Alaman, Ashkenazi, Or Deutsch

Name of a many-branched and wide-spread Jewish family in the Turkish empire, whose ancestor, Joseph ben Solomon of Ofen (Buda), Hungary, is said to have been at the head of a deputation to hand over the keys of the citadel of Ofen to the sultan Solyman I., who was then advancing against it with his army (1529). Joseph, who afterward settled in Constantinople, received for himself, his sons Satina and Joseph, and their posterity, the privilege of exemption from all taxes and duties, and from compulsory service for all time to come. The privilege was confirmed by a firman, and has been successively ratified by all Ottoman rulers up to the present time (1901). Descendants of the Alamans, numbering about four hundred and fifty, still live in Constantinople, Adrianople, Brusa, Damascus, Gallipoli, Cairo, and several places in Bulgaria.

Bibliography:

  * Yosef Da'at or El Progreso, a Spanish-Hebrew journal, published by Abraham Danon, Constantinople, i. No. 1 et seq.



M. K.