From the Editor, El Jurnal israelit

Ezekiel Gabay

1860

From the Editor:

With God’s help, the time has come for our newspaper to appear before the community, and I am sure that at first our esteemed subscribers will not judge us for its errors, because all beginnings are difficult, and little by little we will correct these errors. And I thank my patrons at the Meclis Pekidim,1 who decided to establish this newspaper, so much needed and required by the community and even more so by the government, whose goal is to do everything possible so that the people would not lack any knowledge.

Until now, many newspapers were founded and began to come out, but none of them managed to survive, because nobody supported them except for their publishers, and nobody appreciated their significance. Now that many other good and important things have been introduced in our nation, the Meclis Pekidim established El Jurnal israelit.2 We must first of all ask the pure and almighty God on High to give a long and brilliant life to our ruler, our king, the source of our life, king of the earth and master of the seas, a king who is son of a king who was son of another king, Sultan Abdulmecid, may He exalt his majesty, may his glory and power extend from one end of the earth to the other. In his time, the world saw the light and brilliance of science, and many implements were invented to facilitate knowledge and inquiry and to ensure that we would not miss anything. Our nation has taken similar measures and is trying to promote progress.

I hope that with the help, first of all, of the almighty God and also of the Meclis Pekidim, our newspaper will succeed and, even though it starts as a weekly, will grow to a daily. I am asking my esteemed subscribers in all parts to welcome and encourage this periodical, so that it can develop and continue to appear. May it be favorable before Him, may it be according to His honor that the Messiah come and reveal himself, he “who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’” [Isaiah 52:7].

Ezekiel Yeḥezkel Gabay

El Jurnal israelit, 27 December 1860

Translated by
Olga
Borovaya
.

Notes

[Lay council of notables in charge of communal affairs established in Istanbul in 1860.—Trans.]

[It came out in Istanbul between 1860 and 1873 and was edited by Ezekiel Gabay.—Trans.]

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 6.

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Creator Bio

Ezekiel Gabay

1825–1898

Ezekiel (Yehezkel) Gabay, born in Baghdad, was a Jewish community leader, Ottoman government official, and journalist. He served as secretary of the Meclis Pekidim, the lay council of notables in charge of communal affairs, which was established in Istanbul in 1860 with the goal of reforming the community administration. This council, which consisted of members of the Sephardic pro-Western elite, propagated its ideas through the first long-lived Ladino periodical, El Jurnal israelit (1860–1873), edited by Gabay, and eventually banned by the rabbis. In 1869, Gabay became a government official and, subsequently, president of the supreme criminal court. An expert in Islamic law, in 1865 he wrote “The Organic Statute of the Jewish Nation in Turkey” (Hahamhane Nizamnamesi) in Ottoman Turkish, which was later incorporated into the Ottoman civil code; he also created syllabi for Jewish schoolchildren.

Related Guide

Journalism, 1750–1880

This period marks the explosive rise of Jewish newspapers, dailies and weeklies, yearbooks and almanacs, feuilletons and other time-bound printed media throughout the Western world. 

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