Debar Sepatayim: An Ottoman Hebrew Chronicle from the Crimea (1683-1730). Written by Krymchak Rabbi David Lekhno

by David Lekhno, Yaron Ben-Naeh, Dan Shapira, Aviezer Tutian

Overview

The fifty years between 1680-1730 were one of the most fascinating in the history of Europe and in Ottoman history. A period of coalitions and wars, climate changes, and natural disasters took place. This previously unpublished chronicle contains valuable information in various fields. It was written in Semi-Biblical Hebrew by a Jewish rabbi residing in the Crimean Peninsula, and includes insights on the political upheavals in the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman capital; the wars between the Ottomans, Habsburgs, Venetians, Circassians, Sefevids, and the Russians, which he vividly describes; Persia and the Caucasus; the fate of Jewish communities; epidemics and weather; and weapons and customs. The book, a historical mine that reads like a sweeping thriller, is now available in English for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781644696194
Publisher:	Academic Studies Press
Publication date:	08/31/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	17 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Dan Shapira is Full Professor at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Bar-Ilan University. An interdisciplinary historian and philologist, he is presently working on medieval and early modern Jewish minority communities, the Crimea, and the Khazars.

Yaron Ben-Naeh is Full Professor, Bernard Cherrick Chair in Jewish History in the Department of History of the Jewish People and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, and a researcher of Ottoman Jewry. He is chair of Misgav Yerushalayim—The Center for the Research of Sephardi Heritage.

Aviezer Tutian, Ph.d student at Bar-Ilan University.

Yaron Ben-Naeh is full professor, Bernard Cherrick Chair in Jewish History in the Department of History of the Jewish People and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, and a researcher of Ottoman Jewry. He is chair of Misgav Yerushalayim for the Research of Sephardi Heritage.
Dan Shapira is an interdisciplinary historian and philologist. He is working presently on medieval and early modern Jewish minority communities, the Crimea, and the Khazars.
Aviezer Tutian, Ph.d student at Bar-Ilan University.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents 

Introduction

A Short Overview of the Chapters

The Translation of the Chronicle

Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“The text includes important information not only on Crimean Jews but also on the Crimean Khanate itself and its relations with its neighbors, mainly the Ottomans and Russians as well as the Habsburgs, Venetians, Caucasians and Safavids. It presents Crimean, including Jewish, points of view on events, namely, the view from the periphery, not from the centers of political power. This is really one of the main contributions of this chronicle: deriving from a region poorer, as far as archival documentary material is concerned, than imperial capitals. Similarly, local sources can provide richer information on the Crimean Jews. … The editors/translators did a very thorough work in identifying personalities and events, adding much valuable information. This is an important contribution to Ottoman, Crimean, and Jewish history told from a Jewish Crimean perspective.”

— Rachel Simon, AJL News and Reviews, July/August 2022

"The steady growth in the recent decades of Ottoman Studies is partly due to the availability of extensive records in the state archives and a vast collection of historical narratives. While a blessing to historians, the drawback of the easy accessibility of this body of documentation is that Ottoman history has been too often written from the perspective of the imperial center in Istanbul. Wary of this complication, historians have turned their attention to new sources and topics. Increasingly, studies have focused on unearthing viewpoints that do not necessarily reflect the imperial ideology of the Ottoman state. Works such as the current edition of Debar Śepatayim open new avenues of discovering different perspectives within Ottoman society. Debar Śepatayim is a historical narrative with an emphasis on political happenings mainly from the Crimean perspective. The author, David Lekhno, evidently avails himself of the accounts of a few informants from the region. While his source base causes him to follow and imitate an accepted annalistic style and thereby devote attention primarily to military and political affairs, as a learned Jewish scholar, his attitude to and interpretation of events are unmistakably marked by his own worldview. The chronicle demonstrates to us the connected worlds of the people living in lands under the Ottoman cultural influence. It is stimulating to observe that while inspired by different cultural and religious traditions, the subjects of the Ottoman and specifically Crimean polities could well be engaged in a shared political goal. Readers of Debar Śepatayim will find a rich world as seen through the eyes of a Crimean Jewish individual in the early seventeenth century. Those interested in the history of the Crimean khanate, Ottoman and Russian empires, and the politics of the northern lands of the Black Sea will appreciate this carefully annotated translation."

—Hakan T. Karateke, Professor of Ottoman and Turkish Culture, Language, and Literature, University of Chicago

Editorial Reviews

This edition is a treasure trove of valuable historical, literary, linguistic, and anthropological data for scholars from different fields, and is definitely an important addition to the growing shelf of sources for Ottoman, Crimean and Jewish studies.”

— Golda Akhiezer, Ariel University, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies

From the Publisher