Emmanuel Carasso

Emmanuel Carasso
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office
1908–1912
ConstituencySalonica
Personal details
Born1862 (1862)
Salonica, Sanjak of Salonica, Salonica Eyalet, Ottoman Empire
Died1934 (aged 71–72)
Trieste, Italy
Resting placeJewish cemetery in Arnavutköy
PartyCommittee of Union and Progress
RelationsIsaac Carasso (nephew)
OccupationPolitician

Emmanuel Carasso or Emanuel Karasu (1862 in Salonica – 1934 in Trieste) was an Ottoman lawyer and a member of the prominent Sephardic Jewish Carasso family of Ottoman Salonica (now Thessaloniki, Greece). He was a prominent member of the Young Turks. The name is also spelled Karaso, Karassu, Karso, Karsu and Karasso. The form Karasu is a Turkification of his name, meaning literally 'dark water'.

Emmanuel's nephew Isaac Carasso, also born in Ottoman Salonica, was a physician who created Danone yogurt in Barcelona in 1919.

Delegation of the Ottoman parliament to inform Sultan Abdul Hamid II of his deposition. Left to right: Rear-admiral Arif Hikmet Pasha, Emmanuel Carasso (Emanuel Karasu Efendi), Esad Pasha Toptani, Aram Efendi and Colonel Galip Bey (Pasiner), April 1909.

Karasu was a member (some sources say founder) and later president of the Macedonia Risorta Masonic Lodge in Thessaloniki and pioneered the masonic movement within the Ottoman Empire. Masonic lodges and other secret societies in Salonica were meeting places for sympathizers of the Young Turks, including Talat Pasha. Karasu was one of the first non-Muslim members of the Ottoman Freedom Society, which later became part of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP); when the CUP came to power, he became the Salonica deputy in the Ottoman parliament. He was offered various positions in the Ottoman government, but turned them down. Karasu was one of the four men who told Sultan Abdul Hamid II of his deposition in April 1909. He worked for the cooperation of various Jewish organizations in the Ottoman Empire, including B'nai B'rith, and insisted that Ottoman Jews were Ottoman first and Jews second. He was a member of the committee which negotiated the treaty ending the Italo-Turkish War and of the committee to internationalize the city of Salonika.

Karasu contributed money to Minber [tr], the newspaper of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Fethi Okyar. Atatürk held Carasso in high regard, delivering speeches that appreciated his work enhance humanity and spiritual elevation in Freemasonry.

Death

He died in 1934, and is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Arnavutköy, Istanbul.

References

  1. ↑ "Danone: History of Danone group". danone.ua. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
  2. ↑ "The History of Freemasonry in Turkey". Archived from the original on May 20, 2006. Retrieved 2015-12-26.
  3. ↑ Marc David Baer, The Dönme: Jewish converts, Muslim revolutionaries, and secular Turks, p. 94 full text
  4. ↑ Ahsene Gül Tokay, "Macedonian Reforms and Muslim Opposition during the Hamidian Era: 1878–1908", Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 14:1 (2003)
  5. ↑ Mirak-Weissbach, Muriel (2009). Through the Wall of Fire: Armenia-Iraq-Palestine, from Wrath to Reconciliation. Garnet Publishing Limited. ISBN 9780863724428.
  6. ↑ Stella Salem, ‘Portraits of famous Jewish lawyers and jurists in Greece’, Justice (Special issue: Remembering Salonika) (Spring 1999), 17.
  7. ↑ Öztan, Ramazan Hakkı (2024). "When Emmanuel Carasso Turned Italian: A Biography of Extraterritoriality and Questions of Nationality in the Ottoman Empire". Osmanlı Araştırmaları. 63 (63): 309–340. doi:10.18589/oa.1513050. ISSN 0255-0636.
  8. ↑ Locci, Emanuela (2022). La massoneria in Turchia: Tra storia e relazioni internazionali (in Italian). Mimesis. p. 56. ISBN 978-88-575-9240-4.
  9. ↑ Shalom, Nesim (May 24, 2023). "A family that left its mark on history: KARASU". Salom (in Turkish).