon Polis 7 (2002): 172; Palmer, The Gardeners of Salonika, 69, 155, 253; Joseph Nehama, Histoire des Israélites de Salonique, vol. 6 (Thessalonique: Communauté Israélite de Thessaloniki, 1978), 271–275; Nikos Vourgoutzis, Emporoi sto Thermaiko (Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 2003), 85–87; Vakalopoulos, Istoria tes Thessalonikes, 381; Fleming, “Becoming Greek,” 15–16. Joseph Misrahi 1. Rozen, “Money, Power, Politics,” 106; Nehama, March 15, 1919, AAIU Grèce XVII E 202c. 2. Nehama, November 30, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 51. 3. Nehama, March 14, 1913, AAIU Grèce Ι G 3; Nehama, June 18, 1915, AAIU Grèce ΙI C 53. 4. Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, 3: 34–40; Hubert Bonin, “Un outre-mer bancaire en Orient méditerranéen: des banques françaises marraines de la Banque de Salonique (de 1907 à la Seconde Guerre mondiale),” Revue Historique 305, no. 3 (2003): 268–302; List of Banks in Salonica, n.d., ACAT, “File 1916–1919”; Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, 3: 45; Société Anonyme Brasseries Olympos-Naoussa, October 1920, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 44. 5. Board Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Salonica, November 23, 1917, ACCIT, Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1914–1919; Association of Industries in Northern Greece, 1915–2015: 100 Chronia SVVE (Thessaloniki, 2016), 38–39. 6. Nehama, March 1, 1920, AAIU Grèce XVII E 202c; Board Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Salonica, January 14, 1920, ACCIT, Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1920–1922.

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Chapter 6 1. Clark, Twice a Stranger, 158–179; Mazower, Salonica, 311–346. 2. Pierron, Juifs et chrétiens; Fleming, Greece: A Jewish History; Mazower, Salonica; Naar, Jewish Salonica. On the concept of the nationalizing state, see Brubaker, “Nationalizing States in the Old ‘New Europe.’” 3. L’Indépendant, August 22, 1917, 1. 4. Benjamin Lieberman, Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe (Chicago: Ivan R. Ree, 2006), 53–79. 5. Morgan, July 20, 1914, FO 286/580. 6. Anon., “The Balkan Wars and the Jews,” The American Jewish Yearbook 15 (1913), 190–194; Shlomo Alboher, The Jews of Monastir Macedonia (Jerusalem: Holocaust Fund of the Jews from Macedonia, 2010), 295–296; Nea Aletheia, January 17, 1913, 1; Makedonia, July 25, 1913, 1; Νea Aletheia, August 16, 1913, 1. 7. Pallis, “Racial Migrations in the Balkans,” 315–331. 8. Rena Molho, “Jewish Working-Class Neighborhoods in Salonika Following the 1890 and 1917 Fires,” in The Last Ottoman Century and Beyond, ed. Minna Rozen, vol. 2 (Tel Aviv, 2002), 173–194. 9. Vasiliki Nerantzi-Varmazi, Vyzantine Thessalonike: enkomia tes poles (Thessaloniki: Vanias, 2005), 45. 10. Comité de Secours aux réfugiés de Castoria, Florina et Kailar en Bulgarie, May 17, 1917, FO 371/2890; Yura Konstantinova, The (In)visible Community: Bulgarians in Ottoman Salonica (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2021), 249–255. 11. Polymeris Voglis, Becoming a Subject: Political Prisoners during the Greek Civil War, 1945–1950 (New York: Berghahn, 2002). 12. L’Indépendant, July 19, 1918, 1. 13. Graillet, May 17, 1918, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 139; La situation des musulmans en Macédoine, March 26, 1914, GSA-HAM AGGM, File 74; GSA-HAM, Archive of the Banque d’Orient, File 21; Report on the anti-Greek activities of Muslims of Jewish descent (Dönme), n.d. (ca. 1914), GSA-HAM AGGM, File 64; Greek Foreign Ministry, May 14, 1914, GSA-HAM AGGM, File 64. 14. Greek Foreign Ministry, May 14, 1914, GSA-HAM AGGM, File 64. 15. Graillet, May  10, 1915, MAE CADN, Ambassade de  France à Athènes, Série A, Box 277. 16. Νea Aletheia, September  18, 1913, 1; L’Indépendant, January  30, 1917, 1; L’Indépendant, February 6, 1917, 1; Deltion tou Grapheiou Ergasias Makedonias etous 1914 (Thessaloniki: Divoles, 1914), 49; Ritzaleos, “Oi evraikes koinotetes sten Anatolike Makedonia kai te Thrake,” 33–34; American Red Cross Mission to Greece, Report no. 30. Investigation of the needs of the Jewish Communities of Greece, June 1, 1919, private Archive of Rena Molho. 17. Peter Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 145–150.

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18. Iggleses, Odegos tes Ellados, 39; Mark Cohen, Last Century of a Sephardic Community: The Jews of Monastir, 1839–1943 (New York: Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture, 2003), 139. 19. Emporikon Enkolpion 1921 (Thessaloniki: Papanestoros, 1921), 255; Cohen, Last Century of a Sephardic Community, 134; Naar, “The “‘Mother of Israel’ or the ‘Sephardi Metropolis’?” 96–97. 20. L’Indépendant, August 22, 1917, 1. 21. L’Indépendant, August 24, 1917, 1; L’Indépendant, October 31, 1917, 1. 22. L’Indépendant, September 9, 1917, 1; L’Indépendant, September 16, 1917, 1; To Phos, August 21, 1917, 2; To Phos, August 24, 1917, 2. 23. L’Indépendant, September 20, 1917, 1; Pallis, February 20, 1919, GSA-HAM AGGM, File 28; L’Indépendant, September 5, 1917, 1; To Phos, August 23, 1917, 1; To Phos, December 2, 1919, 2; Yerolympos, Urban Transformations in the Balkans, 99–124. 24. L’Opinion, February 18, 1921, 1. 25. Nehama, September 10, 1917, AAIU Grèce VII B 27. 26. Nehama, September 10, 1917, AAIU Grèce VII B 27. 27. Saias, La Grèce et les Israélites de Salonique, 38; L’Indépendant, August 3, 1918, 1. 28. Réponse au questionnaire de la mission Hoover, April 1, 1919, AAIU Grèce II C 53; To Phos, August 15, 1917, 2; Almanach national au profit de l’ hôpital de Hirsch (Salonique: L’Hôpital, 1911), 109; Yannis Karatzoglou, Enas aionas desmoi empistosynes: Emporiko kai Viomechaniko Epimeleterio Thessalonikes (Thessaloniki, 2016), 25, 33, 40, 41; Mari Alvo (née Benveniste), oral interview by Paris Papamichos Chronakis, April 2, 2006. 29. Morgan, March 21, 1914, FO 286/580; The American Jewish Yearbook 15 (1913), 196. 30. Rousso, March 27, 1914, AAIU Grèce VII B 27; Morgan, March 21, 1914, FO 286/580; The American Jewish Yearbook 15 (1913), 197, 255. 31. Morgan, March 21, 1914, FO 286/580. 32. Nehama, November 3, 1916, ΑAIU Grèce XVII E 202d; Nehama, October 15, 1917, ΑAIU Grèce VII B 27. 33. L’Indépendant, January  21, 1920, 1; Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, March 20, 1920, ACAT, File “1920–1929”; Deltion EΒETH 5–6 (December 15, 1919), 1; Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, May 4, 1920, ACAT, File “1920–1929”; Samuel Varsano, “Des Juifs de Salonique à Naples (1917–1940): un témoignage,” in Les voix de la mémoire, ed. Elie Carasso (Tarascon: É. Carasso, 1997), 95–102; Devin E. Naar, “From the ‘Jerusalem of the Balkans’ to the Goldene Medina: Jewish Immigration from Salonika to the United States,” American Jewish History 93, no. 4 (2007): 435–473. On France, see Benveniste, Le Bosphore à la Roquette; Ioannis A. Skourtis, “Metanasteuse ton Evraion tes Thessalonikes ste Gallia kata ton Mesopolemo,” Thessaloniki 3 (1992): 236. 34. Pierron, Juifs et chrétiens, 103, 117; Le Judaisme Sephardi 8, no. 70 (April 1939): 57; Nehama, May 14, 1919, AAIU Grèce VII B 27; Anne-Marie Rychner-Faraggi, Les Mallah: une famille sépharade de Salonique (Neuchatel, 1997), 15–22.

326

Notes to Chapter 6

35. Nehama, June 14, 1920, AAIU Grèce XVII E 202c. 36. Evangelos A. Hekimoglou, Trapezes kai Thessalonike, 1900–1936 (Thessaloniki: Morphotiko Idryma Ethnikes Trapezas, 1987), 105, 132–133, 136; Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, 3: 21, 22. 37. Gerolympou and Hekimoglou, “E Thessalonike tou Protou Pankosmiou Polemou, 1915–1919,” 176; Skourtis, “Metanasteuse,” 236. 38. Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, March 20, 1920, ACAT, File “1920–1929.” 39. Board Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Salonica, January 14, 1920, ACCIT, Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1920: Nehama, March  15, 1919, AAIU Grèce XVII E 202c. 40. Association des anciens élèves de la Mission Laïque Française, November 15, 1916, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 87. 41. Nehama, June  14, 1920, AAAIU Grèce XVII E 202c; Nehama, March  1, 1920, AAIU Grèce VII B 27. 42. Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, 3: 23. 43. Note sur la communauté Israélite, January 22, 1919, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 23; Rena Molho, “The Zionist Movement in Thessaloniki, 1899–1919,” in The Jewish Communities of Southeastern Europe, ed. Ioannis K. Hassiotis (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1997), 347–350; Paris Papamichos Chronakis, “A National Home in the Diaspora? Salonican Zionism and the Making of a Greco-Jewish City,” Journal of Levantine Studies 8, no. 2 (2018): 59–84. 44. Makedonia, May 10, 1914, 2; Makedonia, September 10, 1914, 2; Makedonia, October 18, 1915, 2. 45. Makedonia, January 18, 1920, 2. 46. Gregorios Karagiannidis, May  9, 1917, DHAGMFA, Thessaloniki Archive, File Ε/10.1916. 47. Marintsoglou Bros, May 9, 1917, DHAGMFA, Thessaloniki Archive, File Ε/10.1916; To Phos, August 7, 1918, 1; To Phos, June 1, 1917, 1; To Phos, April 13, 1919, 3; Marintsoglou Bros, January 16, 1917, ACAT, File “1916–1919”; Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, April 11, 1919, ACAT, File “1916–1919”; Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, 214–216. 48. Loukianos Hassiotis, “Prosphygikes omades kai exoterike politike: e periptose ton Voreiomakedonon (1913–1920, 1941–1950),” in Prosphyges sta Valkania: mneme kai ensomatose, eds. Iakovos Mihailidis and Vasilis Gounaris (Athens: Polis, 2004), 217–219. 49. File “Stromnitsiotes Association ‘Tiverioupolis,’” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations. Board Meeting, September 20, 1917, Archive of the Monastiriotes Association “Karteria,” Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1917–1921. 50. Hassiotis, “Prosphygikes omades kai eksoterike politike,” 219. 51. Spyros D. Loukatos, “Politeiographika Thessalonikes, nomou kai poles, sta mesa tes dekaetias tou 1910,” in E Thessalonike meta to 1912, ed. Thessaloniki History Center (Thessaloniki: Kentro Istorias Thessalonikes, 1985), 101–129.

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52. Orly C. Meron, “Jewish Entrepreneurship in Salonica (1912-1921): An Overview” (Working Paper, Economic History Seminar, Department of Economics, University of Athens, 2007), 22–32. 53. Meron, “Jewish Entrepreneurship in Salonica,” 32. 54. Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, 3: 17; Nea Aletheia, January 19, 1915, 1; Government Gazette 296 (August 31, 1915). 55. Dagas, Symvole sten ereuna gia ten oikonomike kai koinonike exelixe tes Thessalonikes, 64. 56. Old photos of Thessaloniki, “Katastrophike pyrkagia,” Facebook, March  6, 2019, https://​w ww​.facebook​.com/​g roups/​oldthessaloniki/​permalink/​10156071832999599. 57. Société Anonyme Brasseries Olympos-Naoussa, October 1920, MAE CADN, Consulat général de France à Salonique, Série B, Box 44. 58. Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, 3: 20, 200–204. 59. Nea Aletheia, May 21, 1915, 1; Board Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Salonica, February 22, 1917, ACCIT, Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1914–1919. 60. Hekimoglou, Ypothese Modiano, 38–46; File “Landowners’ Association of Thessaloniki,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations; Papamichos Chronakis, “De-Judaicizing a Class, Hellenizing a City,” 373–403. 61. To Phos, February 6, 1917, 3. 62. Hekimoglou, “Enthymion Hadjilazarou,” 42. 63. Theagenis G. Trompetas, December 14, 1918, ACAT, File “1916–1919.” 64. Panagiotis Georgoulis, E viomechanike kleronomia tes Thessalonikes (Thessaloniki: Paratiritis, 2005), 106. 65. Darques, Salonique au XXe siècle, 205. 66. Costas Lapavitsas, “Social Origins of Ottoman Industrialization: Evidence from the Macedonian Town of Naoussa” (Working Paper 142, School of Oriental and African Studies, Department of Economics, London, 2004), 4. 67. Modiano, Annuaire commercial, 35–46. 68. Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, 3: 21, 123, 178–179, 204, 300, 443, 468. 69. See pages 60–64. 70. Nea Aletheia, May 24, 1915, 1; Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, 3: 21, 240–242; Georgoulis, E viomechanike kleronomia tes Thessalonikes, 104. 71. Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, 3: 314–330. 72. Nea Aletheia, February 7, 1915, 2; Nea Aletheia, April 14, 1915, 2; Nea Aletheia, May 1, 1915, 1; Nea Aletheia, May 24, 1915, 1. 73. To Phos, September 16, 1917, 1; Nehama, September 10, 1917, AAIU Grèce VII B 27; L’Indépendant, September 8, 1917, 1; To Phos, December 3, 1919, 1; To Phos, December 7, 1919, 1; n.d. (late 1917), AAIU Grèce XVII E 202c.

328

Notes to Chapters 6 and 7

74. Board Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Salonica, July 30, 1928, ACCIT, Board members logbook, 1925–1932. Chapter 7 1. To Phos, August 4, 1917, 1. 2. La Epoka, May 30, 1911, 1. 3. Risal, La ville convoitée, 282–283. 4. Antonis Liakos, Ergasia kai politike sten Ellada tou Mesopolemou (Athens: Nefeli, 2016), 159–163, 443–444; Antonis Liakos, “Apo kratos phylax eis kratos pronoia?” in Symposio gia ton Eleutherio Venizelo, eds. Greek Literary and Historical Archive and Benaki Museum (Athens: ELIA and Mouseio Benake, 1988), 170–171; Gunnar Hering, Ta politika kommata sten Ellada, 1821-1936, vol.  2 (Athens: Morphotiko Idryma Ethnikes Trapezas, 2008), 803–811, 927–929. 5. Foundanopoulos, Ergasia kai ergatiko kinema ste Thessalonike, 143–144. 6. File “Greek Club of Salonica,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations; To Phos, June 15, 1915, 1. 7. Statute of the Greek-Jewish Commercial Club, File “Jewish Associations,” Archive of the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki. 8. File “Greek Club of Salonica,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations. 9. Cohen, November 12, 1912, AAIU Grèce Ι C 51. 10. Untitled, Private archive of Alfonso Levy. 11. Makedonia, April 27, 1914, 1. 12. Makedonia, March 11, 1914, 1; Makedonia, April 11, 1914, 1. 13. Perikles Argyropoulos, Apomnemoneumata (Athens: Vasilopoulos, 1970), 164. 14. Diplomatic and Consular Reports. Turkey. Report for the Year 1909 on the Trade of the Consular District of Salonica (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1910), 7. 15. Relevant files, GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations. 16. Akarli, “Growth and Retardation in the Ottoman Economy;” Foundanopoulos, Ergasia kai ergatiko kinema ste Thessalonike, 173–212. 17. Cited in Mavrogordatos, Stillborn Republic, 115. 18. Liakos, “Apo kratos phylax eis kratos pronoia?” 169–185; Stavros Moudopoulos, “O nomos 281/1914 gia ta epangelmatika somateia kai e epidrase tou sten exelixe tou syndikalistikou kinematos,” in Venizelismos kai astikos eksyghronismos, eds. Giorgos Mavrogordatos and Christos Hadjiiossif (Herakleion: Crete University Press, 1988), 225–253. 19. See pages 113–119. 20. Relevant files, GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations. 21. Gounaris, “Doing Business in Macedonia,” 169–180. 22. Nea Aletheia, November 29, 1913, 1. 23. Makedonia, September 2, 1915, 2. 24. Makedonia, January 26, 1914, 1; Makedonia, February 7, 1914, 1; Makedonia, February 9, 1914, 1; Makedonia, May 13, 1914, 1.

