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4
for brunchEasy
30 min
Published 2000
Turkey generally has treated Jews well, which is not something you can say about many of the countries in the world. When Spain expelled its Jews in 1492 at the height of the Inquisition, Sultan Bayazid II of Turkey welcomed the outcasts. His gesture may have been humanitarian, but it brought to the Ottoman Empire a highly educated and motivated class of scientists, physicians, and merchants. Turkey would become and remain the preeminent power of the Near East for another four hundred years