ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two rabbis, one from Crete and the other a native of Sarajevo. It argues that rabbinic writings, when properly situated within their broader context, are a valuable source for the writing of Ottoman and Balkan history. The chapter suggests that the narrowly communal interpretations often given to such texts occlude their central meaning, and marginalize them as sources for the writing of history. It highlights the ways in which Jewish writers in the south Balkans participated in a longstanding Jewish approach to history and historiography: that of reading the political events of their own time as holding particular meaning within the earthly unfolding of a divine messianic plan. The key player in Alkalais messianic schema was Abdulmecid; in Rabbi Eliyahu Kapsali's thought it was Suleiman. Alkalai saw Ottoman decline as a sign of impending redemption; Kapsali saw in the rise of the Ottomans a messianic promise.