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25. Makedonia, January 25, 1914, 2. 26. Makedonia, April 3, 1914, 1; L’Opinion, November 23, 1916, 1; To Phos, October 28, 1916, 1. 27. Emporikon Enkolpion 1922 (Thessaloniki: Abravanel, 1922), 157, 162–163; Emporikon Enkolpion 1923 (Thessaloniki: Auge, 1923), 155–156; File “Association of Timber Merchants,” File “Association of Private Tobacco Factories of Salonica and Macedonia,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations. 28. Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, May 11, 1918, ACAT, File “1916–1919.” 29. To Phos, November 9, 1917, 1; To Phos, April 3, 1916, 1; L’Indépendant, March 13, 1916, 3; L’Indépendant, May 15, 1916, 3; L’Indépendant, January 31, 1917, 3; To Phos, July 13, 1918, 1; To Phos, November  3, 1917, 3; Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, April  14, 1918, ACAT, File “1916–1919.” 30. Situation de la population israélite sous la domination grecque (ca. December 1918), LMA ABDBJ, ACC 3121/C211/2/13. 31. On the expansion of the Greek state during the Great War, see Nikos Alivizatos, Oi politikoi thesmoi se krise, 1922–1974 (Athens: Themelio, 1996); Christos Hadjiiossif, “E Mpel Epok tou kefalaiou,” in Istoria tes Ellados tou 20ou aiona: oi aparches, 1900–1922, ed. Christos Hadjiiossif (Athens: Bibliorama, 1999), 344–348. 32. Files “Commercial Association of Thessaloniki,” “Industrialists’ Association of Macedonia,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations. 33. List of founding members, File “Commercial Association of Thessaloniki,” GSAHAM, Archive of Associations; Katastatikon tou Syndesmou Viomechanon Makedonias (Thessaloniki: Christomanos, 1915), 4. 34. Evangelos A. Hekimoglou, Syndesmos Viomechanion Voreiou Ellados: 1915–2015, ta prota ekato chronia (Thessaloniki: SVVE, 2015), 34. 35. Makedonia, January 25, 1914, 2; L’Opinion, November 20, 1916, 1; To Phos, August 24, 1917, 1; To Phos, May 17, 1919, 1. 36. Hekimoglou, Syndesmos Viomechanion Voreiou Ellados, 51, 35, 40, 43. 37. L’Indépendant, February 6, 1917, 1; Nea Aletheia, October 5, 1918, 1; Ephemeris ton Valkanion, May 7, 1919, 1. 38. Hekimoglou, Syndesmos Viomechanion Voreiou Ellados, 44. 39. Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, February 2, 1919, ACAT, File “1916–1919.” 40. Katastatikon tou Syndesmou Viomechanon Makedonias, 4. 41. Hekimoglou, Syndesmos Viomechanion Voreiou Ellados, 15, 20, 28. 42. Athanasios Makris, January 31, 1913, Benaki Museum, Archive of Eleftherios Venizelos, File 220; Demetrios V. Chatzopoulos, “Melete peri tes paragoges kai viomechanias Makedonias,” Deltion tou Grapheiou Ergasias Makedonias etous 1914 (Thessaloniki: Divoles, 1914): 100–101; Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Thessaloniki, Demetrios V. Chatzopoulos (Thessaloniki, 1966), 195–196; Nea Aletheia, May 11, 1914, 1; Nea Aletheia, March 10, 1914, 1. 43. Membership Registers 1917 and 1921, ACAT; Modiano, Annuaire commercial, 35–46.

330

Notes to Chapter 7

44. Registrations 1–100, 101–200, 201–300, ACCIT. 45. L’Ιndépendant, January 1, 1915, 1; L’Opinion, February 5, 1915, 1; Nea Aletheia, January 8, 1915, 1; Nea Aletheia, January 13, 1915, 1; Nea Aletheia, January 31, 1915, 1; To Phos, January 12, 1915, 1; Ephemeris ton Valkanion, April 30, 1919, 1. 46. L’Indépendant, June 16, 1915, 1. 47. L’Écho de Salonique, September 12, 1915, 1; L’Écho de Salonique, September 14, 1915, 2. 48. To Phos, August 12, 1916, 1. 49. Papamichos Chronakis, “Global Conflict, Local Politics,” 175–200. 50. See pages 142–144. 51. Rozen, The Last Ottoman Century and Beyond, 178. 52. Salonica Press Bureau, April 25, 1919, DHAGMFA, New Archive of the History of Jews in Greece, Microfilm RG 45.001 M Reel 1. 53. L’Indépendant, January 31, 1917, 1. 54. Paris Papamichos Chronakis, “Mediterranean Jews and the Politics of Contraband Trade in World War I,” in The Macedonian Front, 1915–1918: Politics, Society and Culture in Time of War, eds. Basil Gounaris, Ioannis Stefanidis and Michael Llewellyn-Smith (London: Routledge, 2022), 134–142; Archibald Colquhoun Bell, A History of the Blockade of Germany and of the Countries Associated with Her in the Great War (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1961), 389. 55. L’Indépendant, October 3, 1917, 1; L’Indépendant, October 14, 1917, 2; L’Indépendant, November  2, 1917, 2; Deltion Emporikou kai Viomechanikou Epimeleteriou Thessalonikes (EVETH) 13 (April 15, 1920): 385; Εphemeris ton Valkanion, November 10, 1919, 1. 56. Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, November 10, 1918, ACAT, File “1916–1919.” 57. Board Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Salonica, February 4, 1919, ACCIT, Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1914–1919; Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, June 27, 1920, ACAT, File “1920–1929.” 58. Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, June 14, 1918, ACAT, File “1916–1919.” 59. To Phos, March 10, 1916, 2. 60. L’Indépendant, January 14, 1915, 1. 61. Board Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Salonica, February 6, 1918, ACCIT, Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1914–1919. 62. Board Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Salonica, November 28, 1916, ACCIT, Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1914–1919. 63. Nea Aletheia, June 23, 1915, 1. 64. Nea Aletheia, June 16, 1914, 2; Board Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Salonica, November 23, 1917, and February 19, 1918, ACCIT, Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1914–1919; L’Indépendant, February 21, 1918, 1. 65. L’Opinion, January 30, 1916, 1; L’Indépendant, May 24, 1916, 1; L’Opinion, June 15, 1915, 1; Nehama, June  18, 1915, AAIU Grèce ΙI C 53; L’Opinion, November  20, 1916, 1; Nehama, June 7, 1915, AAIU Grèce ΙI C 53.

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66. The list of candidates is cited in Dodos, Oi Evraioi stis ekloges tou ellenikou kratous, 219–226. 67. Following Sevasti Trubeta, I define minorization as the social process through which a group is marginalized. However, I depart from her in recognizing the active role of the minorized subjects in this process. See Sevasti Trubeta, “‘Minorization’ and ‘Ethnicization’ in Greek Society: Comparative Perspectives on Muslim Immigrants and the Thracian Muslim Minority,” in Minorities in Greece: Historical Issues and New Perspectives, eds. Christian Voss and Sevasti Trubeta, special issue of Jahrbücher für Geschichte und Kultur Südosteuropas 5 (2003): 97–100. 68. Files “Industrialists’ Association of Thessaloniki,” “Commercial Association of Thessaloniki,” GSA-HAM, Archive of Associations; L’Indépendant, February 24, 1919, 1. 69. Ephemeris ton Valkanion, April 30, 1919, 1. 70. Avdela, “Class, Ethnicity, and Gender in Post-Ottoman Thessaloniki;” George B. Leon, To elleniko sosialistiko kinema kata ton Proto Pankosmio Polemo (Athens: Themelio, 1978), 279–280. 71. Indicatively, see Haris Exertzoglou, Ethnike tautoteta sten Konstantinoupole tou 19ou aiona (Athens: Nefeli, 1996); Benbassa, “Associational Strategies in Ottoman Jewish Society;” Ilbert, Alexandrie, 1830–1930; Spyridon Ploumidis, Ethnotike synyparxe sta Valkania: Ellenes kai Voulgaroi ste Philippoupole, 1878–1914 (Athens: Patakis 2006); Sven Beckert, “Institution-Building and Class Formation: How Nineteenth-Century Bourgeois Organized,” in Civil Society, Associations and Urban Places, 17–38; Elena Mannová, “Associations in Bratislava in the Nineteenth Century: Middle-Class Identity or Identities in a Multiethnic City?” in Civil Society, Associations and Urban Places, 77–85; Robert J. Morris, Class, Sect and Party: The Making of the British Middle Class, Leeds 1820–1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990). 72. Mazower, Salonica; Maura Hametz, Making Trieste Italian, 1918–1954 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2005); Emily Gunzburger Makaš and Tanja Damljanović Conley, eds., Capital Cities in the Aftermath of Empires: Planning in Central and Southeastern Europe (London: Routledge, 2009); Alexander Vari, “Re-territorializing the ‘Guilty City’: Nationalist and Right-Wing Attempts to Nationalize Budapest during the Interwar Period,” Journal of Contemporary History 47, no.  4 (2012): 709–733; Moore, “Between Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism;” Kathryn Ciancia, On Civilization’s Edge: A Polish Borderland in the Interwar World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020); Charles King, Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2014); Edhem Eldem, “The Undesirables of Smyrna, 1926,” Mediterranean Historical Review 24, no. 2 (2010): 223–227. 73. Some early attempts include Eyüp Özveren and Erkan Gürpınar, “Competition as Rivalry: İzmir During the Great Depression,” in Cities of the Mediterranean: From the Ottomans to the Present Day, eds. Biray Kolluoğlu and Meltem Toksöz (London: I. B. Tauris, 2010), 183–197; Watenpaugh, Being Modern in the Middle East.

332

Notes to Conclusion

Conclusion 1. Guillaume de Machaut, “Ma fin est mon commencement,” in Guillaume de Machaut: Two Rondeaus, ed. Bernard Thomas (London: London Pro Musica, 1988), 1. 2. Baer, The Dönme, 111–139, 155–213; Leyla Neyzi, “Remembering to Forget: Sabbateanism, National Identity, and Subjectivity in Turkey,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 44, no. 1 (2000): 137–158. 3. Antonio Gramsci, Subaltern Social Groups: A Critical Edition of Prison Notebook 25, eds. Joseph A. Buttigieg and Marcus E. Green (New York: Columbia University Press, 2021). 4. Pierron, Juifs et chrétiens; Evangelos A. Hekimoglou, O Nikolaos Manos kai o Mesopolemos ste Thessalonike (Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 2010); Hekimoglou, “Enthymion Hadjilazarou;” Anastassios Anastassiadis, “À quoi servent les langues aux enfants? Elèves juifs et apprentissage des langues dans les écoles de Thessalonique durant les années 1912–1932,” in L’Enseignement français en Méditerranée: les missionnaires et l’Alliance israélite universelle, ed. Jérôme Bocquet (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de  Rennes, 2010), 239–262. 5. Chiefly but not exclusively, see Makedonia. 6. Theodosis Tsironis, “Epidoxoi ethnosoteres ste Thessalonike (1925–1934),” Thessalonikeon Polis 10 (2003): 31–40. 7. Hadjikyriakou, an ex-professor at the Greek Gymnasium during the last years of Hamidian rule and first president of the Guilds’ Association in 1909, was president of the nationalist association “Pavlos Melas” from 1929 onward: Makedonikos Agon 1, no. 1 (1929): 2. On his Judeophobic views, see Eustratiades, Makedonia, 71, 74. 8. On the “National Union ‘Greece,’” see Theodosis Ath. Tsironis, “E organose Ethnike Enosis ‘E Ellas’ (E.E.E.) ste Thessalonike tou Mesopolemou (1927–1936): ta katastatika kai e drase tes,” Thessaloniki 6 (2002): 293–313. 9. Faruk Tabak, “Imperial Rivalry and Port-Cities: A View from Above,” Mediterranean Historical Review 2, no. 24 (2009): 79–94. 10. I thank Mark Mazower for our discussion on these matters. 11. Attendance log, May 16, 1936, ACCIT, Board Members logbook, 1934–1937. 12. Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, 3: 33, 314–331. Still, the limited investments of entrepreneurs from “Old Greece” as well as the resettlement of many prominent Greek Salonican merchants in Athens or abroad reflected the irreversible economic retreat of Greek Salonica. Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, 3: 34, 43. 13. Systematic research on the importance of refugee entrepreneurship in the interwar period is, however, still lacking. 14. On Jewish emigration from Salonica in the interwar period, see Skourtis, “Metanasteuse ton Evraion tes Thessalonikes ste Gallia;” Naar, “From the ‘Jerusalem of the Balkans’ to the Goldene Medina.” 15. Deltion EVETH 1, no. 2 (October 31, 1919): 23; ACCIT, Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1934–1937 (entries of October 21, 1935, and May 28, 1936).

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16. The Chamber of Small Industries and Professions was founded in 1925 and the Federation of Professionals and Small Industrialists of Northern Greece in 1928. See Dagas, Symvole sten ereuna gia ten oikonomike kai koinonike exelixe tes Thessalonikes, 600–601. 17. Board Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Salonica, June 26, 1931, ACCIT, Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1931. 18. On the silence of the Chamber of Commerce, see the testimony of Yomtov Yakoel, Apomnemoneumata 1941–1943 (Thessaloniki: Paratiritis, 1993), 60. 19. This dimension of the category of class has been mainly approached from a gender perspective. Class is constructed as a male identity even when historically women have been actively involved in working-class movements. See Scott, “Women in ‘The Making,’” 53–90. 20. Indicatively, see ACCIT, Minute Book of Board Meetings, 1926–1927 (entries of June 4, 1926 and November 9, 1927). 21. Specifically, this was an initiative of the president of the Chamber of Commerce Athanasios Makris, board member Zissis Verrou, and members Antonios Kabitoglou and Simonas Maou. See Roupa and Hekimoglou, Istoria tes epicheirematikotetas ste Thessalonike, 3: 28. 22. See, indicatively, the memorandum of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Thessaloniki to the finance minister Panages Vourloumis, Deltion EVETH 11 (1929): 6. 23. Ephemeris ton Valkanion, June 4, 1933, 1. 24. Emporikon Enkolpion 1923, 154; AAEAIU, Bulletin annuel, 1909, 61; Miko Alvo, oral interview by Paris Papamichos Chronakis, October 9, 2005; Le Congrès Juif, Organe du groupe organisateur du congrès juif de Salonique (April 6, 1917). 25. Berkowitz, Zionist Culture and West European Jewry before the First World War, xv. 26. Joan Wallach Scott, “The Evidence of Experience,” Critical Inquiry 17, no. 4 (1991): 773–797; Evthymios Papataxiarchis, “To kathestos tes diaphoretikotetas sten ellenike koinonia: ypotheseis ergasias,” in Peripeteies tes eterotetas, ed. Evthymios Papataxiarchis (Athens: Alexandreia, 2006), 407–470. 27. Carol Harrison offers the most succinct and clear presentation of these two historiographical trends. See Carol E. Harrison, “The Bourgeois After the Bourgeois Revolution: Recent Approaches to the Middle Class in Εuropean Cities,” Journal of Urban History 31, no.  3 (2005): 382–392. See also Geoffrey Crossick, “La bourgeoisie britannique au 19e siècle: recherches, approches, problématiques,” Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales 53 (1998): 1089–1130. Key examples of both trends include, Dror Wahrman, Imagining the Middle Class: The Political Representation of Class in Britain, c. 1780–1840 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Sarah Maza, The Myth of the French Bourgeoisie: An Essay on the Social Imaginary, 1750–1850 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003); Brian Lewis, The Middlemost and the Milltowns: Bourgeois Culture and Politics in Early Industrial England (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001); Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1750–1850, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2002). 28. I borrow the phrase from Eric Hobsbawm, Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life (London: Abacus, 2003).

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Index

Note: Page numbers in italic indicate figures. Abbott family, 57 Abdul Hamid, Sultan, 18, 41–42, 107, 109–10, 275 accounting, 51 adaptation, 29, 213, 233, 267, 281 Adriatic Sea, 3, 6 Aegean islands, 169, 218 Aegean Sea, 3, 6, 42, 100, 167, 171, 202, 223 Aélion, J., 50 Aélion, Leon J., 174 Aélion & Bajona, 50 Aélion family, 116 Aga, Kerim, 132 Aggelakis, Konstantinos, 61 Aghialos (Pomorie), 229 agricultural products, 58 Akif, Hassan, 35, 174, 219 Albania, 149 Albanians, 2, 100 Aletheia, 81–82, 93, 132, 133 Alexander the Great, 65 Alexandria, 21, 27, 30, 61

Alexandroupoli, 228 Alhambra cinema, 261 aliyah, 227, 279 Allatini, Charles, 38, 49, 52, 54, 90 Allatini, Edward, 52 Allatini, Hugo, 52 Allatini, Maurice, 90–91 Allatini, Moise, 52, 87, 90, 91, 111 Allatini business dynasty/family, 5, 7, 24, 43, 46, 52, 53, 55, 84, 100, 146, 239 Allatini company, 71 Allatini credit establishment, 54 Allatini flour mill, 124 Allatini tile factory, 126 Alliance Alumni Association, 36, 48–49, 69, 82–84, 92, 108–9, 118–19; Balkan Wars and, 141; brass band of, 88; Division of Apprenticeship, 115–16; elementary school of, 120; Hellenization and, 227; Jewish working class and, 116; as job agency, 111; labor relations and, 113–14; as network for employment opportunities, 111; new sociabilities and, 247,

361

362

index

Alliance Alumni Association (continued ) 260–61, 279; World War I and, 184, 196. See also Alliance Israélite Universelle Alliance Française, 211–12 Alliance Israélite Universelle, 36, 38, 43, 47, 53, 55–56, 69, 75, 87, 111; assimilationist ideology of, 120, 123; Balkan Wars and, 151; Boys’ School, 48, 51–52; commerce-centered curriculum at, 51–52; decline of, 279; Jewish merchants and, 51–52; local committee, 211, 212; Misrahi and, 211; promotion of French language and, 52; schools of, 227; World War I and, 184, 196, 203. See also Alliance Alumni Association Alliancism/Alliancists, 120, 212, 226–27, 247, 260–61, 272. See also Alliance Alumni Association Allied authorities/administration, 184; Greco-Jewish relations and, 182; Jewish merchants and, 182–83; suspicious of Jewish merchants, 262–63 Allied blockade, 170, 171, 174–76, 184, 262–63 Allied troops, 167, 170, 177, 202–6, 236; business opportunities and, 207; departure of, 186; Jewish merchants and, 183–84; local provisions and, 182; occupation of Salonica by, 180, 196. See also Army of the Orient Allies, 4, 167, 171, 173; advance of business interests, 181–82; blacklists by, 174–75; business with, 180–82; ethnic hierarchies and, 182; Greco-Jewish relations and, 182; leftovers of, 180; local market and, 180–82; military headquarters in Salonica, 177; occupation of Salonica by, 180; regulation by, 181; as second city of consumers, 180–81; statutory lists by, 174–75. See also Allied authorities/administration; Allied blockade; Allied troops Altcheh Commercial School, 72 Altinalazis, Michael, 276 Alumni Association of the Franco-German School, 141 Alvo, Adina, 279 Alvo, Simon, 279–80 Alvo Brothers, 179; Hardware and Construction Material Store of, 279

