Is the Haim Nahum Doctrine Real? What the Lausanne Archives Actually Show?
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- Who Was Haim Nahum? — The Real Biography
- What Happened at Lausanne? — Official Records Speak
- Rıza Nur's Memoirs — Anatomy of a Source
- Where Did the Protocols Come From? — Maurice Joly and the Okhrana
- Erbakan's Chain of Sources — Ideological Construction
- What Is the "Haim Nahum Doctrine"? — Claims and Facts
- The Scapegoat Mechanism — Functional Logic
- Conclusion: Document or Belief?
For decades, a claim has been repeated in Turkey's Islamist and nationalist circles: a Jewish rabbi named Haim Nahum secretly worked at Lausanne to engineer the downfall of the Ottoman Empire and Islam. This plan has been called the "Haim Nahum Doctrine."
This article examines that claim alongside its sources. We ask who Haim Nahum really was, what he actually did at Lausanne, from which documents these allegations were constructed, and how reliable those documents are. We owe our readers transparency: every source used is cited in the footnotes and bibliography.
Who Was Haim Nahum?
1873 — 1960 · A Life from Manisa to CairoThe year is 1873, Manisa. In this ancient city on the Aegean coast of the Ottoman Empire, a child was born into a Sephardic Jewish family. His name was Haim Nahum.
Eighty-seven years later, in 1960, in Cairo, he closed his eyes as an old man, his sight gone and his hair white. In those eighty-seven years, he had become both a diplomat trusted by the Ottoman state and a figure demonized by Islamist circles.
Both descriptions apply to the same man. Which is true?
Haim Nahum was sent at a young age to a religious school (yeshiva) in Palestine, where he learned Hebrew and Arabic. Upon returning, he attended various schools and learned French and Turkish. Later, the governor of Manisa had him educated at the Imperial Lycée in Izmir. Armed with two credentials — a certificate from the rabbis of Tiberias and a high school diploma — he came to Istanbul wishing to study Muslim law and diplomacy, but lacked the funds. So in 1892 he wrote a letter in French to the Alliance Israélite Universelle (Alliance), requesting a scholarship. In that letter he wrote:
"I shall owe you my material and spiritual life."
— HAIM NAHUM'S FIRST LETTER TO THE ALLIANCE, 1892 · SOURCE: BENBASSA, HAIM NAHUM: A SEPHARDIC CHIEF RABBI IN POLITICS, 1995Between 1893 and 1897 he studied at the Rabbinical Seminary in Paris. During the same period he earned a diploma in religious studies from the École Pratique des Hautes Études (1895) and diplomas in written Arabic and Persian from the École Spéciale des Langues Orientales (1896). He attended lectures by renowned orientalists at the Collège de France. This extraordinary educational profile far exceeded that of a typical rabbi in the East. In Paris he also formed connections with Young Turks in exile — ties that would prove decisive in his later career.
In this comprehensive academic biography, historian Esther Benbassa documents Nahum's entire political career using letters from the Alliance's Paris archives, German Foreign Ministry documents, British Foreign Office records, and Zionist archives. Nahum's own letters and official correspondence of the period show at first hand how he was assessed by those around him.
This book is the only existing comprehensive academic biography of Haim Nahum. None of the sources relied upon by conspiracy theorists are based on these archives.
In 1897 he began working for the Alliance. Returning to Istanbul, Nahum worked as both a rabbi and a teacher in Alliance schools. From the moment he arrived in Istanbul he engaged in intense social activity, building relationships with influential figures and working his way into the rabbinical hierarchy.
In 1899 he married Sultana Danon, daughter of Abraham Danon — a prominent Alliance-affiliated academic and director of the Rabbinical Seminary in Edirne. They had two children. Between 1900 and 1904 he taught French at the Imperial School of Engineering and Artillery, a school described as "where the seeds of the progressive officers were sown," where he forged relationships with the future architects of the 1908 revolution.
After the Constitutional Revolution of 1908 he was elected acting Chief Rabbi in August 1908, and was formally appointed Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire on 24 January 1909. Because of the strong support he received from the Committee of Union and Progress, he earned the nickname "the Rabbi of the Unionists."
Source: Benbassa, 1995, pp. 5–13; Ayşe Hür, "Haim Nahum," Avlaremoz, 2025.
