Emmanuel Carasso or Emanuel Karasu (1862 in Salonica – 1934 in Trieste) was an Ottoman

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

and a member of the prominent

Sephardic Jewish Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

Carasso family of Ottoman

Salonica Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

(now Thessaloniki, Greece). He was also a prominent member of the

Young Turks The Young Turks (, also ''Genç Türkler'') formed as a constitutionalist broad opposition-movement in the late Ottoman Empire against the absolutist régime of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (). The most powerful organization of the movement, ...

. 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 was the physician Isaac Carasso, also Salonica-born Sephardic Jew from the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, who began producing

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yogurt in

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

masonic Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

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 The Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress (CUP, also translated as the Society of Union and Progress; , French language, French: ''Union et Progrès'') was a revolutionary group, secret society, and political party, active between 1889 and 1926 ...

(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

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organizations in the Ottoman Empire, including

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, and insisted that Ottoman Jews were Ottoman first and

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

Italo-Turkish War The Italo-Turkish (, "Tripolitanian War", , "War of Libya"), also known as the Turco-Italian War, was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911 to 18 October 1912. As a result of this conflict, Italy captur ...

and of the committee to internationalize the city of

Salonika Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

. He lost favour under Atatürk and went into exile in

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Death

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

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carasso, Emanuel Sephardi Jews from the Ottoman Empire Jews from Thessaloniki Politicians from the Ottoman Empire Jewish politicians from the Ottoman Empire 1862 births 1934 deaths Committee of Union and Progress politicians Young Turks Istanbul University Faculty of Law alumni Freemasonry-related controversies Anti-Zionist Jews Freemasons 19th-century Jews from the Ottoman Empire