The conference had chosen as its central point of investigation the concept of convivencia and its applicability to various early modern societies in the Mediterranean. Highly conscious of both the relevance and the controversy surrounding this by now classic scholarly term, the organizers sought and succeeded to spark a lively discussion between a wide range of theories and case studies in the matter, most of which were concerned with either the Ottoman or the Italian context.
In her opening remarks, SINA RAUSCHENBACH (Berlin/Potsdam) traced the history of convivencia as a narrative in modern historiography back to its well-known proponent Américo Castro and his contemporary Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz. Today, she observed with regard to recent debates in the scientific community1, this narrative, which despite its success had been contested from the start, faces new criticism and questions: In the historical settings conventionally associated with convivencia, how did interaction on the micro-level mirror or contrast the macro-level of politics, philosophy and law in terms of tolerance towards religious minorities? How do the established classifications of religious groups relate to other types of social collective identities – and are they informative at all in view of larger trends especially in medieval and early modern philosophical thought? Can a certain uniqueness indeed be attributed to Al-Andalus, or do the many parallels in the Mediterranean world and beyond outweigh this claim of exceptionalism?
Adding further to this array of open questions, DAVID NIRENBERG (Chicago) addressed both the reality and the scholarly treatment of medieval Iberian convivencia in his keynote lecture. As the actual historical evidence defies generalization, he explained, neither a supposedly benevolent ruling elite (Omayyad or other) nor the prevalence of logical reasoning before sentiment in religious interaction quite hold up to their still popular image of guaranteeing tolerance and peace. With regard to the history of convivencia as an academic concept, Nirenberg pointed out what is possibly the most problematic tenet in Américo Castro's vision of the “España de las tres culturas”:2 While his approach abandons race as an explanatory category, his usage of “caste” or religion in its stead is still far too essentialist and exclusive as to effectively absolve it of its own cultural racism. On a more general level then, Nirenberg argued, the good intentions behind a certain, once seemingly desirable interpretation of history cannot prevent it from being read very differently at another time and may indeed reinforce a false sense of moral certainty.
MENAHEM BEN-SASSON (Jerusalem) provided a case in point for the rather worrying possibility, that hermeneutic proximity and shared biblical imagery do not always result in greater agreement but rather in conflict or at least debate. As his talk on Jewish, Christian and Muslim apocalyptic visions of the prophet Daniel demonstrated, it was precisely the commonality of sources and exegetical methods that led to the most contention over the nature of the Messiah and his counterpart the Anti-Christ, over the manner of their coming and the form of their appearance. Then again, the intellectual and spiritual exchange between the three religions already in the 8th and 9th century, as suggested by Ben-Sasson's analysis of the manuscripts, in and of itself accounts for a remarkable mutual interest and inter-religious dynamic from very early on.
Yet another dimension of religious convivencia was explored in the following two panels about the Ottoman Empire in the early modern age: the many ways in which a multi-ethnic, multi-religious environment affected Jewish and other minorities not only in their dealings with other communities but also with their coreligionists. Here DOTAN ARAD (Ramat Gan) presented from his research examples of Rabbanite-Karaite encounters under Turkish Rule that he further accentuated by comparisons to the similar but not identical situation in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Genuinely doctrinal issues like the observance of different calendars just as much as mundane necessities like loans and taxes led both groups according to Arad again and again to take their cases to the non-Jewish authorities, thereby creating a complex interdependence of Jewish-Jewish and inter-religious relations.
A case with many structural parallels was contributed by SUSANNE HÄRTEL (Berlin/Potsdam) with regard to Romaniote and Sephardi Jews in the Ottoman capital of Istanbul. There the latter – despite having arrived with the rather precarious status of refugees – gradually came to dominate the old-established Jewish community and eventually replaced the preexisting culture. However, at the turn of the 16th century the most important representative of the city's Jews was still a Romaniote scholar and community leader by the name of Elijah Mizraḥi. Skillfully turning dissent over the reinstatement of a certain tax-collector to his own advantage, as Härtel carefully laid out, Mizraḥi managed not only to appease both the Ottoman rulers and his people, but in the process also strengthened his own position as an authority to be consulted and appealed to.