Haim Nahum came from the Sephardic Jewish tradition — the community expelled from Spain in 1492 and given refuge in the Ottoman Empire. When Nahum was born, the Jewish population in Ottoman lands numbered around 200,000. This community had gained legal equality through the Tanzimat reforms (1839–1876), though social discrimination persisted in practice. Through Alliance schools, a process of "Westernization" — or more precisely "Frenchification" — was radically transforming this community. Nahum was both a product of that transformation and one of its key agents.
Source: Benbassa, 1995, pp. 1–8.
Nahum's relationship with Zionism was, in fact, the exact opposite of what conspiracy theories claim. Zionists regarded him with deep suspicion, discussing in their correspondence whether he should be removed from the Chief Rabbinate. Nahum aimed to be the leader of all Jews in Ottoman lands, and for that reason he embraced neither Zionism nor anti-Zionism openly.
Documents in the Central Zionist Archives clearly show how Zionist leaders viewed Nahum. In a letter dated 20 June 1910, Zionist Organization president David Wolffsohn asked local Zionists to rein in their excesses in Istanbul. Nahum was seen by Zionists as a dangerously powerful rival: he held an esteemed position with Ottoman officials and was in a position to use it against them if needed.
A February 1917 report by German Ambassador Kühlmann describes Nahum as a figure who met with the German ambassador more frequently than Arthur Ruppin, the Zionist Organization's local representative, and notes that he advocated for the integration of Jews into Ottoman society — the exact opposite stance of a self-described "Zionist."
Source: CZA, Z2/9, D. Wolffsohn to V. Jacobson, 20 June 1910; AAA, Turkey 195, K178268-178271, R. von Kühlmann to T. von Bethmann Hollweg, 15 February 1917. Cited in: Benbassa, 1995, pp. 17–21.
In Ramazan Hakkı Öztan's 2024 article, while documenting the biography of Emanuel Karasso, his direct connection to Haim Nahum is also established. It is documented that Karasso took Ottoman citizenship before the 1908 elections in order to vote, and that once elected he worked closely with numerous important figures including İnönü. Just as Karasso appeared on the list of delegates at Lausanne, Nahum was also present in the delegation in the official capacity of advisor.
Meanwhile, Nahum's anti-Zionist stance is clearly documented in the sources. The most compelling evidence is that Zionist organizations spoke of Nahum with complaint in their own internal correspondence.
Source: Ramazan Hakkı Öztan, "When Emmanuel Carasso Turned Italian," Osmanlı Araştırmaları / The Journal of Ottoman Studies, LXIII (2024), pp. 309–340.
During the National Struggle, Nahum became one of the most outspoken supporters of the Ankara Government. In statements to French journalists, he used a striking phrase to describe Mustafa Kemal:
"Mustafa Kemal is Turkey's George Washington. Like every national war, the starting point of the Turkish war has been the determination and patriotism of an enlightened group that knows what it wants."
— HAIM NAHUM, TO FRENCH JOURNALISTS IN PARIS, 1922 · SOURCE: AYŞE HÜR, AVLAREMOZ, 2025In 1923 Nahum accepted the post of Chief Rabbi of Egypt and left Turkey, never to return. In 1926 he was elected a senator in the Egyptian Parliament. In 1944 he founded the Society for the Historical Study of Egyptian Jewry. He died in Cairo in 1960, at the age of 88. Both Muslims and Christian Egyptians attended his funeral.
The Abyssinia Mission — A Career Move, Not a Detour
1907–1908 · The Falasha Jews and the AllianceAs competition for the Chief Rabbinate intensified in 1907, the Alliance decided to temporarily remove Nahum from Istanbul. He was dispatched to study the Falasha (Beta Israel) Jews of Abyssinia. The findings of this mission proved controversial due to his assessments of the Falasha's adherence to Jewish beliefs and practices, and drew attacks from Zionists.
Benbassa's archival research reveals that this mission was in fact designed to keep Nahum away from political competition. Yet it earned him international recognition and provided a diplomatic reference point for later stages of his career.
Alliance secretary Bigart gave Nahum repeated political advice during this phase of his career. The correspondence surrounding the Falasha mission shows that it began to strengthen rather than weaken his position. Nahum learned of the outbreak of the Young Turk revolution in Paris in the summer of 1908 — while returning from Abyssinia — and was summoned back to Istanbul.