Amar, Abraham, 224–25 Amar, Saul, 50, 225, 226 Amar family, 50, 85, 116, 266 Amariglio, Leon, 88 American Chamber of Commerce in Istanbul, 88, 90 American Chamber of Commerce in Salonica, 88, 90 American Jewish Yearbook, 224 Amorgos, 218 Anatolia, 216, 218; forced migrants from, 218, 230–31; Greek Orthodox refugees from, 176, 206–7 Angel, David, 19 Anglo-French Army of the Orient. See Army of the Orient Anglo-Greek League, 183 Anglo-Hellenic Company of Salonica, 60, 101, 121, 133, 234 Anglo-Syrian Trade Company, 165 Ankara, 27 anti-Athenian localism, 203–5, 207, 272, 278–79 anti-boycott petitions, 133 anti-communism, 274–75, 277 anti-Greek boycott, 124, 134 antisemitism, 140, 185, 194, 212, 274–75; absent from rhetoric of profiteering, 195; Jewish moneylenders and, 121; the press and, 274–75. See also Greek anti-Judaism anti-trade unionism, 118, 204 apprenticeship, 39, 70, 71–72, 112 the Arcadia, 165 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 7 Armenians, 2, 17, 108 army contractors, 180 Army of the Orient, 14, 166–67, 169, 177, 180, 184–85, 206, 215, 217, 225, 236, 262, 280. See also Allied troops Aroesti, Haim S., 221 Aroesti, Isaac, 221 Aroesti, Salomon, 221 artisans, 112–13, 115–16, 126, 196, 201, 277. See also Jewish artisans Ashkenazi Jews, 36, 57, 62, 174 Asia Minor, 186, 215, 217, 228, 230, 262

index Assael, Moise, 266 Asseo, Jacques, 119 Asseo, Joseph J., 38 assimilation, 120, 227, 268; assimilationist ideology, 120, 123, 162, 245, 274, 281; assimilationist organizations, 279. See also Alliancism/Alliancists Association des Anciens Élèves de l’Alliance Israélite Universelle, 48–49. See also Alliance Alumni Association Association France-Greece, 183 associationism, 273; associational culture, 26, 37–39, 123–24; expansion into lower-middle classes and laboring strata, 250; Jewish merchants and, 259–60. See also associations Association Mutuelle des Employés, 141 Association of Commercial Employees, 198 Association of Fire Insurance Companies, 83–84, 85, 248 Association of Thessalian Jews, 62 associations, 20, 22, 24, 25, 30, 36, 83, 109, 226, 243–69, 273, 275; associational culture, 26, 37–39, 123–24; associationism, 250, 259–60, 273; change and, 243–44; class formation and, 268; decline in influence of, 246–47; Dönme, 84; ethnic and class composition of, 244; ethnic cohesion and, 69; federation of, 140–41; Greco-Jewish, 246–48; Greek, 47, 61–62, 246–48; Greek Orthodox community and multiethnic, 92–93; Greek Orthodox migrants, 62–63; Greek rule and, 26; Jewish, 37–38, 48–49, 62, 83–84, 140–41, 184, 246–47; legislation affecting, 245–46, 250–51; merchants and, 62–63; merchants’ associations replaced by professional associations, 244; Muslim, 62; national identities and, 268; registry of, 246; in Salonica, 73; shift in scope, function, and purpose of, 250, 251. See also Greek associations; Italian associations; professional associations; societies; specific associations and kinds of associations Athanasios Konstantinidis secondary school, 72 Athenians, 240, 241, 276 Athens, 27, 66, 122, 172, 175, 218, 230, 236, 239, 266, 274; Jewish community of, 223; port of,

363

202–3; “Salonican colony” in, 223. See also anti-Athenian localism Atlas cigarette company, 170 Australian Commonwealth Gazette, 174 Austria-Hungary, 4, 57, 94, 99, 109, 151–52, 154, 158, 173, 176; import trade before the war and, 181; trade blockaded with, 171; World War I and, 167, 171. See also Habsburg Empire Austro-Hungarian firms, 157 Austro-Hungarians, 3, 41, 156 Ayvalik, 228 bakers, 196, 199, 200 baking, 169 Baldji Brothers, 219 Balkan Alliance, 101–2, 136–64 Balkan Jews, 162, 164, 217. See also Jewish refugees Balkan merchants, 64 Balkan Muslim refugees, 3. See also Muslim refugees Balkan nation-states, 160 Balkan News, 206 Balkans, 3, 42, 58, 59, 165, 185, 186, 218, 224, 280; division of, 224; forced migrants from, 224, 228–30; Greek Orthodox communities in, 240 Balkan War refugees, 169 Balkan Wars, 2, 5–6, 24, 27, 32, 135, 136–64, 223–24, 232–34, 271, 273, 276, 280–83; Errera brothers and, 100, 103–4; First Balkan War, 136–37, 140, 144, 149, 156, 158, 161, 220; history of, 162; interethnic relations and, 144; as laboratory for political identities, 163; redrawing of boundaries after, 168, 229–30; Second Balkan War, 3, 137, 165, 217, 218, 220 Banka Popolara, 103, 116–17 banking, 71, 103, 104, 116–17, 124, 146; bank employees, 198; cooperative banks, 116–17; ethnic hierarchies within, 170–71; Greek banks, 121, 125; Greek government and, 170–71; international, 146–47; Jews and, 146–47; shift from Jewish-owned to Greekowned banks, 231. See also specific banks

364

index

Bank of Athens, 121 Bank of Mytilene, 78–79 bankruptcy cases, 148 Banque de Salonique, 54, 147, 185, 211, 213 Banque d’Orient, 37, 76, 121, 148, 234 Banque Levi Modiano, 147 Banque Saul, 37, 147, 235 Banque Saul Amar, 170 Baxter School, 72 bazaar, 70 The Bee, 250–51 beekeepers’ association, 250–51 beer, 169 Beirut, 4, 21, 192 Belfort, 155, 157 Belgians, 184 Belgium, 99 Belgrade, 150 Benaroya, Abraham, 109 Bene Sion, 120, 261 Benghiat, Moise, 119–20 Benuziglio, Elie, 45 Benveniste, Abraham, 223 Benveniste, Albert, 175 Benveniste, Haim, 174, 175 Benveniste, Lazare, 174 Berdach, Hugo, 174 Berkowitz, Michael, 279 Berlin, 192 Berlin Treaty, 151–52, 161 Besançon Chamber of Commerce, 145, 155, 157 Bey, Adil, 131 Bikur Holim fraternity, 45, 46 Billis, Tsitsis & Co., 60 Bitola, 66, 67, 145, 150, 151, 217, 220, 221, 229–30 blacklists, 170, 174–75, 184, 263. See also statutory lists Black Sea, 58 blacksmiths, 112 Blue- and White-Collar Employees Christian Center of Salonica, 251 blue-collar workers, 197, 273. See also workers Blunt, Consul, 80 B’nei B’rit: of Istanbul, 224; of Salonica, 279 bookkeeping, 51, 186. See also accounting

borders: consolidation of new, 217; opening of, 5; redrawing of, 149–51, 165 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 57, 62, 109 Botton, Solomon de, 49, 111 bourgeois culture and values, 18, 19, 25, 95; bourgeois cosmopolitanism, 95; bourgeois sociability, 69–70, 95, 268; bourgeois vocabulary, 19; merchants and, 24–25 bourgeois identity, 19–20, 245, 249, 270, 273; commerce and, 25, 79–80, 83, 272; construction of, 284; ethnic hierarchies and, 282–83; Jewish, 56, 86–87, 91; merchants and, 25; multiethnic, 36, 244; new, 250, 251–52; philanthropy and, 111; redefinition of, 284–85; transformations of, 271, 283–84; transition from empire to nation-state and, 26; universality and, 83 bourgeoisie, 5, 16–27, 196; as analytical lens, 30; bourgeois ascendancy, 268; commercial, 27–32, 120, 212, 276; as embodiment of public opinion, 250, 251; formation of national, ethnically homogenous, 17, 19–20; Greek merchant–industrialist, 21, 254–58, 258 “Greekness” and, 273; historiography and, 26–27; Jewishness and, 271; Jewishness of, 120; Jews and, 28; Ottoman, 18, 20; as one social group among others, 250, 251; quest for national, 185; shift in perception of, 250, 251; urban narratives and, 26–27. See also bourgeois culture and values; bourgeois identity; embourgeoisement; specific groups bourgeois merchants, transitioned from “Jewish” and universal to “Greek” and particular, 283 bourgeois public sphere, interethnic, 282–83 Boutaris, Yannis, 5 box making factories, 229 boycotts, 109, 130–32; anti-Austrian, 118, 127, 131–32; anti-Greek, 118, 124, 127, 130–32; entrepreneurs and, 132; of Jewish small businesses, 139; threatened, 126–27 Brasserie Olympos, 124 bread, 169 Britain/British, 4, 41, 99, 151–52, 154, 156, 181, 183; blacklists and statutory lists and, 174–75; local market and, 180–81; zone in Northern Greece, 171

index British Companies Act, 102 British consul, 102, 175, 203, 224. See also Blunt, Consul British troops, 27–28, 169, 170, 182–83, 206. See also Army of the Orient the Brumotz, 165 Budapest, 30 Bulgaria, 4, 42, 57, 101–2, 104, 109, 130, 149–50, 173, 177, 224, 229, 261; attack on Serbia in 1915, 172; Balkan Wars and, 136–64; cigarette industry and, 174; Greco-Bulgarian tensions and, 218–19; Greek Orthodox refugees from, 176; newly annexed territories of, 217; violence against Greek Orthodox in, 228; World War I and, 167; zone of occupation, 217, 229. See also Greco-Bulgarian conflicts Bulgarian army, 137, 165 Bulgarian Christian Orthodox Church, 63 Bulgarian Commercial School, 72 Bulgarian Constitutional Club, 129 Bulgarian guerrilla groups, 65–67 Bulgarian import duties, 154 Bulgarian markets, 168 Bulgarian merchants, disappearance of, 218–19 Bulgarian occupation, 138 Bulgarians, 1–2, 9, 21, 38, 59, 122, 129, 143, 152, 158, 164, 216; expulsion of, 3; Greek Orthodox community and, 93, 94 Bulgarian Commercial School, 72 business activity, ethnically distinct fields of, 185–86 business culture, Greek state and, 178–79 business history, 23 business networks, 219; after resettlement, 225; European, 275; Europe-wide, 158; foreign connections, 184; Jewish merchants and, 175–76, 226; trade networks, 58, 145–64; transnational credit networks, 164 business strategies: Hellenization and, 217–18; reversal in, 231–32, 233; shifts in, 30 Byzantine era, 3, 65 Café Alhambra, 106, 107 Café Cristal, 107

365

Cairo, 27 Cambon, Paul, 155 Campbell, arson in, 277 Campbell, K., 85 capital, 281; economic, 281; flight of local, 225– 26; vs. labor, 191, 195; from other regions of Greece, 237; shrinking base of, 228; cultural, 281; social, 229; symbolic, 234–35 Carasso, Emmanuel, 52 Caritas, 84 carters: carters’ guild, 127; carters’ incident, 133, 140; Greek Orthodox, 126–27; Jewish, 126–28, 129, 130, 140 cash shortages, 145–46 Cazes, Fakima, 37. See also Modiano, Fakima Cazes, Isac, 37 Cazes, Jacob, 31–32, 43, 108, 222, 227, 264, 266; Alliance Israélite Universelle and, 36; apprenticeship and, 70–71; associational activity of, 37–39; attends Lippman school, 37; chamber of commerce and, 35, 36, 39; at Charissis firm, 70–71; co-founds Club des Intimes, 37–38; culture of conviviality and, 39–40; opens import–export business, 71; re-election to municipal council, 35–36; ruptures initiated by, 37; associations and, 37–39 Central Europe, 173; Greek commercial diaspora in, 240; markets in, 170; relocation to, 219 centralization, 202, 274 Central Powers, 4, 174; alliance of Ottoman Empire with, 172; blacklists and statutory lists and, 175; Jewish merchants and, 175–76. See also Allied blockade ceramics industry, 239 Cercle Commercial Israélite, 103 Cercle de Salonique, 36–37, 39, 70, 73–74, 77–80, 83–84, 92–93, 212–13, 234, 246, 252, 271 Cercle des Intimes, 92, 103–4, 108, 110, 113–14, 116–20, 128, 132–33, 141; communal unity and, 129; interethnic tensions and, 130; internal divisions and, 119; Jewishness and, 129–30; lower strata and, 129; nationalism and, 130; waning influence among lower classes, 119

366

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Cercle Israélite, 38 Cercle Maccabi, 141 Chamber of Commerce (Salonica), 16, 35, 36, 39, 107–9, 130–32, 271, 284–85; advocates for quick compensation by European insurance companies, 263–64; anti-communism and, 277; composition of in 1936, 276–77; day of bill settlement and, 130; dissolution of, 270; Errera brothers and, 100, 104–5; establishment of, 270; food provisioning and, 178; Fourth Panhellenic Congress on Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture and, 265–66; GrecoJewish relations and, 277–78; Greek Macedonian identity of, 277–78; Greek merchants in, 276–78; Greek press’s criticism of, 252; Greek state and, 199; Hellenization and, 235; import duties and, 151–52, 153; as “international” organization, 158; Jewish merchants and, 259–60, 264, 276–78; marginalization of, 253; Misrahi and, 213–14; Misrahi in, 212; Molho in, 276–77; new sociabilities and, 245, 254, 255–56, 265–67; proposed national congress of, 266; reconstitution of, 272–73; relabeled as Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 241; reorganization of, 273–74; restructuring of, 251; silence during deportations of Jewish members in 1943, 278; tariffs and, 266; wagon distribution committee and, 265; World War I and, 166, 172–73, 181, 185 Chamber of Small Industries and Professions, 277 chambers of commerce, 157, 158; proposed national congress of, 266 Chambre Maritime (Chamber of Shipping), 248 change, 10, 27–32, 212–13; continuity and, 12–16, 176–87; associations and, 243–44. See also transition character, commerce and, 80–81 Charilaos, Epaminondas, 239, 239, 240, 276 Chariseio home for the elders, 63 Charissis, Theagenis, 37, 63 Charissis family, 57 Charissis firm, 70–71 Charitable Brotherhood of Salonica, 82 Charnaud, Frederic, 80

Chatzopoulos, Dimitrios, 77, 252, 257 Chesed Olam, 44 Christian Orthodox migrants, Hellenization of, 65 Christodoulou, Georgios, 2 Christovasilis, Christos, 86 Chrysafis, Georgios, 77–78 citizenship, 64; divisive effect of, 44; foreign, 29, 42–43, 45, 56, 156, 160, 175–76, 211–12, 219, 230, 275; Italian, 185; Jewish merchant identity and, 87; local, 13; Ottoman, 42, 43, 132. See also nationality civic consciousness, 13 civic identity, Jewishness and, 95–96. See also urban identity civilization, commerce and, 80–81 civil servants, 197 civil society institutions, 30, 178, 243–69. See also specific institutions class, 17, 24, 27–32, 126, 249, 267–68, 270–71, 281; changing meanings assigned to class divisions, 282; class conflict, 165–208, 249; class consolidation, 191; class hegemony, 275; class hierarchies, 108–9, 125, 275; class identity, 17, 31, 69–96, 193–94, 273, 277; class integration, 245; class interests, 119–21, 126, 249–51; class remaking, 28; class selfperception, 26, 29; cross-class cooperation, 126–28; ethnicity and, 56, 281–83, 285; ethnic relations and, 112–13; ethnic solidarity and class divisions, 198–99; ethnic tensions and, 126–35; historiography of, 23–24; inter-class consensus, 207; interethnic relations and, 126–35; Jewishness and, 95; language of, 192; legislation of class divisions, 250; locality and, 27; Marxisant vocabulary of, 190, 192; merchant identities and, 28–29; nationalism and, 130–31; postwar period, 190–91; shifts in semantics of, 273; state arbitration of class divisions, 249–50; transition and, 29; associations and, 246, 250–51; war profiteering and, 26; Zionism’s impact on, 119–20. See also specific classes Clerks’ and Employees’ Union, 250 Club Commercial, 73, 74–75, 108

index Club des Intimes, 37–38, 47, 116 Club Maritime, 132 clubs, 41, 69–83, 95, 156; commercial, 77; consensus building at, 79–80; multiethnic coexistence and, 73; occupational diversification and, 79, 249. See also specific clubs coal, 169 coexistence, multiethnic: 5, 8–16, 19, 21, 26–27, 36, 39, 42, 70–71, 73, 85, 148–49, 162, 271, 275, 285; clubs and, 73; cross-ethnic networks and, 156–57, 235; Greco-Jewish associations and, 246–48; Greek Orthodox community of Salonica and multiethnic associations, 92–93; in professional associations, 258–69; interethnic sociability and, 39; Jewish associations and, 84; Jewish hegemony and, 85; multiethnic credit networks and, 148, 158, 164; multiethnic collaboration and, 132–33, 137, 152–56, 158–64; multiethnic economy and, 226; multiethnic employers unions and, 131. See also conviviality; cosmopolitanism; Greco-Jewish relations; inter-communal relations; Ottoman pluralism; public culture coffee, 232 Cofinas, Georgios, 151, 153–54 Cohen, Moise effendi, 108 collective action/agency, 120–21, 152–59, 208; collective “class” action, 141; reshaping of merchant identities and, 195–201 colonial goods, 229, 231, 252 colonialism, 158; colonial stereotypes, 203 coming of age, 49 comité local (local committee), 52 commerce, 4–5, 25; bourgeois identity and, 25, 79–80, 83, 272; change in symbolic meaning of, 249; character and, 80–81; civilization and, 80–81; as common thread, 2; communal elite and, 47–48; as destiny, 3; Greekness and, 82; Greek Orthodox community and, 121–22; Jewishness and, 6–7, 82, 140, 163, 270, 272; job opportunities confined to, 111–12; of locality, 163; meanings of, 70; as near-existential question, 24; polarized debate on, 137–38; politicization of, 144–45; survivalist narratives and, 82; as