The aforementioned increasing dominance of Sephardi tradition and identity was also at the center of MARC DAVID BAER's (London) analysis of the image painted of the Turkish Sultans and their politics by Jewish historiographers. It would seem thus that the initial esteem of Sephardi refugees for the Ottoman rulers who admitted them into their harbors went a long way to shaping their portrayal as tolerant and wise monarchs despite numerous hardships that Jews had to endure before and after the Sephardi settlement.3 According to Baer, it was not necessarily gratitude but a strong sense of divine providence working through the unwitting sultans that characterized this high regard. In contrast, the crisis brought about by the self-declared Messiah Shabbatai Tzevi marked a sharp decline of the Sultans' favor of their Jewish subjects and made the former hospitality apparent as what it probably always had been: an attitude much more practical than idealist.
Religious tensions and suspicions against Jews, however, did not always presuppose a full-blown Messianic insurrection. As GÜRER KARAGEDIKLI (Ankara) showed by means of selected cases of criminal proceedings, likewise individual accusations and slander could pose a serious threat, especially charges of abducting non-Jewish children or the alleged attempt thereof. Whether such defamation documents an indirect influence of the infamous blood libel derived from the Christian tradition via Janissary soldiers and other converts, Karagedikli judged as rather uncertain, though such claims have certainly been made in the corresponding literature.
That the role of (former) Christians under Ottoman rule was certainly much more diverse was further illustrated by BAKI TEZCAN (Davis, CA) and his portrayal of Albertus Bobovius, also known as Ali Ufki, who exemplified the cosmopolitan character of the Ottoman elites and their servitors like few of his contemporaries. His career going from musician to slave to courtier to freedman speaking to this as much as his polyglot works including but not limited to religious topics, Bobovius's biography as described by Tezcan was certainly exceptional and yet a showcase of the vast possibilities offered by the 17th century Ottoman Empire to the gifted and ambitious from the Balkans to Egypt and beyond.4
If conditions thus varied within this vast Turkish sphere of influence, they certainly did so no less between the politically divided Italian city-states and territories. Beginning with a look into 16th century Crete MARTIN BORÝSEK (Potsdam) offered a number of observations that corroborated some of the previously mentioned findings with evidence from the Venetian sphere of influence and thus from a larger Italian context. His account of Elijah Capsali provided at the same time an example of a Jewish historiographer with a strong messianic and providential optimism and of an influential community leader who was not above casually mentioning his close friendship with the Venetian governor and thereby taking indirect credit for averting the worst of an anti-Jewish riot in connection with a military crisis.
The art of carefully navigating between adverse powers was of course a skill honed even more by merchants than by scribes, and perhaps never more so than in the early modern economy revolving around the capture, trade and ransom of slaves in the Mediterranean.5 The account that ANTONINO CAMPAGNA (Rome) gave of the dealings of one Agi Mehmet who brokered the redemption of Christian slaves from Algiers on behalf of the Papal agency “Opera Pia dell’Arciconfraternita” highlighted both the effective need of trusted intermediaries and the apparent incapability of actually trusting them.
No doubt also balancing confessional ideals with practical gains was another champion of catholic Christianity: The house of Habsburg that declared the Adriatic coastal city of Trieste a free port open to traders of all faiths and nations. However, as PAOLA FERRUTA (Paris) explained, the formal recognition of the Jewish community in this context as well as the relatively narrow limits of episcopal power fell short of ensuring true tolerance: A ban on printing Jewish religious texts, a high alert on the perceived moral danger of Jewish fortune tellers and a rather hazardous notion of consent where the baptizing of Jewish teenage girls was concerned all clearly speak to the contrary.6
The concluding round table with SÉRGIO COSTA (Berlin), CARSTEN SCHAPKOW (Norman, OK), STEFANIE SCHÜLER-SPRINGORUM (Berlin) and SUSANNE ZEPP-ZWIRNER (Berlin) once more widened the perspective of the previous very focused studies by venturing into various more abstract considerations: from the difficulties of discussing convivencia in non-academic contexts without relying on inappropriate oversimplifications all the way to possible new applications of the concept potentially including not only human society but the entire biosphere.
