The inheritance register of a Jewish financier in eighteenth-century Istanbul: credit, jewels, and death rites

This article examines the inheritance register of Ezra Bassan, an eighteenth-century Jewish financier (sarraf) in Istanbul, to shed light on Ottoman credit networks, the trade in luxury commodities in the capital, and aspects of Sephardic communal and family life. Upon his death in 1771, Bassan left substantial holdings–including cash, loans, and jewellery, reflecting both his personal fortune and his involvement in Ottoman economic life. Although not among the empire's top financiers, he occupied a crucial middle tier, maintaining cross-communal business ties in his luxury trade–offering a glimpse into broader currents of global gemstone exchange–and in extending credit to military officials, Phanariot grandees, and fellow Jewish merchants. The register also demonstrates once again the Ottoman state's interest in certain private people's estates during that period. The detailed record of burial expenses illuminates upper-class Sephardic death rites. By analyzing Bassan's inheritance register this article underscores the crucial, if often overlooked, role of mid-level Jewish financiers who were involved and perhaps even enabled the operation of essential Jewish institutions. Ultimately, it deepens our understanding of Jewish socio-economic life in the eighteenth-century Ottoman capital and challenges prevailing assumptions about the timing and channels through which global luxury trends reached Istanbul's markets.