367

value incapsulating essential tenets of male bourgeois society, 82–83; during World War I, 171–72. See also Macedonian commerce commerce-centered curriculum, 51–52, 71–72 commercial activities, taxation of, 44 commercial agencies, 172, 173 Commercial and Industrial Company of Salonica, 169 Commercial Association, 26, 178, 194, 198; British military authorities and, 264; expansion in jurisdiction of, 262; Hellenization and, 224, 226, 229, 230; Jewish merchants in, 259–60, 267; new sociabilities and, 248, 249, 251, 252–57, 263, 266 commercial associations, 73, 246, 249, 277–78. See also professional associations; specific associations Commercial Club, 76, 108–9, 246, 271 commercial clubs, 73, 244, 246, 273; in late Ottoman period, 24–25; vs. professional associations, 248–49. See also specific clubs “the commercial community,” 158–59 Commercial Company of Salonica, 100, 117, 117, 170, 211, 213, 225 commercial employees, 109, 191, 250, 273; Jewish, 110–19, 120, 121; class rhetoric of, 141; communal welfare and, 198; Greek Orthodox, 126; Greek state and, 197–98; merchants and, 195–99; repositioning of, 198; sense of degradation, 196; values of, 196; World War I and, 196–97 commercial houses, 112, 224; Greek Orthodox, 42–43, 57–58, 70–71; Jewish, 42–43, 71; Muslim, 42–43 Commercial-Industrial Bulletin, 256 commercial institutions, 23, 58, 283–84; European, 157–58; imperialism and, 157–58. See also specific institutions commercial politics, broadened range of, 137–38 “commercial proletarians,” 113 commercial schools, 71–72, 112. See also specific schools commercial transactions, cultural exchange and, 70

368

index

commercial tribunal, 160, 276; supranational, 159–61, 162 Commercial Tutoring Center of the New Club of Salonica, 76 commission agents, 59, 67; Greek Orthodox, 127 Commission Mixte de Ravitaillement (Mixed Provisions Commission), 181, 264 Committee of Union and Progress, 100, 107, 109, 124, 129, 131, 132, 134, 219 communal affairs: Greek Orthodox merchants and, 46; lay participation in, 44–45 communal cohesion, 112, 126, 141 communal council, Jewish, 37, 38, 105, 141, 142–43 communal emergency fund, Jewish, 140 communal institutions: Jewish, 45–46, 55–56; Jewish merchants and, 47–49; reorganization of Jewish, 41–42; Greek Orthodox welfare institutions, 63, 81, 198; Jewish welfare institutions, 44, 45–46, 49–51, 110, 198 communal reforms: Jewish, 38–39, 44–45 communal taxes, Jewish, 44–45 community, 21, 69; communal involvement, 24; communal pride and, 82; communal success and, 82; communal thinking, 81; communal unity, 129; community affairs, 20; symbolic construction of, 18. See also communal institutions; Greek Orthodox community of Salonica; Jewish community Compagnie des Chemins de Fer Orientaux (Oriental Railway Company), 131 concitoyen (fellow citizen), 87 conspicuous consumption, 196 Constantine: Crown Prince, 102, 136–37, 143, 234; King, 167, 236 Constitutionalism, 244 Constitutional Square, 107 consumers, 191–92, 195, 207; consumer cooperatives, 200; defining, 188–89; dissociated from workers, 190; vs. “resellers” (metaprates), 190 continuity, 12–16, 212–13, 244, 285 contraband operations, 173, 174–75, 181, 262–63. See also smuggling conviviality, culture of, 13, 39–40. See also coexistence; cosmopolitanism

cooperation, new forms of, 131 cooperatives, formation of, 200 cooperative banks, 116–17, 124 coreligionists, cross-class cooperation between, 126–28 cosmopolitanism, 7, 13, 19, 93; elites and, 95; Jewishness and, 95–96; vs. nationalism, 175; vs. Zionism, 175 cotton, 58, 61; cotton gin factories, 61; cotton mills, 60; export of, 57 council of foreigners, 45. See also consultative council Council of the Allies, 175 Cours Secondaires, 72 Court of First Instance, 148, 246 Covo, Ascher, 47 craftsmen. See artisans credit, 145–48; credit institutions, 58, 100, 116–17, 171; interconnected chain of, 157; Jewish moneylenders, 121; multiethnic credit networks, 148, 158, 164; reliance on, 145–48 Cretan Greeks, 127 Crete, 109, 127, 130, 167 cross-cultural contact, 23–24, 207 cross-ethnic networks, 156–57, 235. See also coexistence cultural capital, 281 cultural exchange, commercial transactions and, 70 currency reserves, safeguarding of, 171 customs duties. See import duties Danon, Dina, 20 Danos, Theodoros, 257 Dante Alighieri cultural association, 54 Dardanelles, 167, 173, 188 Debar, 61 Debar emigrants’ Brotherhood, 62–63 debts: collection of, 104; debt recovery, 145–47; difficulty of paying during war, 145–48, 149; Jewish merchants and, 156, 157 Dedeagach (Alexandroupoli), 166 Delmarre, Mr., 106, 107 Dervich, Osman, 35

index discourse/discourses, 18; cultural, 23–24; Greek historical, 65; Greek public, 282; supraethnic, 128; vs. practices, 283 doctors, 47 Dönme (Jewish converts to Islam), 1, 9, 35, 74, 84, 94, 108, 174, 216, 222, 252. See also Dönme merchants Dönme merchants, 213; blacklisted, 170; disappearance of, 231, 259, 270; emigrations of, 219–20; industrial establishments owned by, 233; perceived as smugglers, 173; shrinking numbers of, 219, 228 double loyalties, World War I and, 175 Doumas, Spyridon, 230 Dragoumis, Philippos, 7 Dresden, 238, 240 Dubnow, Simon, 56 Dumont, Paul, 84–85 East Central Europe, 29, 268 Eastern Europe, 36, 173, 185 Eastern Greek Macedonia, 220, 257 Eastern Mediterranean, 58, 185 Eastern Rumelia, 57, 62, 109, 130, 229 École Annexe, 72 Edessa, 168, 234, 256 Edirne, 107 education: community schools, 72; consolidation of power and, 52; educational associations, 184 (see also specific associations); educational institutions, 211–12 (see also specific institutions); ethnically specific schools, 72; European, 37–38; in foreign languages, 29; French language and, 52–53; French-style, 151; Greeklanguage, 63, 65, 81; Greek state and, 123; Italian, 53–54, 55; modern, 71–72; modernization of, 53–54; nationalization of Jewish communal education, 14; oversight of foreign institutions, 274; the poor and, 111; secular, 52–53; Western-style, 160, 196. See also Alliance Israélite Universelle; foreign schools; French-language schools; Greek Orthodox schools; Italian education; Jewish schools

369

Educational Society of Salonica, 25, 47, 65–66, 69, 81–82, 124 Edward VII, King, 106 Elders, 142–44 Elders’ council, 47 elites, 5, 22, 112, 156; commerce and, 47–48; communal, 47–48, 112; cosmopolitanism and, 95; demise of elite politics, 212–13; European, 156; Greek Orthodox merchant, 126; Jewishness of, 120; merchant, 119, 126; non-Jewish, 92, 126. See also notables Ellenike Lesche Thessalonikes (Greek Club of Salonica), 246 Ellenoisraelitike Emporike Lesche (Greek-Jewish Commercial Club), 246 El Liberal, 150–51, 159 embourgeoisement, 19–20 emigration: as act of Hellenization, 223; of Dönme merchants, 219–20; effect on, 225–28; involuntary, 216; to Israel, 227; of Jews, 221–22, 259, 276; of Muslim merchants, 219–20. See also aliyah; immigration; Jewish emigration Emin, Kiazim, 219 Emiris, Ioannis, 67 emporoviomechanos (merchant-industrialist), 21. See also Greek merchant–industrialist bourgeoisie empire, transition from, 6–7, 16–17, 26–32, 280–81, 284 employees, 113, 207; commercial employees, 109–19, 120, 121, 126, 141, 191, 196–99, 250, 273; concern for, 110–12, 113; employer/ employee dynamics, 109–19, 124, 195–201; merchants and, 195–202; radicalized during World War I, 197. See also Greek Orthodox commercial employees; Muslim employees Employees’ Association, 125, 201 Employees’ Union, 125 employers, 191–92, 195; employer/employee dynamics, 109–19, 124, 191–92, 195–201; multiethnic employers unions, 131 Emporike Lesche Thessalonikes (Commercial Club of Salonica), 246 Entente. See Allies

370

index

entrepreneurs, 59–61, 131; boycotts and, 132; entrepreneurial strategies, 270; Greek, 168, 169; shift in cultural meanings of entrepreneurial sociability, 248–49 Enver, Ismail, 107 Epirus, 65 Epirus Educational Association, 65 Ergani textile factory, 234 Eria textile manufacturing company, 61, 234, 236, 237–38, 257 Errera, Abram, 31–32, 55, 99–105; Balkan Wars and, 103–4; on board of Banka Popolara, 103; Cercle des Intimes and, 103, 104; in chamber of commerce, 100, 104; on communal council, 105 Errera, David, 31–32, 55, 99–105 Errera, Guedalia, 99 Errera, Guglielmo, 185 Errera Brothers, firm of, 221. See also Fils de G. A. Errera & Cie Errera department store, 115, 121, 124 Errera family, 53, 116, 266 ethnic hierarchies, 24, 70, 95, 108–9, 226, 270, 271, 275, 284; Allies involvement and, 182; in banking, 170–71; bourgeois identity and, 282–83; durability of, 277–78; locality and, 27; perpetuation of, 185–86; political rivalries and, 179–80; redrawing of by Greek state, 245; renegotiation of, 30–31; reshaping of, 30, 271; reversal of, 26, 28, 43, 251, 254, 259, 268, 272; shifts in, 17, 231; static, 217; in tobacco industry, 170; during World War I, 178. See also Greco-Jewish power balance ethnicity, 24, 27–32, 162, 168, 205, 207, 271; changing meanings assigned to ethnic difference, 282; class and, 56, 281–83, 285; ethnic cohesion, 69; ethnic division of labor, 112; ethnic identities, 29, 277; ethnic self-perceptions, 29; ethnic solidarity, 198–99, 275; ethnic stereotypes, 134; ethnic upturns, 185; ethnic violence, 162; focus on, 16–17; labor market and, 198; as lens, 30; merchant identities and, 28–29; professional associations and, 264–65; retreat of, 207–8; in Second Constitutional Period, 282; shifts in semantics of, 273; trading hierarchies and,

173; transition and, 29; associations and, 246; World War I and, 173. See also ethnic hierarchies; ethnic minorities; ethnic relations; ethnoreligious groups ethnic minorities, assimilation of, 216, 245 (see also specific groups) ethnic relations: class relations and, 112–13; ethnic networks, 178; ethnic tensions, 81–82, 101, 107, 126–35, 162, 275–76; during Second Constitutional Period, 282; during World War I, 282. See also Greco-Jewish relations Ethnike Enosis “Ellas” (National Union “Greece”), 275 Ethnikos Syndesmos (National Club), 124 ethnoreligious groups, 18–20. See also specific groups Europe: affiliation with, 160–61; Jewishness and, 42–56, 91; European “colonies” (migrant communities), 2, 226; European cultural ties, 275; European imperialism, 156 European bourgeoisies, historiography of, 284 Europeanization, 73 Europeanness, 55, 56, 270 Eustratiades, Eustratios, 66 exclusion, 283 executive council, 38, 45 export trade. See import–export trade factories, 131, 168. See also Greek factories; Jewish industry; manufacturing familial networks, 147–48, 176, 178, 262–63 Federation of Professionals and Small Industrialists of Northern Greece, 277 Fernandez, Dino, 225 Fernandez, Gino, 85 Fernandez business dynasty/family, 7, 46, 53, 84, 122, 146, 233 Feyziye high school, 72, 84 fez manufacturing firm, 138 Fils de G. A. Errera & Cie, 99–105, 150, 182 financial services, shift from Jewish-owned to Greek-owned, 231. See also banking First Building Company of Salonica, 234 First Construction Company of Salonica, 239–40

index First Panhellenic Jewish [Zionist] Congress, 279 Fix company, 276 fleece production, 61 Florentin, 179 Florina, 230 Foça, 228 food provisioning, 169, 192, 199, 201, 202, 253, 264; after Great Fire, 222; chamber of commerce and, 178; Greek state and, 177–78, 202; military efficiency and, 177; political stability and, 177; social order and, 177; during World War I, 26, 176–87, 190. See also food shortages food sector: food distribution, 200; Greece and, 176; Jewish monopoly in, 169; regulation of food prices, 253. See also food provisioning; food shortages food shortages, 140, 186, 188, 192, 196, 205, 207, 208 food stamps, 192 foreign officers, Jewish merchants and, 183–84 foreign schools, 72. See also specific schools Fourth Panhellenic Congress on Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture, 265–66 Foyer du Soldat (Soldier’s Home), 213 France/French, 4, 6, 20, 41, 91, 145, 151–52, 154, 156, 158–59, 214; advance of business interests in the region during World War I, 181–82; aspirations to expand economically, 185; Franco- Jewish social space, 184; FrancoJewish ties, 183–85; French expatriates, 156; Greece and, 185; immigration to, 211, 214, 224, 225–26; Jewish merchants and, 183–85; as lingua franca, 53; local market and, 180–81; loyalty to, 184; Ministry of Commerce and Industry, 185; view of Jews as symbolically a separate nationality from Greeks, 185; zone in Northern Greece, 171 Franco-German School, 112 Franco-Greek Company of Industrial Enterprises, 234 Franco-Greek Industrial Businesses Co., 236 “Francophiles,” vs. “Germanophiles,” 260–61 Frankish Quarter, 70

371

Fransès, Jacob Elie, 3 freedom(s): of assembly, 120; discourse of, 128; of labor, 128; right of association, 119–20; right to work, 128 freemasonry, 84, 85, 92, 93, 100, 105, 115, 184. See also specific lodges free port city: 7, 182, 235, 247, 252 free trade, vs. logic of nation-state, 161 Freiburg, 192 French Benevolent Society, 212 French colony (migrant community), 29, 211–12, 226 French Commercial Bureau, 181, 182 French consul, 175, 186, 220, 227 French culture, 56, 183–85 French language, 51, 56; education and, 52–53; promotion of, 52–53 French-language schools, 52–53, 72, 184; French High School (Lycée), 84, 227; French-Jewish Commercial School, 72. See also specific schools French troops, 27–28, 169, 206, 225, 236, 239. See also Army of the Orient fuel, 169, 179 gabella (communal meat tax), 38 gachmi (funeral services committee), 38 Gattegno, Avraam, 47 General Assembly: of the Jewish community, 38, 45, 49, 111; of the Industrialists’ Association, 257 George, King, 142–43 Georgiadis, G., 39, 233 Georgiadis Brothers, 237 German colony (migrant community), 29 German Empire, 30; as enemy empire during World War I, 173 “Germanophiles,” vs. “Francophiles,” 260–61 German School, 72, 112 Germany, 4, 99, 151–52, 154, 155, 156, 158, 167, 173, 176, 261; cigarette industry in, 174; import trade before World War I and, 181; trade blockaded with, 171; World War I and, 167 Gevgelija, 102, 152 Giannoulis, Tasko, 78, 79