Although certainly no simple conclusion of the conference's presentations and discussions can be drawn at this point, it is probably fair to say that much of it came down to an all but classic problem of scientific methodology – the dilemma, that every generalization is inevitably inadequate at least to some degree when tested against all particular cases; nevertheless theories on a larger scale of events and explanations by formal argument necessarily call for generalizations to some extend. The question then becomes not so much whether a certain abstraction (like convivencia) can be disproved by a single evidence to the contrary, but rather in how far the original concept as a whole was perhaps already based on select findings and wishful interpretations.
The pitfalls at least of getting a secure scientific grip on convivencia have been thoroughly explored: among others the allure that narratives of an idealized past era can have even over the otherwise critical mind; the temptation of attributing undesirable observations within one's own culture to the influence of another; and the problem which frame of reference exactly to employ when qualifying one particular time, place or entity as more or less tolerant. A once experimental theoretical concept such as convivencia therefore still holds great potential to inspire and focus scholarly debate, but at the same time, in the pointed words of David Nirenberg, “means very little if it prevents us from hearing what the other can teach us about our own certainties”.
Conference overview:
Keynote lecture
David Nirenberg (Chicago): Convivencia vs. Race. On the Dangers of Extracting Morality from History
Panel I: Mediterranean Preliminaries
Menahem Ben-Sasson (Jerusalem): Sharing with Apocalyptical Dreams in Medieval Daniel’s
Visions
Panel II: Ottoman Empire (15th–16th c.)
Dotan Arad (Ramat Gan): Brothers or Enemies? Karaite-Rabbanite Relations in the Ottoman Empire
Susanne Härtel (Berlin/Potsdam): How to Become a Rabbinic Authority of all Jews. Elijah Mizrahi (c. 1450–1526) and his Political Agenda under Ottoman Rule
Panel III: Ottoman Empire (16th–18th c.)
Marc David Baer (London): Sultanic Saviors and Tolerant Turks: Early Modern Jewish Views of the Ottomans
Gürer Karagedikli (Ankara): Rumors and Anti-Jewish Sentiments in Ottoman Istanbul in the 17th and 18th Centuries
Baki Tezcan (Davis, CA): Could The Golden Gate of the Languages Remain Open for Non-Christians? Ali Ufki/Wojciech Bobowski and the Limits of Cosmopolitanism in the 17th Century
Panel IV: Italy
Martin Borýsek (Potsdam): “But God Sent my Way One Gentile who Was Dear to Me” – Reflections on Non-Jews and their Coexistence with the Jews in the Works of Elijah Capsali
Antonino Campagna (Rome): Cooperating through Distrust: Mediterranean Contracts and Trade between Rome and Algiers in the Late 16th Century
Paola Ferruta (Paris): Ethnic-Religious Pluralism and Constructions of Otherness in Habsburg Trieste (1782–1868)
Round Table: Convivencia as a Concept in Iberia, the Mediterranean, and beyond
Sérgio Costa (Berlin), Carsten Schapkow (Norman, OK), Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Berlin), Susanne Zepp-Zwirner (Berlin)
Notes:
1 Cf. Brian A. Catlos: Kingdoms of Faith. A New History of Islamic Spain. London 2018; Sarah Stroumsa: Convivencia in the Medieval Islamic East: al-Raqqa, Mosul, Aleppo. In: Sarah Stroumsa and Guy G. Stroumsa: Eine dreifältige Schnur: Über Judentum, Christentum, und Islam in Geschichte und Wissenschaft, Tübingen 2020, pp. 9-127.
2 Cf. Américo Castro: España en su historia. Cristianos, moros y judíos, Buenos Aires 1948.
3 Cf. Marc D. Baer: Sultanic Saviors and Tolerant Turks: Writing Ottoman Jewish History, Denying the Armenian Genocide, Indiana 2020.
4 Cf. also Baki Tezcan: The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World, New York, 2010.
5 Cf. Daniel Hershenzon: The Captive Sea. Slavery, Communication, and Commerce in Early Modern Spain and the Mediterranean, Philadelphia 2018; Wolfgang Kaiser (Hg.): Le commerce des captifs. Les intermédiaires dans l'échange et le rachat des prisonniers en Méditerranée, XVe-XVIIIe siècle, Rom 2008.
6 Cf. Paola Ferruta: Conversions au Christianisme et retour au Judaïsme à Trieste au tournant du XIXe siècle. In: Histoire, Économie et Société 33 (2014), pp. 25-42.