The Ottoman Production of Ashkenazi Identity

The grouping of Yiddish speaking Jews, of various origin countries in Central and Eastern Europe, into a single overarching identity of Ashkenazim, was meaningful particularly in multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Jewish contexts. This seminar examines the shaping of the Ashkenazi community in Ottoman Jerusalem, as facilitated by Ottoman legal and political context. Ottoman recognition of Ashkenazim as a corporate identity was crucial to its emergence and continuity. Dr Yair Wallach is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Israeli Studies, and the head of the SOAS Centre for Jewish Studies. He has written on urban and material culture in modern Palestine/Israel, and more recently on race and migration. His book A City in Fragments: Urban Text in Modern Jerusalem (Stanford University Press, 2020) won the Jordan Schnitzer book prize in 2022.