The Ottoman Production of Ashkenazi Identity
From Israel Studies Seminar by Oxford University
December 3, 2025 · 49 min
About this episode
This seminar explores the formation of Ashkenazi identity within the Ottoman context, focusing on its legal and political recognition in Jerusalem.
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.
People in this episode
Guest: Dr Yair Wallach
Topics covered
- Ashkenazi identity
- Ottoman Empire
- Jewish studies
- multi-ethnic communities
- urban culture
- race and migration
Keywords
- Ashkenazi
- Ottoman Empire
- Jerusalem
- Yiddish
- Jewish identity
- urban culture
- migration
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: SOAS Centre for Jewish Studies, Stanford University Press
Books & works: A City in Fragments: Urban Text in Modern Jerusalem
Places: Jerusalem, Ottoman Empire
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