Source: Benbassa, 1995, chapter "The Falasha Adventure," p. 145 ff.
Mediator During World War I
1914–1918 · Ottoman-Entente Secret Peace OverturesDuring World War I, Haim Nahum undertook at least three critical diplomatic missions on behalf of the Ottoman government. These document the exact opposite of what conspiracy theorists claim — not a Jewish agent, but a trusted Ottoman intermediary.
Mission 1 (1915): The Ottoman government appointed Nahum as mediator in a covert search for a ceasefire with Britain and France. Nahum met with a British representative at Dedeagaç. Talks yielded no result as both sides put forward excessive conditions.
Mission 2 (July 1918): The official pretext was a "health holiday." However, senior government officials came to see him off. Nahum traveled to The Hague and Stockholm, meeting with Western Jewish leaders and Zionist executives in a bid to rally support for the Ottoman cause. French and German intelligence services monitored him closely.
Mission 3 (October 1918): Just before the armistice, Grand Vizier İzzet Pasha assigned Nahum to put the Ottoman government in contact with the Allied powers. Nahum crossed to Romania by private yacht. This mission also failed; the Ottoman state was already collapsing.
Source: PRO 371/4167/59630; MAE, Levant, 1918-1929, Turkey vol. 112; Benbassa, 1995, pp. 28–31.
In the post-war period Nahum continued to serve as a trusted intermediary for multiple successive Ottoman governments. Benbassa summarizes this with a striking phrase: "He was every government's man." The secret of this flexibility was his unique position — never formally part of any political structure, yet in a permanent relationship with the state — though it drew suspicion not from those inside the system, but from Western powers who always viewed Nahum from the outside.
What Happened at Lausanne?
22 November 1922 — 24 July 1923 · Official Records and Archival DocumentsThe core of Erbakan's "Haim Nahum Doctrine" allegation is Lausanne. According to the claim, Nahum worked against Turkey at Lausanne and was the architect of numerous decisions, including the abolition of the Caliphate. What do the documents say?
In the official delegation list of the Ottoman/Turkish delegation to Lausanne, Haim Nahum's name appears in the advisors section as follows: "Haim Nahum Efendi, former Chief Rabbi of the Jews of Turkey, French Teacher at the Imperial School of Engineering."
He traveled among the delegates on the Orient Express departing Istanbul on 8 November 1922. A telegram dated 16 January 1923, signed by Prime Minister Rauf Orbay and addressed to İsmet Pasha, states that "payment for four months of expenses and allowances has been made to Haim Nahum Efendi." His appointment was therefore official and state-salaried.
Source: Ayşe Hür, "Haim Nahum," Avlaremoz, 2025. Also: Kemal Arı, "The Jewish Community and Chief Rabbi Haim Nahum Efendi in the War of Independence," Turkish-Israeli Joint Military History Conference II, 2003.
Was the question of the Caliphate on the official agenda at Lausanne? No.
The Foreign Relations of the United States, 1923, Volume II (Documents 723–829), documenting American participation in the Lausanne Conference, contains the official U.S. records of the Lausanne negotiations. These documents cover correspondence between Washington and Lausanne.
These official archives contain no record of any "secret plan" involving Haim Nahum. Looking at the conference agenda, the subjects discussed were capitulations, minority rights, trade agreements, and territorial questions. The abolition of the Caliphate never appeared on Lausanne's official agenda.
Source: Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1923, Volume II, "Turkey: American Participation in the Lausanne Conference," Documents 723–829. history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1923v02/ch70subch1
While the Lausanne negotiations were underway, Nahum was simultaneously pursuing his candidacy for the post of Chief Rabbi of Egypt. Letters in the Alliance archives show that he attempted to influence Lausanne's agenda in line with Ottoman/Turkish interests — not for any "secret Jewish plan," but in full alignment with the Turkish delegation.
The sources emphasize specifically this: at Lausanne, Nahum adopted a stance on the minorities question that supported the Turkish thesis. In other words, he acted as an advocate for Turkey against the Western powers. This is the exact opposite of the allegation that he "worked against Turkey."
