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 Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...

(now Thessaloniki, Greece). He was also 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 uncle was the physician

Isaac Carasso Isaac Carasso (1874 – 19 April 1939) was a member of the prominent Sephardic Jewish Carasso (Karasu) family of Ottoman Salonica (modern Thessaloniki, Greece). After emigrating to Barcelona, he started a yogurt factory which later became Grou ...

, also Salonica-born Sephardic Jew from the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

, who began producing

Danone Danone S.A. () is a French multinational food-products corporation based in Paris. It was founded in Barcelona, Spain. It is listed on Euronext Paris where it is a component of the CAC 40 stock market index. Some of the company's products are ...

yogurt in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

, Spain in 1919. Karasu was a member (some sources say founder) and later president of the Macedonian Risorta Masonic lodge in Thessaloniki and pioneered the

masonic Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

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 Mehmed Talaat (1 September 187415 March 1921), commonly known as Talaat Pasha or Talat Pasha,; tr, Talat Paşa, links=no was an Ottoman politician and convicted war criminal of the late Ottoman Empire who served as its leader from 1913 t ...

. 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 The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) ( ota, اتحاد و ترقى جمعيتی, translit=İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti, script=Arab), later the Union and Progress Party ( ota, اتحاد و ترقى فرقه‌سی, translit=İttihad ve Tera ...

(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 Abdülhamid II of his deposition in April 1909. He worked for the cooperation of various Jewish organizations in Turkey, and insisted that

Turkish Jews The history of the Jews in Turkey ( tr, Türkiye Yahudileri or ; he, יהודים טורקים, Yehudim Turkim; lad, Djudios Turkos) covers the 2400 years that Jews have lived in what is now Turkey. There have been Jewish communities in An ...

were

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic languages * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic ...

first and

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

second. He was a member of the committee which negotiated the treaty ending the

Italo-Turkish War The Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War ( tr, Trablusgarp Savaşı, "Tripolitanian War", it, Guerra di Libia, "War of Libya") was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911, to 18 October 1912. As a result o ...

and of the committee to internationalize the city of Salonika. He lost favor under Atatürk and went into exile in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

Death

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

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carasso, Emanuel Sephardi Jews from the Ottoman Empire Jews from Thessaloniki Politicians of the Ottoman Empire Jewish Ottoman politicians 1862 births 1934 deaths Committee of Union and Progress politicians Young Turks Istanbul University Faculty of Law alumni Freemasonry-related controversies