372

index

Giraud School, 112 glocal, 161 goldsmiths, 112 Gounaris, Dimitrios, 9, 179 government contracts, 179; government regulation, 169. See also specific governments grain, 200, 229; export of, 57; grain milling, 169 Gramsci, Antonio, 272 Grand Cercle, 36, 38, 108 Grand Cercle Commercial, 69–70, 73, 74–77, 82, 246–47 Grand Cercle Israélite, 38, 39, 48, 92 Grand Loge d’Orient, Paris, 115 Grand Orient de France, 93 Grathwohl, 174 Great Fire of 1917, 15, 100, 177, 186, 206–7, 212, 215, 216, 231, 233, 240, 263–64; expropriation of land after, 222–23; Jewish emigration and, 224; refugees from, 217; trade and, 221–23 Great Powers, 154, 163. See also specific entities Great War. See World War I Greco-Bulgarian conflicts, 62, 123, 153, 218–19 Greco-Italian rivalry, 262 Greco-Jewish numerical gap, closing, 218–31 Greco-Jewish power balance, 280 Greco-Jewish relations, 8–16, 132–34, 141–42, 194, 262, 271, 274–75; Allies and, 182; chamber of commerce and, 277–78; commercial associations and, 277–78; economic rivalry, 112, 141–42; Hadjilazarou and, 235; merchants as symbols of, 207–8; multiplicity of power centers and, 184, 185–86; political alignment and, 266–67; professional associations and, 263–65; worsening of during war, 137 Greco-Jewish societies, 133 Greco-Turkish War, 14, 218, 273; Greek defeat in, 215; population exchange after, 5, 10–11, 16, 215–16, 231, 270, 274, 276 Greece, 42, 57, 167, 240; Balkan Alliance and, 101–2; Balkan Wars and, 136–64; defeat in Greco-Turkish War, 14; food imports and, 176; France and, 185; Greco-Bulgarian tensions and, 218–19; Greek territories, 65; neutrality of, 175; occupation of Salonica

by, 138; surrender of Ottomans to, 102; territorial expansion following Balkan wars, 245; union with Crete, 109, 127, 130. See also Greek government Greek anti-Judaism, during Second Constitutional Period, 282. See also antisemitism Greek army, 102, 135, 137, 169, 179 Greek associations: Jews in, 258–70; professional, 252–57. See also specific associations Greek Association of Commercial Employees, 197 Greek banks, 121, 125 Greek chamber of commerce, 94 Greek Chamber of Commerce of Istanbul, 25 Greek consul/consulate, 62, 67, 123, 133 Greek cooperatives, 232 Greek culture, as assimilative tool, 65 Greek entrepreneurship: from other regions of Greece, 237–39; strengthening of, 233–42 Greek factories, 233 Greek government, 16, 26, 32, 136–64, 166, 168, 184, 236–37, 244, 272–74; arbitrary violence of, 219; associations and, 26, 253–54; banking and, 170–71; business culture and, 178–79; central and centralizing, 14; centralization and, 274; chamber of commerce and, 199; circles of, 186; commercial employees and, 197–98; commercial legislation, 141; consolidation of power and, 245; criticism of, 197–98, 199; delegitimization of Ottoman institutions after regime change, 252; Economic Bureau, 151; economic encroachment by, 276; education and, 123; expansion of state bureaucracy, 202–6; food provisioning and, 177–78, 202; Great Fire of 1917 and, 221–23, 263–64; Greek merchants and, 10, 233–41, 253–54, 278; guilds and, 199; Hellenization and, 185; ideological dominance and, 123; industry and, 168; interventionist role of, 10, 168, 177–80, 215, 245, 246, 250–51, 262, 274; Jewish community and, 221–23, 261–64, 178–79, 274, 281; Law 184, 245, 246; Law 281, 245, 246, 250–51; legislation, 250, 274; merchants and, 10, 195–206, 233–41, 278; Ministry of Economy,

index 186; Ministry of Finance, 266; nationalization and, 216; neglect by, 26–27, 28; onset of, 212–13; policies of, 10, 11, 171–72, 202–6, 216, 219, 231, 250, 253–54, 262–63, 268; political allegiances and, 179–80; political detachment of Jewish merchants from, 185; post-Fire reconstruction plan of, 240–41; pro-Royalist, 167; protectionism and, 231, 250; provincialism, introspection, and conservatism of, 5; recognition of class distinctions by, 249–50; regulations and restrictions on trade, 262–63; seeking to eliminate Western European influence, 186; Serbian import duties and, 153–54; shift in financial services from Jewish-owned to Greek-owned banks, 231; sovereignty of, 252; stagnation and regression under, 5; transition to, 6–7, 8–10, 16–17, 26, 27–32; uncertainty of, 14; Provisional Government, 167, 177, 215, 222, 236, 241, 262; at war in 1910s, 216 Greek guerrilla groups, 65–67 Greek hegemony, 251–52, 272; professional associations and, 264; state establishment of, 245, 246 Greek historical discourse, 65 Greek identity, 4–5, 66, 164 Greek irredentism, 76, 85, 133, 134, 270 Greek labor legislation, 141 Greek language, 186; as assimilative tool, 65; required knowledge of, 178 Greek law, 214 Greek Literary Society, 65 Greek Macedonia, 63–64, 68, 181, 185, 240–41, 270 Greek Macedonianism, 241–42, 272, 277–78 Greek Macedonians, 42, 256 Greek merchant–industrialist bourgeoisie, 21, 254–58, 258 Greek merchants, 28, 168, 217, 233–41; acquisition of failed Jewish business by, 233; adopt business attitude of majority, 232; arrivals of, 218–31; in chamber of commerce, 276; change in business and investment strategies, 232, 271; consolidation of power and, 252–57; contrasting fortunes of, 234–36; domination

373

of industrial sector by, 232; Greek government and, 10, 233–41, 253–54, 278; inability to emerge as political force, 278; long-term investments by, 232; new bourgeois identity and, 251–52; newcomers, 233–41, 276–77; from other regions of Greece, 238–42; professional associations of, 252–57; upward trajectory of, 218, 228–42, 251–58, 270–71, 272; during World War I, 171–72. See also Greek Orthodox merchants Greek migrants, 56–57 Greek nationalism, 5, 7–8, 10, 28, 47, 94, 122, 162, 167, 185, 278–79; class hierarchies and, 125; Greek nationalist historiography, 65; Greek Orthodox merchants and, 122–23; guilds and, 125; Jewish commercial predominance and, 194; vs. Jewish socialism, 282; local identities and, 28; rediscovery of Macedonia and, 65; unifying power of, 124–25, 126 Greekness, 7–8, 12–13, 28, 123, 247, 272, 279, 282–83; bourgeoisie and, 273; commerce and, 82; Jewishness and, 262 Greek Orthodox associations, 39, 47, 124; commercial, 124. See also specific associations Greek Orthodox bourgeoisie, 204–5, 275 Greek Orthodox businesses. See specific businesses and kinds of businesses; diversification of, 232; growth of, 232; rapid success of, 233 Greek Orthodox carters, 126–27 Greek Orthodox church, 63 Greek Orthodox commercial bourgeoisie: formation of, 20; immigration and, 67–68 Greek Orthodox commercial employees, 126 Greek Orthodox commissioners, 127 Greek Orthodox communities: violence against, 228 Greek Orthodox community of Izmir, 46 Greek Orthodox community of Salonica, 1, 4, 7–10, 13, 14, 38, 108; advancement of, 106–35; after Young Turk Revolution, 121–26; associational activity and, 92–93, 123–24 (see also Greek Orthodox associations; specific associations); Bulgarians and, 93, 94; closing of ranks among, 123; commerce and, 121–22; communal bodies and, 47; communal

374

index

Greek Orthodox community of Salonica (continued ) cohesion and, 127–28; dominance of, 17; economic expansion of, 116, 134; Jewish community and, 8–9; lower-middle strata in, 124–25; “minority mentality” of, 94; multiethnic associations and, 92–93; newcomers, 56–68, 93; Ottoman, 124; political shifts and, 125; public lectures on benefits of mutuality in, 124; siege mentality of, 93–94; skepticism about Greek rule, 8–9; small size of, 93; social transformations and, 125; tensions with/isolation from other communities, 92–95; transition from empire to nation-state and, 27–32; Young Turk Revolution of 1908 and, 121–26. See also specific subgroups Greek Orthodox craftsmen, 112–13 Greek Orthodox Gymnasium, 125 Greek Orthodox industrialists, 122. See also Greek merchant–industrialist bourgeoisie Greek Orthodox merchants, 24, 32, 39, 42, 56–68, 69, 100, 101, 108, 126–27, 170, 201; authority of, 124–25; Balkan Wars and, 137; bourgeois identity of, 270; class relations and, 121–25; communal affairs and, 46; economic advancement of, 121–22; ethnic cohesion and, 69; Greek nationalism and, 122–23; group cohesion and, 122–23; identity formation and, 57; importance of immigration for formation of, 59–68; interethnic relations and, 126–35; internal diversity of, 42; Jewish merchants and, 132–33; locality and, 59–62; Macedonia and, 58–59, 65–67, 270; “minority mentality” of, 270; national colors and, 123; social life and, 61–62; taxation and, 46; associations and, 61–63. See also Greek merchant–industrialist bourgeoisie; Greek merchants Greek Orthodox new year, 39 Greek Orthodox refugees, 10–11, 14, 176, 206–7, 215–17, 228–29, 276; integration of, 229; Ottoman persecution of, 3; repatriation of, 186 Greek Orthodox schools, 72. See also specific schools

Greek Orthodox workers, 124–25, 126–27 Greek party politics, 179–80. See also Liberal Party; National Schism; Royalist Party Greek philanthropic institutions, 277 Greek public discourse, new configurations of “Jewishness” in, 282 Greek Red Cross committees, 229, 234 Greek soldiers, campaign for wounded, 143 Greeks: of Salonica after 1912. See Greek associations; Greek entrepreneurship; Greek merchant–industrialist bourgeoisie; Greek merchants Grey, Edward, 155 Grigoriadis, Stavros, 72 Grigorios Tsitsis & Co., 60–61 grocers, 196, 199 group cohesion: education and, 51–52; Greek Orthodox merchants and, 122–23; Jewish merchants and, 48, 51–52 group identity formation, merchants and, 23–24 Guild of Bakers, 125 Guild of Laborers, 125 Guild of Restaurant and Tavern Managers, 200 guilds, 109–19, 121, 188, 200; Greek Orthodox, 125; Greek state and, 199; “guilds’ commission,” 116; Jewish, 116–17, 129–30; merchants and, 189, 195–201. See also specific guilds Guilds’ Association, 125, 188, 189, 197, 198, 199, 201, 228, 247 Habsburg Empire, 7, 13, 30, 64, 157; as enemy empire during World War I, 173; fall of, 268; successor states, 29. See also Austria-Hungary Hadji Daout, 166 Hadjidimoulas, Iraklis, 238, 257 Hadjikyriakou, Georgios, 122, 125, 274–75 Hadjilazarou, Cleon, 76, 183, 214, 234–36, 255; ascent of, 234–35; departure of, 236; as first Greek president of chamber of commerce, 235; Greco-Jewish relations and, 235 Hadjilazarou, Pericles, 39, 61, 133, 134, 213, 214, 234, 252, 257 Hadjilazarou & Co. textile mill, 235 Hadjilazarou business dynasty/family, 5, 232

index Hadjiyannakis, Georgios, 276 Hellenistic era, 65, 247 Hellenization, 14, 24, 26, 29, 47, 215–42, 276, 278–81, 284–85; acceleration and intensification of post-1922, 274; business strategies and, 217–18; demographic trend toward, 218–31; despite enduring Jewish demographic and economic predominance, 217–18; emigration as act of, 223; enabled by arrival or investments of entrepreneurs from other parts of Greece, 237; Greek press clamoring for forced, 252; Greek state and, 185; newcomers as driving force behind, 238–41; new sociabilities and, 252, 266, 268; of Ottoman Christians, 47; of Ottoman institutions, 234; rupture in process of, 273–74; World War I and, 178, 180, 186, 205 Hikmet bey, Ibrahim, 108 Hirsch Hospital, 46, 49, 50, 91, 103, 110, 211 historiography, 10, 15–16, 26–27, 162, 207, 268, 274, 284 Holocaust, 5, 278 Hondrodimos, Konstantinos, 62, 71 Houmnos, Nikiforos, 218 ice, 169; ice-making company, 239; ice-making equipment, 169 identities: fluidity of, 29; formation of, 23–24, 55–56, 57; hybrid, 19; identity crisis, 4–5; of merchants, 28–29; new, 243–69; spatial, 62, 163; transitions as transformations of, 30–31. See also the self; self-fashioning; subjecthood; specific identities immigration: formation of Greek Orthodox merchant milieu and, 59–68; immigration bureaus, 224; Jewish to France, 211, 214, 224, 225–26. See also aliyah; emigration; Jewish emigration imperialism, 156, 157–60 import duties, 104, 145, 149–54, 197–98; and Chamber of Commerce of Salonica, 151–52, 153; established by Bulgaria, 154; established by Serbia, 151–61; internationalization of the issue, 154–56; merchant multiethnic

375

collaboration to fight, 152–60. See also Serbian import duties; tariffs import–export trade, 6, 37, 43, 57, 71, 104, 105, 198, 206, 232; Allied control of, 181; debts and, 145–47; disrupted by state policies, 202–6; duties and, 150–52; export bans, 169, 171; familial networks and, 262–63; forbidden, 202; Jewish dominance and, 148–49; Jewish dominance in, 145–48; Jewish merchants and, 59; multiethnic coexistence and, 148–49; redrawing of borders and, 149–51; restrictions on, 171; state policies during World War I and, 171–72; susceptibility to risk, 148–49; taxation and, 44, 46; tax-free, 224; during World War I, 171–72 industrialists, 22, 60–61, 219, 281. See also Greek merchant–industrialist bourgeoisie; Greek Orthodox industrialists Industrialists’ Association of Macedonia, 26, 198, 214, 234, 248, 249, 251, 252–58; expansion in jurisdiction of, 262; Fourth Panhellenic Congress on Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture, 265–66; Jews in, 267 industry, 21, 168. See also Greek factories; Greek Macedonian manufacturing; Jewish industry insurance companies, 222, 263–64. See also specific companies integration: communal, 46; market, 178; of non-local merchants, 229, 238; national, 27, 81, 180, 185, 204, 216, 241–42, 245, 252, 263, 265–68, 281, 283. See also Hellenization Interclub, 141, 246–47 inter-communal relations, 113, 132–34. See also coexistence; conviviality; interethnic relations; multiethnic Salonica interethnic relations, 8–16, 39, 70–71, 132–34, 226, 271; Balkan Wars and, 144; Cercle des Intimes and, 130; class and, 134–35; class relations and, 126–35; interethnic consensus, 205–6, 207, 281; interethnic institutions, 271; interethnic tensions, 126–27, 130, 134; Jewish associationism and, 84; labor disputes and, 126–28; lower strata and, 126–27; multiethnic collaboration, 132–33, 137,

376

index

interethnic relations (continued ) 152–56, 158–64; multiethnic collectives, 114, 144–45; multiethnic commercial bourgeoisie, 28; multiethnic economy, 226. See also multiethnic Salonica; specific ethnicities International Committee, 162 internationalization: of Salonica, 6, 8–9, 160 international law, violations of, 150 international networks, 156, 158 intra-communal politics, 109–20, 275 Ionian Bank, 183 Ionian Sea, 218 Irby, Paulina, 86 Islam, 80 Israel, immigration to, 227. See also aliyah Istanbul, 25, 27, 30, 46, 65, 67–68, 163, 192, 213, 219, 224, 270 Italian army, 27–28, 170 Italian associations, 54, 181, 185 Italian Beneficent Society, 54 Italian chamber of commerce, 181, 185 Italian colony (migrant community), 20, 29, 43, 54–56, 91, 175 Italian commercial schools, 72 Italian consul, 55, 175, 185 Italian education, 53–54; Italian School, 112; Italian Umberto Primo Practical and Commercial School, 72 Italian expatriates, 156 Italian Jews (“Francos”), 20, 42, 44, 47, 52–56, 69, 85, 135, 170, 175, 185; Greco-Italian rivalry and, 262; Italian Jewish institutions, 54; Italian Jewish merchants, 43, 52, 54–55, 262; Italian national identity and, 54; Italianness and, 53; performance of Italian identity and, 54–55 Italian language, 52, 55, 56 Italian Naval League, 54 Italian Red Cross, 54 Italians, 13, 41, 91; advance of business interests during World War I, 181–82; aspirations to expand economically, 185; Jewish merchants and, 183–85; local market and, 181–82 Italian troops, 206 Italo-Jewish ties, 183–85

Italo-Ottoman War, 102, 135, 149, 170, 221 Italy, 69, 99, 154, 156, 171. See also Greco-Italian rivalry; Italian Jews Ithaca, 218 Izmir, 13, 19, 21, 46, 61, 68, 72, 100, 107, 223, 224, 228, 270; as “Greek Smyrna,” 68. Jaurès, Jean, 115 Jewish artisans, 114–16 Jewish associations, 37–39; federation of, 140; multiethnic contact and, 84. See also specific associations and kinds of associations Jewish belonging, newly found sense of, 279–80 Jewish bourgeoisie: Franco-Jewish social space and, 184; Jewish bourgeois identity, 20, 70, 86–87, 272; Jewish bourgeois sociability, 183–84; reshuffling of priorities of, 113. Jewish capital, flight of, 225–26 Jewish carters, 126–28, 129, 140 Jewish Chronicle, 86 Jewish communal education, nationalization of, 14 Jewish community, 14; class politics and, 109– 20; class relations within, 109–13; fragmentation of during World War I, 260–61; Greek authorities and, 261–62; Greek Orthodox community and, 8–9; intra-communal class tensions and, 260–61; lower strata, 272; loyalties questioned, 262; organizational autonomy of, 16; professional associations’ advocacy for, 263–64; professional associations and, 264; public prominence of, 70; solidarity and, 115, 120, 128; transition from empire to nation-state and, 27–32 Jewish difference, semantic shift in meanings of, 282 Jewish emigration: effects on social networks, 226; Great Fire of 1917 and, 224 Jewish entrepreneurship, 176; Jewish entrepreneurial networks, 226; local economy and, 225–26 Jewish Francophile associations, 184 Jewish hegemony, 14, 84–85, 131, 144; antisemitic myth of, 212; commercial, 139, 144, 194; control of multiethnic market,

index 128–29; Greek nationalism and, 194; in import–export trade, 145–49; multiethnic coexistence and, 85; threatened, 110–35, 139; urban, 244 Jewish identity, 143–44; crisis in, 140–45, 272; redefinition of, 95 Jewish industry, stagnation of, 233 Jewish localism, 88, 90 Jewish merchants, 32, 52, 193, 233, 267–68, 270; accused of war profiteering, 187, 188, 195, 199; administrative institutions and, 44–45; adopt business attitude of minority, 232; Alliance Israélite Universelle and, 51–52; Allied administration and, 182–83; Allied forces and, 183–84; assimilationist ideology and, 245; on associational committees, 264; associationism and, 259–60; authority of, 55–56; Balkan Wars and, 137, 138–45; blacklists and, 170, 175; bourgeois identity of, 270; business networks and, 156, 175–76; Central Powers and, 175–76; chamber of commerce and, 259–60, 264; citizenship and, 87; class relations and, 109–21; in Commercial Association, 259–60; communal authority of, 140; communal institutions and, 45–49; communal reforms and, 47–48; consolidation of power and, 46, 52, 55–56; credit and, 145–48, 171; debt obligations and, 156, 157; declining numbers in, 231; defensive moves of, 231–33; delegitimization of, 193–94; departures of, 211, 214, 218–31, 259; deportations in spring of 1943, 278; discrimination against, 264–65; as distinct (fiscal) category, 44; diversity of, 43–44; dominance in food and supplies sector, 179; dominance of, 22, 48, 179, 225–26, 228, 231; effect of emigration on, 22, 225–26, 228; enduring strength of, 178–79, 183, 186–87, 217; ethnic cohesion and, 69; European cultural orientation and, 56, 183–85; exodus of, 242; familial networks and, 262; figure supplanted by Jewish socialist worker figure, 282; foreign citizenship and, 135, 175, 176, 183–84, 185; foreign officers and, 183–84; Great Fire of 1917 and, 221–23; in Greek associations, 258–70; Greek Orthodox community boycott of, 139; Greek Orthodox

