In this book, Yaron Ben-Naeh presents an overall image of a hardly known Jewry, that of the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth century, which was a formative era. He describes and analyzes it in its urban setting. In addition, he discusses the legal and social status of the Jews, their demographic patterns, congregational institutions and dynamics, family life, economic life, culture, and mentality. He stresses the importance of the economic factor as a catalyst for processes and as a cause for demographic change, and deals with its role in fashioning the social and cultural character of Ottoman Jewry; the practical meaning of one's fitting in with any of the basic categories: religion, gender, profession/economic situation; and the continuous interrelations with the Muslim majority and other minorities resulting in an overall process of acculturation. The author challenges the widespread view that sees Ottoman Jewry as being stagnant and self-segregated, as well as the acceted concept of a traditional Jewish society under Islam.weiterlesen