Why did Jews not immigrate to the Muslim world?

Question

Throughout most of history, Jews lived significantly better in the Muslim countries than in Christian ones. Moreover, after the expulsion from Spain, many Spanish Jews moved to the Muslim world (from Morocco to the Ottoman Empire). Yet, when Jews were evicted from Central and Eastern Europe, or even after pogroms there (until the 1800s), Jews just moved from country to country in Europe (and sometimes even back to the original country that evicted them). Why didn't they move out to the Muslim world?

Answer 1

I could imagine, it is a kind of spiritual home. Jews immigrated from Muslim countries to Muslim countries (ok, Spain was Christian when the Jews were banished, but it was a new thing, and the Jews remembered on the better days under Muslim authority.)

When Jews were evicted from Central/Eastern Europe they looked for similar societies to settle. They had experience with Christians, so they preferred them. The didn't want to go to complete foreign peoples.

But there also other examples. Jews immigrated to China/Shanghai during the 30's from Germany, Russia and Iraq. Main reason will be, that they had no other possibility.

Answer 2

It is a question of contacts. Where are you to move, and how? In general you move to where you have friends, contacts and where you can speak a language. And moving a long way with all your possessions is costly and takes time.

Answer 3

The question as it was posed is not entirely accurate. The Sephardic Jews are, rightly, the most famous Jewish community of the Ottoman Empire. However, in Istanbul, you could find synagogues and associations belonging to Ashknazi immigrants from Europe. These were all pre-Zionist immigrants from, if memory serves, Russia. In fact, there was a power struggle and conflict in the Jewish community between the European newcomers and the 'native' Sephardic Jews.

This is not to suggest that Jewish immigration to the Ottoman Empire from Europe was large before the late 19th century, but it certainly did exist. I wouldn't be surprised if you found more European Jews in other cities with Jewish populations, such as Izmir, Edirne and, particularly, Salonika.

As to why there wasn't a large-scale immigration, I would offer that European Jews were culturally European and were much more likely to migrate within their cultural world, where their language and practises would have been the norm, than to one which would have been culturally foreign. The same goes for Ottoman Jews, who did not move to Europe in any great numbers during this period because they were more at home with Arabs, Turks, Kurds, Greeks or whichever population they lived amongst.

Eventually both Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews would eventually emigrate to North and South America, just like Christians and Muslims in Europe and the Middle East.

Answer 4

I think one of the reasons was that Europe was more economically developed with higher standards of living. Sometimes Jews knew how to adapt to the circumstances in Europe. For example, in Russian Empire Jews frequently obtained Turkish citizenship so to be counted as foreigners in Russia (and to avoid anti-Jewish legislation which only applied to the subjects of Russian Empire), but remained in Russia.

Answer 5

The history of the Jews post-Diaspora is quite complicated.

For one thing, I believe there was always a significant Jewish minority in the Muslim world, so one answer would be that they did in fact do just what you suggested.

However, there were always some in Europe too. In part, this was because they were inadvertantly encoraged to live there. Christian theology of the Middle Ages prohibited lending money at interest. Thus the only people who could make a living lending money (eg: being bankers) were non-Christians. There's a lot of money to be made in banking, even back then.

This was (sometimes literally) a dual-edged sword though. If you're a ruler who owes a bunch of money you can't repay, one way to get out of it was to get the local citizenry into an uproar about the local Jews, so that they all have to flee for their lives (or stay and get killed). This was the ultimate source of much European anti-semitisim.