it is sickening to think that the armenians are capable of such in article apr sol ctr columbia edu halsall murray fordham edu paul halsall writes it s curious that serdar spend his time attacking greeks and armenians who just happen to be historical opponents of turkey the because the x soviet armenian government got away with the genocide of million turkish men women and children and is enjoying the fruits of that genocide and they are doing it again are you so blind problem is everybody arab greek bulgar serb russian tartar circassian persian kurd is or has been an opponent who has been kurds r us armenians r not an ally this historic circumstance seems to have taken a certain toll on serdar perhaps he should be posting to alt raving nationalist rather than soc history excuse me we closed the roads and mountain passes that might serve as ways of escape for the tartars and then proceeded in the work of extermination our troops surrounded village after village little resistance was offered our artillery knocked the huts into heaps of stone and dust and when the villages became untenable and inhabitants fled from them into fields bullets and bayonets completed the work some of the tartars escaped of course they found refuge in the mountains or succeeded in crossing the border into turkey the rest were killed and so it is that the whole length of the borderland of russian armenia from nakhitchevan to akhalkalaki from the hot plains of ararat to the cold mountain plateau of the north were dotted with mute mournful ruins of tartar villages they are quiet now those villages except for howling of wolves and jackals that visit them to paw over the scattered bones of the dead ohanus appressian men are like that p a genocide is a deliberate and organized massacre of people in an attempt to exterminate a race this is the worst crime in history it happened to the turks in eastern anatolia and the armenian dictatorship million turks and kurds were killed in the worst ways imaginable it is sickening to think that the human race is capable of such actions but there is no denying the fact that the armenian genocide of million muslims happened people of turkiye deeply sympathize with those whose relatives were killed in the turkish genocide i understand their anger that there are those who still deny that the turkish genocide indeed took place despite the fact that the genocide of million turks has been well documented over the past six decades we cannot reverse the events of the past but we can and we must strive to keep the memory of this tragedy alive on this side of the atlantic so as to help prevent a recurrence of the extermination of a people because of their religion or their race source bristol papers general correspondence container bristol to bradley letter of september i have it from absolute first hand information that the armenians in the caucasus attacked tartar turkish villages that are utterly defenseless and bombarded these villages with artillery and they murder the inhabitants pillage the village and often burn the village lets get somethings straight why not armenians are no angels but they were subject to turkish genocide and the germans were subject to jewish genocide are you for real tell me halsall were you high on asala sdpa arf forgeries and fabrications when you wrote that where is your non existent list of scholars here is mine during the first world war and the ensuing years the armenian dictatorship through a premeditated and systematic genocide tried to complete its centuries old policy of annihilation against the turks and kurds by savagely murdering million muslims and deporting the rest from their year homeland the attempt at genocide is justly regarded as the first instance of genocide in the th century acted upon an entire people this event is incontrovertibly proven by historians government and international political leaders such as u s ambassador mark bristol william langer ambassador layard james barton stanford shaw arthur chester john dewey robert dunn papazian nalbandian ohanus appressian jorge blanco villalta general nikolayef general bolkovitinof general prjevalski general odiselidze meguerditche kazimir motayef twerdokhlebof general hamelin rawlinson avetis aharonian dr stephan eshnanie varandian general bronsart arfa dr hamlin boghos nubar sarkis atamian katchaznouni rachel bortnick halide edip mccarthy w b allen paul muratoff and many others j c hurewitz professor of government emeritus former director of the middle east institute columbia university bernard lewis cleveland e dodge professor of near eastern history princeton university halil inalcik university professor of ottoman history member of the american academy of arts sciences university of chicago peter golden professor of history rutgers university newark stanford shaw professor of history university of california at los angeles thomas naff professor of history director middle east research institute university of pennsylvania ronald jennings associate professor of history asian studies university of illinois howard reed professor of history university of connecticut dankwart rustow distinguished university professor of political science city university graduate school new york john woods associate professor of middle eastern history university of chicago john masson smith jr professor of history university of california at berkeley alan fisher professor of history michigan state university avigdor levy professor of history brandeis university andreas g e bodrogligetti professor of history university of california at los angeles kathleen burrill associate professor of turkish studies columbia university roderic davison professor of history george washington university walter denny professor of history university of massachusetts caesar farah professor of history university of minnesota tom goodrich professor of history indiana university of pennsylvania tibor halasi kun professor emeritus of turkish studies columbia university justin mccarthy professor of history university of louisville jon mandaville professor of history portland state university oregon robert olson professor of history university of kentucky madeline zilfi professor of history university of maryland james stewart robinson professor of turkish studies university of michigan so the list goes on and on and on now wait there is more mark alan epstein the ottoman jewish communities and their role in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries klaus schwarz werlag freiburg page during the fifteenth century when the ottomans were struggling to reestablish themselves in the balkans there was considerable turmoil among the jewish communities in central and western europe even if the difficulties of the darker centuries immediately preceding the fourteenth are minimized it is easy to understand the attraction which ottoman life particularly when compared to life in europe held for the jews there is no way to tell how many jews left christendom for the realm of the rising muslim ottomans but with each account of persecution in or expulsion from christian countries it is recorded that some jews fled to ottoman territory the regularity of these reports suggests that the ottomans were considered reasonably tolerant protectors and