377

merchants and, 132–33; group cohesion and, 48, 51–52; Hadjilazarou and, 235; identity and, 55–56, 87, 193, 193–94, 266 (see also Jewishness); import–export trade and, 59; in Industrialists’ Association of Macedonia, 267; integration of, 266–67, 278–79; interethnic relations and, 126–35; internal diversity of, 42; intra-communal developments and, 260–61; labeled “national threat” by Greek press, 94; milestones of, 49–51; minorization of, 162; “minority mentality” of, 267, 268, 272–73; multiethnic collaboration and, 152–56, 158–64; networks and, 147–48; new bourgeois identity and, 251–52; non-Zionist, 247; pan-European connections of, 146–47; perceived as smugglers, 173; personal networks with Europeans, 156; political detachment from Greek state, 185; in postwar Greek business environment, 186–87; power bases affected by emigration, 226–27; predominance of, 194; problematic notion of, 143–44; professional associations and, 252–53, 258–69; prominence of, 185, 202, 271; as quintessential bourgeoisie, 271; rebounding of, 169–70; restricted to specialized sectors, 231; shifting business strategy of, 272–73; shifting demographics and, 218, 220–21, 228; social contacts and, 183–84; social power and, 48; state intervention and, 178–79; suspected of contraband operations, 262–63; suspected of trading with the Central Powers, 262–63; symbolic capital and, 47–48; taxation and, 44, 46; temporary reassertion of their prominence, 137–38; transnational family networks of, 147–48, 176, 262–63; uncertainty about long-term business prospects, 231–32; associations and, 48–49; during World War I, 169–70, 171–72, 186–87 Jewish National Fund, 279 Jewishness, 20, 54, 69, 75–76, 114, 143–44, 273, 279, 282–83; benefaction and, 90–91; bourgeoisie and, 28, 48–49, 120, 271; called into question, 267; category of, 163; Cercle des Intimes and, 129–30; civic identity and, 91, 95–96; class and, 95; commerce and, 6–7,

378

index

Jewishness (continued ) 28, 82, 140, 163, 270, 272; cosmopolitanism and, 95–96; of elite, 120; Europe and, 42–56; exemplary, 20; as foreignness, 151; Greekness and, 262; in Greek public discourse, 282; internationalization and, 160; labor movement and, 195; locality and, 163; performance of, 88, 96; philanthropy and, 90–91; redefinition of, 55–56; Salonican identity and, 68, 87–88, 95–96; secular education and, 52–53; socialism and, 195; urbanity and, 85–88 Jewish philanthropy, 49, 110–11; milestones and, 49–51; modernization and, 91; philanthropic institutions, 277 (see also specific institutions) Jewish refugees: from Balkan Wars and World War I, 217, 220; from Ottoman Macedonia, 220–21 Jewish schools, 72. See also specific schools Jewish self-fashioning, 86 Jewish social imaginary, 115 Jewish socialism: vs. Greek nationalism, 282; supplanting Jewish merchants, 282. See also Benaroya, Abraham; Socialist Workers’ Federation Jewish stevedores, 127 Jewish voters, registration of, 260 Jewish wholesalers, 126–28, 129, 194 Jewish working classes, 109–16, 129, 260, 268, 281. See also specific vocations Jewish youth, 212 Jews, 4, 108, 137, 158, 163; agency of, 10; Ashkenazi Jews, 36, 57, 62, 174; in Athens, 223; as backbone of commercial bourgeoisie, 9–10; banking and, 146–47; bourgeoisie and, 28; city life and, 83–93; in Commercial Association, 267; communal cohesion and, 112; of Eastern Europe, 36, 57, 62, 174; of North Africa, 36; excluded from communal governance, 274; foreign citizenship and, 42, 43, 44, 45; intra-communal strife and, 112; Italian Jews (“Francos”), 20, 42–44, 47, 52–56, 69, 85, 135, 170, 175, 185, 262; migration of, 8–9, 211, 214, 218–31, 259, 276, 278; multiethnic economy and, 226; of North Africa, 36; numerical majority of, 217; Ottoman, 13–16,

36, 42, 43, 128–29, 224; as Salonicans, 68, 87–88, 95–96, 270; Sephardi Jews, 1, 157, 174; targeted under Greek rule, 274; transformed from semi-autonomous religious community to minority, 10; Young Turk Revolution of 1908 and, 110–21. See also Balkan Jews; Jewish community; Jewishness; Jewish merchants; specific subgroups joint committee, establishment of, 132–33 Joseph Mano & Sons, 147 Journal de Salonique, 55, 87, 94–95, 106, 107, 114–15, 128, 132 Kadin, 109 Kammonas, Kostas, 47 Kampanyas quarter, 5 Kapandji, Mehmet, 252 Karaburnu, 236 Karagiannidis, Gregorios, 229 Karakas, Medjit, 219 Karakas, Rustem, 219 Karipis, Grigorios, 80 Karvonides, G., 85 Kastoria, 61 Kavala, 174, 257 Kenya Commonwealth Gazette, 174 Kilkis Mahala, 42 Kirtsis, Georgios, 39, 64 Kirtsis, Kyros, 237, 238, 255 Kirtsis, Panagis, 238 Kirtsis brothers, 238 Kirtsis family, 237 Kleisoura, 66 Kleisoura Association, 62 Knott, William, 206 Kontis, K., 62 Korisos, 61 Korisos Brotherhood, 62 Kouskouras, Ioannis, 47, 133 Kozani, 61, 67 Krakow, 30 Krallis, Alexandros, 66 Krallis, Nikolaos, 59 Krushevo, 59, 66 Ktenas, K., 63

index Kurds, 2 Kutso Vlachs, 163 labor: vs. capital, 191, 195; demands of, 193; labor relations, 109–15, 117 (see also labor disputes; labor movement); manual, 42, 112 (see also working classes; Jewish working classes); Western discourse on, 112. See also workers Labor (the Association of Jewish Builders), 251 Labor Center, 27, 188, 197, 198, 201, 204 labor centers, creation of, 250 labor disputes, 115, 117, 170, 213; interethnic relations and, 126–28; intra-communal strife and, 112, 118–19. See also strikes labor legislation, protective, 250 labor market: crisis in, 198; diversification of, 112–13; ethnicity and, 198 labor movement, 195, 268. See also Jewish socialism; Socialist Workers’ Federation labor offices, 115 Ladies’ Charitable Society, 87 Ladino, 21, 52–53, 56 Ladino publications, 119–20 La Epoka, 243, 244 Lamnides, Konstantinos, 61 Lampedusa, Giuseppe Tomasi de, 185 La Nayson (The Nation), 48, 116, 129 Landowners’ Association, 235 land redistribution, 231, 274 languages, 284. See also specific languages La Revue Franco-Macédonienne, 206 Larissa, 223 Lausanne, 215 Law 184, 245, 246 Law 281, 245, 246, 250–51 Lawn Tennis and Sporting club, 84, 93 lawyers, 47 lay participation, 41–42, 44–45 L’Écho de Salonique, 202 Le Progrès, 101 les Jeunes (the Young), 142 les Vieux (the Elders), 142 Levy, Sam, 47 Liberal Club, 179, 229, 266

379

Liberal Party, 134, 179–80, 198, 215, 245, 249–50, 273 Liberty Square, 108 Limnos, 171 L’Indépendant, 150, 166, 188, 197, 202, 216, 241, 261 Lippman School, 37 localism, 26–27, 28, 30, 203–6, 207, 265, 272, 278–79. See also anti-Athenian localism; Jewish localism; Salonican identity locality, 24, 27–32, 163, 267–68, 278; class and, 27; commerce of, 163; ethnic hierarchies and, 27; Greek Orthodox merchants and, 59–62; Jewishness and, 163; merchant identities and, 28–29; milestones and, 64; performance of, 20, 64; politicization of, 205; production of, 27; transition and, 29. See also Salonican identity; Salonicanness Lodge Macedonia Risorta, 100 Lodge Philippos, 93 Lodge Veritas, 84, 85, 92, 100, 115 Lodz, 30 Lodzermensch, 13 Loggos, Kirtsis and Tourpalis, 60 Loggos and Tourpalis, 60–61 London: London Chamber of Commerce, 155, 263; Sephardi communities in, 157 Longos, Gregorios, 257 lower-middle strata, 120–21; associationism and, 250; in Greek Orthodox community, 124–25; Zionism’s appeal to, 120 lower strata, 141; Cercle des Intimes and, 129; concern for, 110–11, 118; Greek, 274–75; in Greek Orthodox community, 124; interethnic tensions and, 126–27; Jewish community, 272; politicization of, 119–21, 126; radicalization of, 140. See also Jewish working classes luxury goods, 231 Lycée Classique, 72 Maccabi Gymnastics Society, 141, 261 Macedonia, 3, 7, 20, 57, 63–64, 69, 99–100, 164, 221; consumption in, 58; economic changes in, 58; ethnic antagonisms in, 107; excursions to, 67; Greek Orthodox commerce in, 81; Greek Orthodox investments in, 60–61;

380

index

Macedonia (continued ) Greek Orthodox merchants and, 56–68; Greek Orthodox migrants from, 58–59; Macedonian industry, 214; rediscovery of, 65; spatial identification and, 163; trade in, 99–100, 103–4, 172. See also Greek Macedonia; Greek Macedonianism; “Macedonian Struggle”; Ottoman Macedonia “Macedonia for the Macedonians,” 163 Macedonian commerce, 214 Macedonian Committee, 163 Macedonian Educational Brotherhood, 65 Macedonian Educational Society, 65 Macedonian nationism, 66 “Macedonian Struggle,” 65–67 Mackenzie, Georgina, 86 Magazzino Italiano, 181, 185 Mair de Botton Ltd., 154 majorities, 5–12, 29, 30, 217 majoritization, 10–11, 14, 232, 251–58 majority, concept of, 10–11 majority culture, 29 majority mentality, 114, 272 Makedonia, 122, 153, 192 Makedonika, 7 Makris, Athanasios, 61, 222, 232, 234, 236, 239, 252, 255, 257, 266 Mallah, Abram, 52, 91 Mallah, Joseph (Peppo), 9, 179 Mallah Nahama, 225 Malta, 171 Manchester, 158; Manchester Chamber of Commerce, 145, 155; Sephardi communities in, 157 Manos, Nikolaos, 67 Manos, Vasileios, 66 manufacturers: Greek, 168–69; Jewish, 169. See also Greek Orthodox industrialists manufacturing, 168, 169, 237, 238, 271; Greek Macedonian, 257–58. See also Greek factories; Jewish industry; specific companies and products Maou, Nikolaos, 66 Marintsoglou, Achilleas, 229, 230–31 Marintsoglou, Georgios, 229 Marintsoglou, Kyriakos, 229 Marintsoglou brothers, 276

Marintsoglou family, 229 maritime agents, 131, 132 maritime trade, during World War I, 171 market institutions, 275 market integration, 178 marriages, 49, 64 Marseille, 211, 224, 225, 236 Marxism, 190, 192 masonic lodges, 84. See also freemasonry; specific lodges mass politics, era of, 109, 118, 120–21, 205, 212–13, 260, 276, 283 master–apprentice relationships, 39. See also apprenticeship Matalon, David, 119 Matalon, Joseph, 48, 50 Matanot Laevionim, 45–46, 82, 111 Max Nordau, 261 Meliteus Orphanage, 63 memory: local, 7; memorialization, 7; personal sites of, 64; public, 206–7 merchant identities, 28–29, 277, 281; constructed through discourses and practices, 283–84; dependent on historical conjuncture, 283–84; group identity formation and, 23–24; new understanding of self and, 280–81; politicization of, 137; reconfiguration of class identity and, 207–8; reshaping of, 195–202; transformation from “cultural” to “political,” 283–84; universality of bourgeois, 83 merchants, 16–32, 130, 187–95, 281; adaptability of, 281; authority of, 23, 24, 140, 275; Balkan Wars and, 137, 138–45; as bellwether, 164; bourgeois identity and, 24–25, 245; as “capitalists” and “employers,” 190; as central figures during Hamidian era, 275; changing sources of power and, 24; citizenship and, 21, 275; class identity and, 23–24, 28–29, 69–96, 193–95, 216, 273, 276, 277; delegitimization of, 193–94, 195, 207; diversity of, 21; employer/employee dynamics and, 195–201; eroded status of, 141; ethnic identities and, 41–68, 216, 277; as fluid occupational category, 21–23; in flux, 126–35; Greek state and, 195–201, 202–6; guilds and, 195–201; hegemony of, 275–76; Hellenization of, 24; importance of, 5, 25; industrialists and,

index 254–57, 258; institutional membership and, 21; local politics and, 207; merchant elite, 119, 126 (see also elites); as metaphor, 21; mobility of, 21; monopoly held by, 145; multiethnic collaboration to fight Serbian import duties, 152–60; national conference of, 264; networks and, 275; professional associations and, 277; prominence of, 24–25, 202, 275; racketeering, 207; rebounding of, 202–6, 207–8; recast as heroes, 205–6; religion and, 21; remaking themselves into community of professionals, 273; representing class and ethnicity in state of flux, 126–35; as “resellers,” 190; retreat post-1922, 275; rhetoric of profiteering and, 190–201, 207, 284; self-fashioning and, 77–78; semantic fluidity of the term, 21–23, 275–76; separation from artisans and tradesmen, 277; shift from association with ethnicity to class, 207–8; specialization of, 21; speculative practices and, 199; as subjects constituted through discourses and social practices, 23–24; symbolism of, 207–8, 275–76; associations and, 62–63; waning influence of, 275–76; wealth of, 21; Young Turk Revolution of 1908 and, 126–35. See also Greek merchant-industrialist bourgeoisie; Greek Orthodox commercial bourgeoisie; “the commercial community”; specific groups merkader (merchant), 21, 142. See also Jewish merchants Meron, Orly, 231 middle class, 192, 260; cohesion of, 135; educated, 120–21; Muslim, 18; non-Muslim, 18; split by Zionism, 120–21. See also bourgeoisie; Jewish bourgeoisie middlemen. See merchants migrants: forced, 218–31; migrant benefactors, 63–64; migrant sociability, 64; networks established in home villages, 59; spatial identities and, 62. See also Christian Orthodox migrants; Greek migrants migratory movements, 20, 216–31, 270. See also Jewish emigration Milan, 100 milestones: Jewish philanthropy and, 49–51; locality and, 64

381

military needs, manufacturing and, 169 military service, compulsory, 274 millet, 11, 16. See also community; Greek Orthodox community of Salonica; Jewish community minorities, 5–12, 29, 30, 217; minority culture, 29; minority identity, 267; minority status, 10; nationalism and, 268 minorization, 10, 14, 30, 137, 162, 232, 267 minority mentality, 268, 270, 272–73 Misrahi, E., 54 Misrahi, Henry, 53 Misrahi, Joseph, 7, 32, 38, 46, 49, 53, 110, 116, 122, 225, 233; adaptation by, 213; Alliance Israélite Universelle and, 211, 212; on Balkan Wars, 138; in Cercle de Salonique, 212; Cercle de Salonique and, 213; in chamber of commerce, 212, 213–14; co-founds Industrialists’ Association of Macedonia, 214; departure of, 211, 214, 225, 226, 227; as French citizen, 211–12, 213; Industrialists’ Association of Macedonia and, 252–53; onset of Greek rule and, 212–13; proposes national congress of chambers of commerce, 266; as public face of the community, 211; as true Salonican, 212; Zionist movement and, 212 Misrahi, Lazare, 53 Misrahi, Moise, 53, 91, 110, 116 Misrahi family, 46, 53, 55, 266 Mission Laïque, 72, 184, 211–12; Alumni Association, 227 modernity, 21 modernization, 17, 38, 70; Hamidian, 244; Jewish philanthropy and, 91 Modiano, Edmond, 106 Modiano, Elda, 106 Modiano, Fakima, 37 Modiano, Jacob, 36, 37, 45, 49, 54, 110, 116, 183 Modiano, Leon, 227 Modiano, M., 54 Modiano, Madame Samuel, 106 Modiano, Maurice, 116 Modiano, Pepo, 129 Modiano, S., 85 Modiano, Saul, 37, 40, 45, 70–71 Modiano Bank, 135

382

index

Modiano credit establishment, 54 Modiano family, 35, 37, 46, 53, 84, 85, 116 Moise Allatini School, 51 Molho, Jacob, 165–66, 169, 173, 178, 179, 182, 264–65; on chamber of commerce, 166, 173, 276–77; honors and positions held by, 166; loyalty of, 166; as misfit, 166–67; on municipal council, 166, 173; reputation of, 166 Molho Brothers, 165–66 Monastiriot Synagogue, 221 Montenegro, 101–2, 136–64 Moore, Frederick, 73 Morpurgo, David, 53 Morpurgo, M., 54, 55, 85 Morpurgo, Moise, 49, 85, 108 Morpurgo family, 5, 7, 5, 185 Mosseri, Hugo, 226, 227 Mosseri family, 266 multiplicity of power centers, 177; Greco-Jewish relations and, 184, 185–86; during World War I, 177, 184, 185 Munich, 174 municipal council, 35–36, 166, 173 municipal elections of 1925, 278 Muslim associations, 62 Muslim employees, 130 Muslim Greeks, 215–16 Muslim landlords, 222 Muslim merchants, 100, 101, 130, 132, 168, 213; assimilationist ideology and, 245; disappearance of, 231, 259, 270; shrinking numbers of, 218, 219–20, 228 Muslim middle class, 18 Muslim refugees, 62, 216 Muslims, 114, 137; fleeing during First Balkan War, 149; growing politicization of, 130–31. See also Muslim Turks Muslim schools, 72 Muslim Turks, 1, 9, 57, 134, 152, 158, 163 mutual aid, discourse of, 124 mutual aid societies, 109, 111 mutuality, benefits of, 124 Nahmias, Albert, 114 Nahmias, Levy, 55, 87

