European citizenship and influences among Jews in the Ottoman Empire

For centuries, Italy has served as a point of reference—cultural, political, and often even legal—for Jewish communities across the Mediterranean. From Livornese merchants in Ottoman ports to the spread of European citizenships, and up to the “Sephardic policy” of the early twentieth century, there emerges a web of affiliations and influences in which Italy engaged with the growing French hegemony and British strategies. These ties, layered over time, prepared the ground for the migratory movements of the twentieth century, which brought Jewish groups to Italy from the Balkans, the Levant, and North Africa.