that there was a regular trickle of jewish families moving southward and eastward from western and central europe it is evident that the effects of plague late crusades and the general intolerance and persecution of jews in christian europe resulted in the redirection of the whole focus of jewish life which for more than two centuries was to be oriented toward muslim east page in the second quarter of the fifteenth century the foremost official in the edirne jewish community was rabbi yitzhak sarfati the ashkenazi chief rabbi of the city he was the most important rabbi in the city and the author of an important letter which tells us something of the situation of the edirne jewry in the fifteenth century sarfati himself was from christian europe and supposedly wrote this letter at the behest of two recent arrivals from there who upon seeing the prosperity and freedom of the ottoman jews prevailed upon him to write their european coreligionists apprising them of the situation and urging them to migrate this remarkable letter advised its recipients not only of the pleasant conditions in the ottoman domains but described as well the ease of travel to palestine and the holy places an attraction to those who would make a pilgrimage or choose to be buried there page the impression gained from the hebrew sources is that the jews were firmly aware of the community of interests which existed between them and the ottomans especially in comparison to relations with the christians of europe confirmation of the commonality of interests between muslims and jews is also indicated by the fact that european christians perceived the jews as allies of islam and were well aware of muslim jewish cooperation certainly the activity of important jewish financiers and politicians representing the ottoman government abroad did not pass unnoticed european sources are the basis for much of our knowledge of their careers in addition it appears that christian pirates plundered turks and jews their sworn enemies and that europeans considered the jews to be agents who regularly reported to the ottomans there are well known examples of overt jewish support for the ottomans in the struggle against european powers the two best known instances of jewish support for the campaigning ottomans are the frequently cited instances of the jewish contributions to the conquests of buda in the early sixteenth century and of rhodes we also have reports of sympathy for the ottomans during the siege of chios an unpublished ottoman document shows dramatically the mutual interests which existed in some greek towns page it is clear that throughout the sixteenth century it was a generally accepted fact that the interests of jews and muslims coincided frequently and all parties involved jews muslims and christians were aware of the situation page it seems that the relations between greeks and jews were not particularly cordial the two groups had little in common few common interests and perceived no common philosophical or religious tradition which could serve as the basis for cooperation rather than enmity if there was any identifiable bond of good will which existed between religious communities in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was that between muslims and jews neither of whom had much in common with the orthodox page the general impression of muslim jewish relations in the ottoman context during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is one of community of interests from the earliest times the ottomans seem to have welcomed jews to their territory and to have found in the communities already existing in places which they conquered a cooperative element the jewish response to this tolerance was a steady flow of jews from christian countries to ottoman domains page from the period before we have only a few indications that the ottoman jewish relationship was well on the course of amity which would characterize it for years afterward but the liberality of the ottomans in contrast to the intolerance of the byzantines and the protection and the security which the ottomans offered in comparison to conditions elsewhere leave little doupt that even then both the ottomans and the jews recognized their mutual interests page it is impossible to say how fundamental the jews were in the success of the ottomans in rebuilding istanbul or in ottoman mercantile success in the sixteenth century that they played an important role in both cannot be doupted it is also unclear whether they were important enough to say that the ottomans would not have experienced their great success without the jews and that no other group could have been found to serve the ottomans as well as did the jews it is however unmistakably clear that there are few parallels in world history to this remarkable partnership between jews and the non jewish society in which they lived we must conclude that the ottomans could probably not achieved their success without a group performing certain tasks for them as well as the jews did certainly for the jews of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the ottoman empire was a most remarkable and salubrious home a version of rabbi sarfati s tzarfati letter is given by prof shaw page your cries and sobs reached us we have been told of all the troubles and persecutions which you have to suffer in the german lands i hear the lamentation of my brethren the barbarous and cruel nation ruthlessly oppresses the faithful children of the chosen people the priests and prelates of rome have risen they wish to root out the memory of jacob and erase the name of israel they always devise new persecutions they wish to bring you to the stake listen my brethren to the counsel i will give you i too was born in germany and studied torah with the german rabbis i was driven out of my native country and came to the turkish land which is blessed by god and filled with all good things here i found rest and happiness turkey can also become for you the land of peace if you who live in germany knew even a tenth of what god has blessed us with in this land you would not consider any difficulties you would set out to come to us here in the land of the turks we have nothing to complain of we possess great fortunes much gold and silver in our hands we are not oppressed with heavy taxes and our commerce is free and unhindered rich are the fruits of the earth everything is cheap and every one of us lives in peace and freedom here the jew is not compelled to wear a yellow hat as a badge of shame as is the case in germany where even wealth and great fortune are a curse for a jew because he therewith arouses jealousy among the christians and they devise all kinds of slander against him to rob him of his gold arise my brethren gird up your loins collect your forces and come to us here you will be free of your enemies here you will find rest israel zinberg a history of jewish literature vol v the jewish center of culture in the ottoman empire hebrew union college press ktav publishers new york serdar argic we closed the roads and mountain passes that might serve as ways of escape for the turks and then proceeded in the work of extermination ohanus appressian in soviet armenia today there no longer exists a single turkish soul sahak melkonian
