Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, cilt.8, sa.2, ss.227-259, 2021 (AHCI)
This study analyzes the social and educational backgrounds and the career paths of Jews employed in the late Ottoman central and provincial administration. The personnel records (sicill-i ahvâl defterleri) of the late Ottoman state consists of hundreds of files of Jewish officials. These files contain a range of information for each official, including their date and place of birth, their father's occupation, their language skills, the schools they attended, their dates of first appointment to state service, and the highest ranks they achieved during their careers. Where existing scholarship on the Jews in the late Ottoman bureaucracy has been based largely on piecemeal information and anecdotal evidence, a statistical analysis of the data held in these records enables to develop a better-grounded picture of Jewish civil servants in the Ottoman state, one that challenges numerous preconceptions in the scholarly literature. The study discusses the milestones of change in the recruitment patterns of Jews in the Ottoman Empire and questions prevailing claims about their overrepresentation in the state bureaucracy. It presents findings on Jewish civil servants' denominational identities, familial and educational backgrounds, language skills, and career patterns.