Department of History

The Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish History and the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica are co-sponsoring this talk by Dr. Julia Phillips Cohen, of Vanderbilt University.

This lecture examines the shifting place of Jews in Ottoman society during the empire’s modern reform era. at the start of this era, Jews were largely absent from government positions and major debates within the empire. Within a matter of decades, Ottoman Muslims and Jews alike regularly referred to Jews as a model community, or millet–as a group whose leaders and members knew how to serve their state and were deeply engaged in Ottoman politics. Charting this dramatic reversal, this talk explores what the process of becoming a model community in the multi-lingual, multi-religious Ottoman empire entailed during its final half century of existence.