Tekinalp's Anti-socialism as a Modern Ottoman Jewish

Abstract

Tekinalp is an intellectual of Jewish origin, who lived in the period of transition from empire to nation state with radical social, economic and political changes. Tekinalp was, for a certain period of time, a fervid advocate of the Ottomanism ideal, which envisaged the Ottomanization of Jews and their adaptation to the society they lived in. Tekinalp also expressed his opinions on such modern ideologies as Zionism and socialism on various platforms. In the political arena of the period, Tekinalp took an explicit position as an antagonist of socialism. Nevertheless, a significant proportion of the Jewish intellectuals living in Europe at that time gathered around socialism and it was to such extent that the most prominent socialist theoreticians stood out among Jewish intellectuals. In this paper, Tekinalp's negative stance against socialism was outlined and the underlying reasons for the dissenting opinions between European Jewish intellectuals and Tekinalp, an Ottoman Jew, during the early 20th century were discussed. In this context, such discussion hopefully aims to introduce an unassuming contribution to the understanding of the relation between Judaism and socialism.