Naoussa, 60–61, 60, 64, 67, 121, 168, 213, 225, 234, 256, 257, 258; Greek merchants and industrialists from, 237–38 Naoussa Brewery, 60, 233 Naoussa ice factory, 121 National Bank of Greece, 166, 170, 171, 172, 213 national bourgeoisies, quest for, 185 National Club, 125 national colors, Greek Orthodox merchants and, 123 National Defense movement, 236 national elections: of 1912, 125; of 1915, 278 national identity, 29–30; associations and, 268; fluidity of, 29; local identities and, 28; national rivalries and, 162 nationalism, 3, 17, 30, 81, 133, 162, 201, 204, 252, 268, 277, 279; anti-minority, 204; Balkan, 163; Cercle des Intimes and, 130; class politics and, 130–31; vs. cosmopolitanism, 175; heightened, 3–4; increasing, 42; Italian, 54; minorities and, 268; as motivation for Greek state support of professional organizations, 253–54; the press and, 274–75. See also Greek nationalism; Greekness; Ottomanism; Zionist movement nationality, 28, 154, 183–84 nationalization, 14, 26, 27, 30, 185, 216 National Schism, 167, 215, 236 national space, unification of, 65 nation-building, 17 nationhood, transition and, 29 nation-state(s), 42, 272; dawning era of, 160; logic of, 161; new realities of, 281; rigid framework of, 160; role of, 30; successor states and, 30; transition to, 6–7, 16–17, 26–32, 32, 280–81, 284; triumph of, 162 Nea Aletheia, 63, 205 Nefussy, Lazare, 227 Negrepontis, Stylianos, 236 Nehama, Cohen & Cie, 182–83 Nehama, Joseph, 2–3, 47, 49, 57, 70, 83, 111–15, 120, 130, 184; on anti-Athenian sentiment, 203; on antisemitic myth of Jewish dominance, 212; anti-Zionism of, 140; on government expropriation of burned zone,

index 223; on Greek state’s reconstruction plans, 241; on Indian summer of Ottoman Salonica, 167–68; on Jewish emigration, 225; as member of Lodge Veritas, 115; Misrahi and, 211, 212, 213, 227; on multiethnic tensions, 139–41; as president of Alliance Alumni Association, 115; “Salonican merchant” and, 4; on associations, 243, 244; on Young and Elders, 144 networks: business networks, 158, 175–76, 184, 219, 225, 226, 275; cross-ethnic networks, 156–57, 235 (see coexistence); disintegration of, 275–76; ethnic networks, 148, 178; familial networks, 147–48, 176, 178, 262–63; international networks, 156, 158, 178; merchants and, 275; political networks, 145–64, 229; regional networks, 148; social networks, 183–84, 226, 228, 234–35; trade networks, 58, 145–64; transnational credit networks, 164; transnational family networks, 147–48, 176, 262–63; Venizelist, 229. See also transnational networks New Club (Nea Lesche), 69–70, 73, 75–78, 80, 82, 83, 93, 119, 124, 125, 230, 246, 247–48, 278; electoral defeat of, 276; Office of Statistics, 80–81 newcomers, 43, 216–17, 233–41, 276. See also Greek migrants New Greece, 245 New Serbia, 151, 220 Nice, 224 Nicholas II, Czar, 106 Nikoletopoulos, 240 Niyazi, Ahmed, 107 Nogara, M., 55 non-governmental institutions, 157, 178 non-Greek populations, involuntary emigrations of, 216 North Africa, Jews of, 36 Northern Greece: division of, 171; land redistribution in, 231 notables, 21–23, 52–53, 126, 142, 163, 166, 212, 225, 235, 263, 275 notavle (notable), 142. See also notables Noukas Greek Orthodox private high school, 72, 91 Nouri, Osman, 174

383

Nouveau Cercle des Intimes, 116 Nouveau Club, 119, 120, 141, 142, 261 nouveaux riches, 193, 196 Nouvelle Filature of Torres and Misrahi, 233, 238 occupational diversification, 79, 249 occupational groups, 29 Oikonomike Epitheoresis (Economic Review), 81 Old Greece, 220, 223, 238–41 Olga, Queen, 143 olive oil, 169 Olympos Brewery, 122, 169, 211, 213, 225, 233. See also Olympos-Naoussa Brewery Olympos ice factory, 122 Olympos-Naoussa Brewery, 213, 225, 233, 276 Olympos Palace, 107 Omilos Philomousson, 92–93 opium, 184 orientalism, 206 Orosdi Back department store, 115, 118, 121, 124, 138, 150, 182 Ottoman reforms, 41–42, 44 Ottoman army, 136–64, 186 Ottoman bourgeoisie: conventional view of, 18; Ottoman bourgeois culture(s), 20 Ottoman Christians, Hellenization of, 47 Ottoman citizenship, 42, 132 Ottoman constitution, proclamation of, 100 Ottoman Empire, 7, 13, 18, 24–25, 30–31, 32, 36, 124, 174, 176, 185; alliance with Central Powers, 172; Balkan Alliance attack on, 101–2; Balkan Wars and, 136–64; collapse of, 6; end of Ottoman rule in Europe, 101–2; as enemy empire during World War I, 173; fall of, 268; final decades of, 58; historiography of, 15–16; markets in, 170; openness, mobility, and prosperity of Ottoman era, 5; Ottoman commercial law, 51; Ottoman commercial schools, 72; successor states of, 15–16; tax-free importation of goods in, 224; transition from, 7, 8, 32 Ottoman Fez Company of Kapandji and Yahiel, 233 Ottoman Industrial and Commercial Company (Société Anonyme Ottomane Industrielle et Commerciale de Salonique), 89, 185, 211

384

index

Ottoman institutions: commercial, 283–84; delegitimization of after regime change, 252; Hellenization of, 234 Ottomanism, 80; embrace of, 18; revisionist studies of, 19 Ottoman Macedonia, 3, 35, 42, 58, 145, 160, 217; Anglo-Russian intervention in, 107; fears of partition of, 149; fragmentation of, 223–24; Greco-Bulgarian tensions in, 62, 123, 218–19; Greek identity and, 66; Greek nationalism and, 122; immigrants from, 42; Jewish refugees from, 220–21 Ottoman markets, 157, 168 Ottomanness, of Salonica, 68 Ottoman pluralism, 164 Ottoman Public Debt Administration, 160 Ottoman Second Army Corps, 107 Ottoman Third Army Corps, 106–7, 136 Ottoman Turks, 3, 143, 166. See also Muslims; Muslim Turks Papafis, Ioannis, 63 Papageorgiou, Konstantinos, 47 Papageorgiou, Petros, 47 Papanaoum, K., 63 Papageorgiou, Nikolaos, 67 Papanastasiou, Alexandros, 222, 241 Paris, 224, 225–26; Paris Chamber of Commerce, 155, 263; Sephardi communities in, 157 Party of the Independents, 240 Pasha, Hasan Tahsin, 136 Pasha, Hayri, 107 paternalism, 197 Patras, 61 peace economy post–World War I, 186–87 pecha (communal tax), 44, 45 “the people” (laos, publique), 189, 192, 195, 207 the “people of the consumers,” 189–90 Perserverance Association, 230 Pesnikidis, Pericles, 39 Petridis, Miltiadis, 238 petty bourgeois, 190, 191. See also lower-middle strata petty traders, 196 Pharos tes Makedonias (Beacon of Macedonia), 72

Pharos tes Thessalonikes, 76, 94, 132 Pheidias (the Union of Marble Sculptors and Stonemasons), 251 philanthropy, 18, 55, 103, 122, 141, 143, 277; bourgeois identity and, 111; concern for the poor and, 110–11, 118; hometowns and, 63–64; in Istanbul, 67–68; Jewishness and, 90–91; philanthropic associations, 184 (see also specific associations); philanthropic institutions, 277 (see also specific institutions). See also Greek philanthropic institutions; Jewish philanthropy Philip II, 65 Philippou family, 239 Pierrakos, Economopoulos & Co. General Partnership, 238–39 Pierrakos, Ioannis, 241 Pierrakos, Nikolaos, 241 Pierrakos family, 238 Piraeus, 6, 61, 62, 171, 172, 186, 202–3, 223, 238, 239, 266, 278 Platsoukas, Ioannis, 237 Platsoukas, Konstantinos, 47, 67 Platsoukas family, 237 Plovdiv, 109, 229 pluralism, Ottoman, 164 political networks, Venizelist, 229 political rights, universal discourse of, 87 politics, 267–68; ethnic hierarchies and political rivalries, 179–80; food provisioning and political stability, 177; Greco-Jewish relations and, 266–67; late Ottoman notions of political power, 160–61; political economy, 51, 128; political networks, 145–64, 229; political polarization, 8–9; post-revolutionary, 106–35; state intervention and, 179–80; urban, 24. See also power relations; Greek party politics; intra-communal politics Pondicas family, 64 the poor, 141; concern for, 110–11, 118; education and, 111. See also philanthropy poppies, 58 “the populace” (kosmakes), 189, 207; See also “the people” popular representation, new mechanisms of, 260

index populism, 190 port cities, 275; Eastern Mediterranean, 21, 24–25, 27, 42, 57, 61, 62–63, 67; national capitals and, 27; port-city commercial bourgeoisies, 19, 27. See also specific cities port companies, 178 post-imperialism, 160 postwar period, 190; class conflict, 190–91; Greco-Jewish relations and, 186–87; price increases, 191 poverty, discourse on, 110–11. See also the poor power hierarchies, Greco-Jewish, 9–10. See also Greco-Jewish power balance power relations, 285; access to, 226; polycentric, 160–61, 177, 184, 185–86, 275 practices, vs. discourses, 283 the press, 18, 47, 73–74, 94–95, 152, 190, 202–6, 216; agitators of, 132–33; Alliancist, 261; anti-communist rhetoric and, 274–75; antiJewish rhetoric and, 274–75; anti-Royalist, 179; blacklists and statutory lists published in, 174–75; Ententiste, 206; freedom of, 119–20; French-language Jewish, 189, 247, 261; Greek, 8–9, 93–94, 121–22, 172, 252, 260, 272, 281 (see also specific publications); Jewish, 75, 101, 128–29, 188–89, 203, 243–44, 246–47 (see also specific publications); Ladino, 141–42; Muslim, 130; nationalism and, 274–75; non-Jewish, 55; Ottoman Turkish, 80; rhetoric of profiteering and, 193, 199; Salonican, 155; women’s periodicals, 109; during World War I, 166, 188 price increases, 140, 191, 192, 196, 198, 199 Prilep, 58 professional associations, 73, 126, 265, 268, 273, 277, 283; advocacy for Jewish community, 263–64; associational committees, 264; vs. commercial clubs, 248–49; councils of, 267; demands of war and, 262–63; establishment of, 252–57; ethnic difference and, 263–65; Greco-Jewish relations and, 263–65; Greek dominance and, 264; Greek state and, 253–54; Jewish concerns and, 264; Jewish merchants and, 258–69; nationalism as motivation for state support of, 253–54; regional focus of,

385

256–57; rise of, 245–51, 258–59, 271. See also commercial associations; specific associations professional ethos, shared, 265 professional identity, 249, 266 profiteering, 198; accusations of, 166, 187–95; discourse of, 26, 188–90, 192; efforts to curb, 181; gender discourses and, 192; Jewishness and, 195; language of, 191–92; rhetoric of, 190–201, 205–6, 207, 284; social imaginaries and, 192–93 protectionism, 6, 149–51, 231 Proteus distillery, 237 proto-national identity, 120 Provisional Government, 215, 222, 236, 241, 252, 266 public culture, shared, 18, 84 public opinion, 273 public rhetoric, associational culture and, 26 public spectacles, 18 public sphere, interethnic bourgeois, 282–83 quasi-governmental institutions, 157 rabbis, 52, 44–45 radicalization, of white-collar workers, 141–42. See also commercial employees railways, 56, 58, 172; interruption of transport, 171; railway companies, 178 rally of February 1919, 204 raw materials, 168, 169 real estate, 71, 222, 230, 237 Recanati, Abraham, 175 Recanati, Leon, 119 Refugee Committee, 234 refugees, 176–77, 218, 228–29; of Balkan Wars, 169; refugee associations, 230 (see also specific associations); refugee merchants, 228–30, 276; resettlement of, 274. See also specific groups Refugee Settlement Commission, 179 regional associations, 65 regionalism, 30 regionalization, 256–58 “resellers” (metaprates), vs. consumers, 190 Restaurants’ Guild, 200 Reval, Anglo-Russian meeting in, 106–7

386

index

revisionism, 162 Risal, P., 2–3. See Nehama, Joseph Rizos, Dimitrios, 47, 200 Rodokanakis commercial house, 57 Rodrigue, Aron, 53 Rogkotis family, 57 Romania, 172, 173 Romanian Commercial School, 72 Romanians, 2 rope-making factories, 61 rope traders, 61 Rose, V., 85 Rousso, Leon, 224 royal family, 142 Royalist Party, 179–80, 215, 230, 236 ruling party, allegiances to, 179–80 ruptures, 16, 244, 285 Russian Empire, 30, 151–52, 156, 172, 173, 176 Russian troops, 206 Sabah, 80 Sabri, Eyub, 107 Sahinis, Doukas, 170, 238, 240, 255, 266 Saias family, 84 Saias spinning mill, 233 Salem, Ascher, 108 Salem, Emmanuel, 110, 116, 212 Salem, Flora, 50 Salem family, 50 Salonica, 1, 8–16, 19, 21, 39, 42, 68, 70–71, 271, 275; advocacy for making free port city, 235, 252; annexation of, 7, 10, 28, 152, 162, 216, 234, 244–45, 252, 272, 281 (see also Greek government; Hellenization); associations in, 62, 73; Athens and, 27, 28; as “Babel of the Mediterranean,” 2, 42; as Balkan transit center, 173; bleak economic prospects after World War I, 221; bombarded by German Zeppelins, 223; Byzantine, 1; as “capital of Macedonia,” 68; changing fortunes of, 2–3; as “city of [Young Turk] freedom,” 68; as city of commerce, 70; clubs and, 73; commercial decline of, 202–6; consumer base of, 58; contested status of, 14; culture of conviviality in, 39–40; cut off from hinterland during World War I, 172; delays in establishing free zone in, 221;

demographic growth of, 57, 58; destruction of old Ottoman City, 15; disputes over, 284; downgraded to provincial port, 172, 173; as dynamic marketplace, 58; establishment of, 1; ethnic and class restructuring after World War I, 167–68; in flux, 126–35; formation of symbolic village within, 64; future of, 243; as gateway to Central and Eastern Europe, 173; General Government of, 223; as global military depot during World War I, 172–73; Greco-Jewish economic rivalry in, 62; Greek Orthodox immigrants in, 56–68; Greek state and, 1, 202–6; growing presence of industry in, 21; Hellenistic, 12–13; as hub of migratory movements, 218–31; as “hyphen between the West and the Orient” during World War I, 173; impact of World War I on economic sectors, 168–76; “Indian summer” of, 167–68; internationalization of, 160; as Jewish city, 70, 85–88, 205; Jewish economic power and, 85; Jewish entrepreneurship and local economy, 225–26; Jewishness of, 68; local economy of, 27, 180–82, 202; loss of, 5; as “Madre de Israel,” 68, 87; Ministry of Provisions, 200; multiethnic, 5, 8–16, 19, 21, 26–27, 36, 39, 42, 70–71, 73, 85, 148–49, 162, 271, 275, 285; name of, 16; neglect of, 28; new city plan, 221; “persecution” of, 202–6; position of vis-à-vis Piraeus, 202; post-Ottoman, 6; reconstruction of, 15; regionalization of, 256–58; regression during World War I, 172; reordering of, 10–11; rise to regional supremacy, 58–59; Roman, 1; in ruins after World War I, 167; as seat of Allied military headquarters, 177; social scene of, 36; trade as lifeblood of economy in, 21; unique structure of commerce in, 145–46; urban spaces and, 26–27; as working class city, 205 Salonica Cigarette Company, 170 Salonica Cold Storage Warehouses Co., 239, 239 Salonica Freezers Co., 234 Salonica International Trade Fair, 278 Salonican identity, 265–66; Jewishness and, 87–88, 95–96; national identities and, 28; “Salonican” interest and, 272. See also Salonicanness

index Salonicanness, 273; anti-Athenian, 278–79; Hellenized, 278–79 Salonica Organization, 67, 122–23, 133 Salonika-Palestine Company, 227 Saltiel, Nico, 45, 52, 266 Saltiel family, 46 Santorini, 218 Saporta, Abraham, 223 Saporta, Abram, 174 Scialom, Albert, 175 Scialom, Sam, 184 Scuola Commerciale Filarder, 53–54, 55 second cities, 27 Second Constitutional Period, 100, 108–9, 120–21, 126, 134, 137, 139, 141, 250, 260, 272, 275–76, 280, 282–83. See also Young Turk Revolution of 1908 secularization, of bourgeois Jewish identity, 86–87 the self, new understanding of, 280–81 self-fashioning: Jewish, 86; merchants and, 77–78 self-help, discourse of, 124 self-representation, 196 self-victimization, 203–6, 207 Sephardi Jews, 1, 157, 174 Serbia, 4, 101–2, 104, 145, 149, 172, 229–30; Balkan Wars and, 136–64; Bulgaria’s attack on, 172; collapse in 1915, 176–77; fall of, 167; import duties established by, 151–61; nationalization policies of, 229–30; newly annexed territories of, 217; protectionist measures by, 150–51. See also Southern Serbia Serbian import duties, 151–53; Greek government and, 153–54; internationalization of the issue, 154–56; multiethnic collaboration and, 152–56, 158–64; petition against, 152, 154, 161 Serbs, 38, 42, 102, 158, 164, 167 Serefas, Dimitrios, 66 Serres, 58, 65, 94, 217, 220, 257 sewing machines, 21 ships: confiscation of, 171; inspection of, 171 shopkeepers, 196, 201 Shtip, 217, 220 Siamli, Mustafa, 219 Siatista, 59, 63, 66, 67, 72, 238, 240 Siatista Association, 61, 62, 240

