Introduction / Avital Barak

A multidisciplinary research project engaging with the Ottoman Empire has been ongoing at the Institute for Public Presence for over a year. Leading the project is a research group composed, as always at the Institute, of artists and researchers, curators and architects, practitioners, and scholars. However, unlike the subjects explored by previous research groups, this time we faced a daunting challenge – to explore a historical period. What does it mean to embark on a journey to trace a 400-year period that has so profoundly influenced the space, culture, language, law, economy, architecture, literature, music, food, and countless expressions and layers of life in Israel/Palestine? A 400-year period that no matter where you look, you can see its traces. On the other hand, and across the board, it is a forgotten, erased period, and all that remains of it is the negative residue of backwardness and a propensity for taking bribes.

Without descending into unnecessary romanticization, revisiting this empire also meant revisiting a pre-national era in our region; before Western colonialism changed the power dynamics and the division of the territory beyond recognition. It’s not that there weren’t tensions and struggles between the multiple population groups that comprised the rich and diverse mosaic of people who lived under the empire’s rule. But if we focus our gaze on this region – Israel/Palestine – we return to the moment before the great conflict, before the struggle over land, before the catastrophe of one nation, and the realization of another. In this context, going back in time is reversed and becomes a channel and an invitation to imagine what our life could have been like if history had unfolded differently.

The Old City of Lyd, October 2022

Throughout the year, the group met at the Center for Digital Art, at the offices of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Tel Aviv (a partner in the project), and at various locations across the country. In these meetings, we attempted in a somewhat eclectic and scattered manner to collect remnants, gather signs, and begin to connect threads with which we could piece together the complex and intricate history of the Ottoman Empire.

Migdal Tsedek National Park, April 2023

Al-Zidani Mosque, Tiberias, May 2023

This issue is a continuation of the process, and adopts the same inconsistence. Since we are unable to truly present a methodical and coherent study of an empire that ruled for so many years, and at its peak extended as far as Vienna in Europe, Morocco in Africa, and Persia in Asia, we embraced the perspectives of those on the ground, perhaps even those on all fours – sniffing here, sniffing there, identifying flavors, scents, and stories. This collage might not produce a complete picture, but perhaps something of the group’s accumulated experience of wandering and discovery will endure.

This issue includes diverse texts, some clearly historical, others engaging with a speculative future and relative time, with architecture and archeology, and with image and material. Eastern imagination that creates political order through storytellers in coffee houses materializes; the question of Turkish time versus Western time is embodied in a series of modern clock towers; mansions take on different shapes and functions; pottery shards and antiques fragments that aren’t ancient come together to create a new, unexpected vessel; bronze castings of a local plant echo Ottoman land laws; and a geomancy table (a method of land divination) raises questions about the connection between mysticism and territory.

Interwoven into this issue are three conversations whose point of departure is the Ottoman Empire, but each one takes a different trajectory to the local present: one engages with photography and changes in the photographed space through the iconic image of Rachel’s Tomb, the second deals with Ottoman book shops and the numerous languages spoken throughout the empire, and the third explores Ottoman Palestine from the perspective of the local flora.

The issue will be uploaded in two parts: The first includes texts by Avner Wishnitzer, Andrej Mirčev, Yonatan Mizrahi, Ella Littwitz, Tali Konas, and Elham Rokni, and a conversation between Hava Schwartz and Gaston Zvi Ickowicz. The second part includes texts by Sigal Barnir, and Mark Yashaev, and conversations between Mira Rashty and Ketzia Alon, and between Alma Yitzhaki, Michal Baror, and Basma Fahoum.itz, Tali Konas, and Elham Rokni, and a conversation between Hava Schwartz and Gaston Zvi Ickowicz. The second part includes texts by Sigal Barnir, Andrej Mirčev, and Mark Yashaev, and conversations between Mira Rashty and Ketzia Alon, and between Alma Yitzhaki, Michal Baror, and Basma Fahoum.

Members of the “Tracing the Ottoman Empire in Israel/Palestine” Research Group: Adi Bamberger, Nimrod Ben Zeev, Michal Baror, Amnon Baror, Sigal Barnir, Avital Barak, Dotan Halevy, Avner Wishnitzer, Dor Zlekha Levy, Mark Yashaev, Ella Littwitz, Yonatan Mizrahi, Basma Fahoum, Avi-Ram Tzoreff, Tali Konas, Hagit Keysar, Elham Rokni.

Colleagues and guests who took part in the project, joined the journeys, and participated in accompanying events throughout the year: Udi Edelman, Gaston Zvi Ickowicz, Ketzia Alon, Sezen Ünlüönen, Michal Baroz, Tawfik Da’adli, Aviv Derri, Avigail Jacobson, Alma Yitzhaki, Adel Manna, Senan Abdelqader, Mira Rashty, Hava Schwartz, Nadeem Shiban, Omar Sharir.

*Cover Photo Credit: Al-Zidani Mosque, Tiberias, May 2023, Photographer: Michal Baror

Clockwise: Udi Edelman, Michal Baror, Mira Rashty, and Ktzia Alon in front of Khalidi Library in Jerusalem; Taufik Dadla and Yonatan Mizrahi in the Old City of Lod; Foto-Elia Armenian Photography Shop in Jerusalem; Mark Yeshayev, Hagit Keysar, Michal Baroz, Tali Konas, and Adi Bamberger in the Israel State Archives.

Translation from Hebrew: Margalit Rodgers

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