387

Sides, Jacob E., 49, 50 Sides spinnery, 124 Sifneos brothers, 239 silk, export of, 57 Skopje, 71, 102, 145, 150, 151 Skrip, 86 Slavs, 42, 57 smuggling, 173, 174–75 soap industry, 169 soccer clubs, 92–93 sociability, 69; culture of, 273; interethnic, 39; new, 243–69; practices of, 25. See also social life social capital, 281 social cohesion, Greek nationalism and, 125 social conflict, 141 social divisions, 191–92 social engineering, 122 social hierarchies, 110, 115, 120–21, 125, 141, 143, 190–91, 196 social imaginaries: new, 249; rhetoric of profiteering and, 192–93 social interaction, 23–24, 36 socialism: collapse of, 5, 30; Jewishness and, 195; “utopian,” 201 Socialist Workers’ Federation, 103, 109, 118, 119, 121, 194, 250, 260, 268, 281, 282; multiethnic, 124–25. See also Benaroya, Abraham social life, 41, 61–62 social mobility, 43 social networks, 234–35; diminished, 228; Jewish emigration’s effect on, 226; Jewish merchants and, 183–84; Venizelist, 229 social order, food provisioning and, 177 social power, Jewish merchants and, 48 social practices, 18 social services. See welfare institutions Société Anonyme Ottomane pour la fabrication de fez et tissus, 232 Société Philodramatique Israélite, 84 societies, 41, 119–20, 156. See also associations; specific societies Society for Macedonian Studies, 7 Sofia, 224, 229 Soldier’s Sister organization, 229 Solidarité Française (French Solidarity), 213 Souliotis-Nikolaidis, Athanasios, 20, 21, 67, 94

388

index

soup kitchens, 45–46, 111 Sourondjiev, Spyro, 218 Sousmouch Ibrahim trade firm, 130 Southern Serbia, 169 sovereignty, 252; disputes over limits of, 284; models of, 6, 160 Spain, expulsion of Jews from, 1 Stalios, Athanasios, 238 standard of living, drop in, 196 staple goods, 171–72, 177–78, 196, 232 state power, consolidation of, 14 state–society relations, 245 statutory lists, by Allies, 174–75. See also blacklists St. Demetrios, church of, 63 steam navigation, 57–58 Stein, 121 Stein, Sarah, 9 Stenimachos (Asenovgrad), 229 stereotypes, 203; antisemitic, 194; racial, 203 stevedores, 132; Jewish, 127 Streit, Georgios, 76 Striggos, 240 strikes, 101, 114, 118, 124, 128, 131, 168, 191, 194, 197, 198, 213, 214. See also tobacco workers’ strikes Strumitsa, 217, 220, 230 subjecthood, 29–30 successor states, “New Europe” of, 14 sugar, 232 supra-ethnic discourse, 128 Svoronos, Dr., 78, 79 Switzerland, 174 symbolic capital, 235 symvasileuousa, 3 syncretism, 70 Syndicat des Commis et Employés de Salonique (Clerks’ and Employees’ Union of Salonica), 110, 113–15 Syndicat des Commis et Employés Israélites (Jewish Clerks’ and Employees’ Union), 114–16, 118 Syndicat des compagnies d’assurance contre l’incendie (Association of Fire Insurance Companies), 73 Syros, 218, 239

Talmud Torah, 46, 50, 211, 220 tariffs, 6, 151, 154, 168, 197–98, 221, 257–58; chamber of commerce and, 266. See also import duties Tattis family, 57 taxation, 168, 170, 198, 255–58; communal, 44–45; gabella (communal meat tax), 38; Greek Orthodox merchants and, 46; import–export merchants and, 44, 46; increases in taxes, 150; Jewish merchants and, 44, 46; tax exemptions, 255–56; tax-free importation of goods, 224; temettu tax, 106 tea, 232 teachers, 47 Tekinalp, Munis, 108. See also Cohen, Moise effendi Terakki high school, 72 territoriality: disputes over, 284; plural concepts of, 160, 163–64 Tesshil-i-Tahsil (Facilitation of Education), 84 textile manufacturing, 138, 168, 219, 232, 234, 235, 238 textile merchants, 62 Thessaloniki, 16. See also Salonica Thessaly, 57, 62 Thessaly Educational Association, 65 Thrace, 65, 186, 238; Ottoman, 186, 228; refugees from, 230 Thrace Educational Association, 65 Tiano family, 116 Ticaret Mektebi, 72 tile factories, 126, 169 Tirana, 100 Tiring department store, 221 Tiverioupolis (Strumitsa), 230. See also Strumitsa tobacco industry, 58, 100, 117, 170, 174, 176, 211, 213, 219, 229, 232, 252, 255, 257. See also specific businesses tobacco workers, labor association of, 119 tobacco workers’ strikes, 131, 194, 214 To Phos, 1, 189, 190–91, 193, 243, 244 Tornivoukas, Georgios K., 78, 79 Tornivoukas, Ioannis, 62 Tornivoukas, Konstantinos, 67, 238 Torres, Elie A., 85

index Torres family, 7, 53, 84 Toskas, 61 Toulouse, 224 Tourpalis, Dimitrios, 257 Tourpalis, Georgios, 47, 60 Tourpalis, Mitsi, 60 Tourpalis, Thrasyvoulos, 237 Tourpalis family, 237 trade, 237; external, 171; free trade, 161; Great Fire of 1917 and, 221–23; illicit, 174–76; as lifeblood of economy, 21. See also import– export trade; Macedonian commerce trade networks, 145–64; disintegration of, 58 trade restrictions, after World War I, 186 trade routes, 3 trades, Greek Orthodox monopoly over, 112 tradesmen, 277 trading hierarchies, ethnicity and, 173 Tramway and Electric Lighting Company, 234 transethnic identity, 205–6 transition, 6, 8–16; alternative chronology of, 15–16; class and, 29; ethnicity and, 29; Greek experience of, 8–10; Jewish experience of, 9–10; locality and, 29; nationhood and, 29; rethinking of, 29–30; as shared journey, 9; as transformations of identity, 30–31 trans-local identity, 64 transnational networks: political importance of, 158–64; transnational credit networks, 164; transnational ethnic and family networks, 178 transportation, means of, 140 travel restrictions, 171 Treaty of Bucharest, 161, 219 Trieste, 13, 21, 30 Triestine discourse, 13 Trompetas, Theagenis, 236 trust, 146 Tsitsis, Gregorios, 233, 238 Tsotyli, 72 Turkey, 215–16 Turkish nationalism, 108 Turks, 143. See also Muslim Turks; Ottoman Turks

389

Udovo, 71 underground connections, 176. See also smuggling unemployment, 140 Union des femmes de France (Women’s Union of France), 213 Union i Kongreso (Unity and Congress), 129 Union of Muslim Clerks and Employees, 130–31 Union of Peace and Solidarity, 39 unions, 109–19, 128, 130–31, 194, 198, 201, 204, 277. See also labor movement; specific unions universality, merchant bourgeois identity and, 83 upstarts, 196 urban community, 27–32 urban identity, Jewishness and, 85–88; transethnic sense of, 87; urban self-perceptions, 29. See also anti-Athenian localism; Salonican identity; Salonicanness urbanization, 249 urban narratives, 26–27 urban politics, 24 urban spaces, 26–27, 275 US consul, 196 “utopian socialism,” 201 Vaka, Demetra, 206 Venizelism, 215, 266–67 Venizelist networks, 229 Venizelos, Eleftherios, 167, 177, 222, 236, 245, 247, 249–50, 257, 263, 266 Veria, 168, 234 Vermion textile manufacturing unit, 234, 237, 257 Verrou, Ioannis, 59 Verrou, Zissis, 59, 67, 71, 72 victimhood, collective, 203–6; language of, 254. See also self-victimization Vienna, 30, 106, 157, 192, 194 Villa Allatini, 55 Villa Modiano, 5 Viteza, 173 Vlachs, 72, 229–30 Vlastos, 71 Vogas, Lazaros, 67 Volos, 171

390

index

wages: stagnant, 198; strikes for increases in, 191 wagon distribution committee, chamber of commerce and, 265 “war contribution” duty, 102 war economy: civil society and, 178; manufacturing, 168; opportunities offered by, 165–66; winners and losers, 168–76 wars, 221; war effort, 216. See also specific wars Warsaw, 30, 188, 192 welfare institutions, 42, 45–46, 54, 110, 211, 277 Western Europe, relocation to, 219 Westernization, 17 wheat, 169, 176 white-collar workers, 141–42, 191, 197 wholesalers, 59, 199. See also Jewish wholesalers wine trade, 229 wood factory owners, 252 workers, 191–92, 207; concern for, 110–12, 113; dissociated from consumers, 190. See also Greek Orthodox workers; Jewish working classes; working classes working classes, 197, 281; associationism and, 250; mobilization, 135; World War I, 197. See also Jewish working classes World War I, 2, 21, 27–28, 32, 165–208, 262, 271, 276, 284; beginning of, 166–67; bleak economic prospects after, 221; business opportunities and, 236; class and, 168, 187–208, 249; commerce during, 171–72; commercial employees and, 196–97; contraband operations and, 173; double loyalties and, 175; employer/employee dynamics and, 195–201; end of, 224, 232; ethnicity and, 167–68, 173, 178, 282; food provisioning during, 26, 176–87, 190; food shortages during, 188; fragmentation of Jewish community during, 260–61; Greek Macedonian and anti-Athenian rhetoric during, 272; Hellenization and, 217, 219–20, 223, 227–28, 232–33, 236; historical narratives of, 207; illicit trade and, 174–76; impact of, 168–76; import–export trade

during, 171–72; Jewish merchants during, 171–72, 186–87; maritime trade during, 171; merchant-guild relations and, 200–201; migratory movements during, 229–30; military demand during, 170; Misrahi and, 211, 213; outbreak of, 3–4, 215; public memory of, 207; rise of professional associations during, 248; temporary halt of Jewish emigration during, 224–25; wartime economic boom, 229 World War II, 10, 276 Xanthi, 228, 238 Yahiel, Isaac I., 138 Young Turk Revolution of 1908, 27, 32, 38, 100, 103, 106–35, 243–44, 271, 273, 275, 283; Balkan Wars and, 139, 142, 143, 144; Greek Orthodox community and, 121–26; Jews and, 110–21; merchants and, 126–35; World War I and, 198, 207. See also Second Constitutional Period Young Turks, 219 the Young, 142–44 Zade, Dilber, 219 Zannas, Alexandros, 236, 239 Zannas, Dimitrios, 80 Zannas, Konstantinos, 236 Zionist movement, 119, 120, 140, 142, 160, 212–13, 227–28, 247, 260–61, 279; appeal to Jewish masses and petite bourgeoisie, 120, 272; appeal to Jewish middle strata, 272; impact on Jewish class politics, 119–20; incrimination of, 175; splits Jewish middle class, 120–21 Zionists, 103, 134; establishment of committees after the Young Turk revolution, 119–20; vs. Alliancists, 120, 260–61 Ziya, Mola, 219 Zurban, 174 Zurich, 174

STANFORD STUDIES IN JEWISH HISTORY AND CULTURE STANFORDDavid STUDIES IN JEWISH HISTORY AND CULTURE Biale and Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Editors David Biale and Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Editors

This series features novel approaches to examining the Jewish past in the form of innovative STANFORD STUDIES INtoJEWISH HISTORY This series featuresthe novel examining Jewish past inAND the formCULTURE of innovative work that brings fieldapproaches into productive dialoguethe with the newest scholarly concepts and work thatOpen bringsto the fieldBiale into productive dialogue with the newest scholarly concepts methods. a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, from historyand to David and Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Editors methods.studies, Open to a range disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, history to cultural this series of publishes exceptional scholarship balanced by an from accessible tone, This series features novel approaches to examining the Jewish past in the form of innovative cultural studies, this of series publishes balanced by anBooks accessible tone, illustrating histories difference andexceptional addressing scholarship issues of current urgency. in this list work that brings the field into productive dialogue with the newest scholarly concepts and illustrating histories of difference and addressing issues of current Booksof inscholars this list push the boundaries Jewish Studies and speak compellingly to aurgency. wide audience methods. Open to a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, from history to pushstudents. the boundaries of Jewish Studies and speak compellingly to a wide audience of scholars and cultural studies, this series publishes exceptional scholarship balanced by an accessible tone, and students. Ariel Evan Mayse, of the Spirit: Mysticism, illustrating histories of difference andLaws addressing issues Ritual, of current urgency. Books in this list Ariel Evan Mayse, Laws ofFreud: the Spirit: Ritual, Mysticism, Naomi Seidman, Translating the Jewish Hebrew and Yiddish and the Commandments inPsychoanalysis Early Hasidism push the boundaries of Jewish Studies and speak compellingly to ainwide audience of scholars and the Commandments 2024 in Early Hasidism and students. 2024 Viola Alianov-Rautenberg, Longer Gentlemen: Gender and Ariel Evan Mayse,No Laws of theLadies Spirit:and Ritual, Mysticism, Viola Alianov-Rautenberg, NoMigration Longer Ladies andHasidism Gentlemen: Gender and the German-Jewish to Mandatory Palestine and the Commandments in Early the German-Jewish Migration 2024 to Mandatory Palestine 2024 Immanuel Etkes, The Invention of aNo Tradition: The Messianic Zionism of the Gaon of Vilna Viola Alianov-Rautenberg, Longer Ladies and Gentlemen: Gender and Immanuel Etkes, The Invention of a Tradition: Messianic Zionism of the Gaon of Vilna 2024The the German-Jewish Migration to Mandatory Palestine 2024 Viola Alianov-Rautenberg, No Longer Ladies and Gentlemen: Viola Alianov-Rautenberg, NoMigration Longer Ladies and Gentlemen: Gender and the German-Jewish to Mandatory Palestine Immanuel Etkes, The Invention of a Tradition: The Messianic Zionism of the Gaon of Vilna Gender and the German-Jewish2024 Migration to Mandatory Palestine 2024 Susan Rubin Daughter ofNo History: of and an Immigrant Viola Suleiman, Alianov-Rautenberg, LongerTraces Ladies Gentlemen:Girlhood SusanGender and Rubin Suleiman, Daughter of History: Traces of an Immigrant Girlhood 2023 the German-Jewish Migration to Mandatory Palestine 2023 2024 Sandra Fox, The Jews of Summer: Summer Camp and Jewish Culture in Postwar America Sandra Fox,Rubin The Jews of Summer: Summer Camp and Jewish Culture in Postwar America 2023 Susan Suleiman, Daughter of History: Traces of an Immigrant Girlhood 2023 David Biale, Jewish Culture Between Canon and Heresy Jewish Culture Between and Heresy 2023 Sandra Fox, The David Jews ofBiale, Summer: Summer Camp and Canon Jewish Culture in Postwar America 2023 Alan Verskin, Diary of a Black Jewish Messiah: The Sixteenth-Century Alan Verskin, Diary of a Black Jewish Messiah: The Sixteenth-Century Journey of David Reubeni through Africa, theCanon Middle East, and Europe David Biale, Jewish Culture Between and Heresy Journey of David Reubeni through2023 Africa, the Middle East, and Europe 2023 Aomar Boum, by Nadjib Berber, Alan Verskin, Diary Illustrated of a Black Jewish Messiah: TheUndesirables: Sixteenth-Century Aomar Boum, Illustrated byAfrica, Nadjib Berber, Undesirables: A Holocaust Journey to North Africa Journey of David Reubeni through the Middle East, and Europe A Holocaust Journey 2023 to North Africa 2023 Dina Porat, Nakam: TheIllustrated Holocaust Survivors Sought Full-Scale Revenge Aomar Boum, by NadjibWho Berber, Undesirables: Dina Porat, Nakam:AThe Holocaust Survivors WhoAfrica Sought Full-Scale Revenge 2023 to North Holocaust Journey 2023 Dina Porat, Nakam: The Holocaust Survivors Who Sought Full-Scale Revenge 2023

Christian Bailey, German Jews in Love: A History 2023 Matthias B. Lehmann, The Baron: Maurice de Hirsch and the Jewish Nineteenth Century 2022 Liora R. Halperin, The Oldest Guard: Forging the Zionist Settler Past 2021 Samuel J. Spinner, Jewish Primitivism 2021 Sonia Gollance, It Could Lead to Dancing: Mixed-Sex Dancing and Jewish Modernity 2021 Julia Elsky, Writing Occupation: Jewish Émigré Voices in Wartime France 2020 Alma Rachel Heckman, The Sultan’s Communists: Moroccan Jews and the Politics of Belonging 2020 Golan Y. Moskowitz, Wild Visionary: Maurice Sendak in Queer Jewish Context 2020 Devi Mays, Forging Ties, Forging Passports: Migration and the Modern Sephardi Diaspora 2020 Clémence Boulouque, Another Modernity: Elia Benamozegh’s Jewish Universalism 2020 Dalia Kandiyoti, The Converso’s Return: Conversion and Sephardi History in Contemporary Literature and Culture 2020 Natan M. Meir, Stepchildren of the Shtetl: The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of Jewish Eastern Europe, 1800-1939 2020 Marc Volovici, German as a Jewish Problem: The Language Politics of Jewish Nationalism 2020

For a complete listing of titles in this series, visit the Stanford University Press website, www.sup.org.