Source: AAIU, Turkey II C 8; Benbassa, 1995, pp. 32–34.
After Nahum's departure from Lausanne, Zionist movement leader Chaim Weizmann wrote him a letter requesting that he help improve Turkey-Britain relations. This request is highly revealing: if Nahum were truly the executor of a "Jewish world conspiracy," it would make no sense for Weizmann to make such a request. Weizmann's appeal proves that he regarded Nahum not as an ally of the Zionist movement but of the Turkish state.
Source: Benbassa, 1995, pp. 38–39; Benbassa, Letters of the Last Ottoman Chief Rabbi: From the Alliance to Lausanne, Milliyet Publications, 1998.
The official records of the Lausanne Conference were compiled for presentation to the British Parliament and published in 1923 under the title Records of Proceedings and Draft Terms of Peace, Conference on Near Eastern Affairs 1922–1923 (Cmd. 1814, H.M. Stationery Office, London). This 882-page document covers the complete minutes of all three main commissions and ten sub-commissions, the statements of the delegating parties, and the draft treaty.
This document confirms the following critical facts:
1. Haim Nahum's name does not appear anywhere in these records. In 882 pages of official records, the name "Nahum" or "Nahoum" does not appear once. The complete absence from Lausanne's official records of the man supposedly the "architect" of a secret plan is highly significant.
2. Nahum does not appear in the Turkish delegation's official list. The records list the Turkish delegation as: first delegate İsmet Pasha, second delegate Rıza Nur Bey, third delegate Hasan Bey. Advisors and experts are listed in separate sections. Nahum's name does not appear in any of these lists.
3. The question of the Caliphate never appeared on Lausanne's official agenda.The complete proceedings of all three main commissions and ten sub-commissions are on record. The Caliphate was not a subject of the Lausanne negotiations. The only meaningful reference to the Caliphate in the document is İsmet Pasha's statement that "interference by foreign governments in the matter of the Caliphate is unacceptable" — meaning it was the Turkish delegation that sought to keep the Caliphate off the Lausanne agenda, not anyone else.
Source: Conference on Near Eastern Affairs, Lausanne, 1922–1923. Records of Proceedings and Draft Terms of Peace. Presented to Parliament by Command of His Majesty. H.M. Stationery Office, London, 1923. Cmd. 1814.
These records also show the following: the Turkish delegation's official treatment of the Jewish minority at Lausanne paints a positive picture. In the minorities session, İsmet Pasha explicitly described the Jewish community in these terms:
"This industrious and intelligent element, which until recently had not been mentioned by name in any treaty, deserves to be held up as a model of quiet conduct toward all sections of society."
The Turkish delegation made this assessment in the following context: the Jewish community had kept its distance from "entangling relations" with foreign powers, and had thereby been able to lead a peaceful civic life. This official record presents a picture that is the exact opposite of the conspiracy theorists' claim that "Nahum was assigned to undermine Turkey."
The proceedings of an international symposium organized by the Atatürk Research Center (ATAM) on 17–18 July 2023 (published 2025) contains the research of dozens of academics based on primary archival documents.
Prof. Dr. Sevtap Demirci (Boğaziçi University) recorded the following in her paper: "Lausanne is too important a matter to bear the weight of liberal, conservative, right-wing, left-wing, Islamist, nationalist, and other divisions and political debates. While none of the peace treaties signed after World War I survived, Lausanne is the only treaty still in force; it has no expiry date and no secret articles."
Prof. Dr. Temuçin Faik Ertan (Ankara University), based on primary archival documents, GNAT session records, and memoirs of the period, documented the structure of the Turkish delegation. He confirms that Haim Nahum Efendi was registered in the delegation list as an official advisor and that he was included in the delegation with the aim of securing support for Turkey on the minorities question against the Western delegations. References to Rıza Nur's memoirs and their remarks about Nahum appear only as footnotes, with the note that these statements were written "in a crude and harsh style."
Prof. Dr. Ramazan Erhan Güllü (Istanbul University), in his paper documenting discussions at Lausanne on the definition of minorities, records that Haim Nahum was supported by the Turkish delegation "in the hope that his stance and discourse in favor of Turkey on the minorities question would give Turkey's hand strength against the Western delegations."
Source: Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Lausanne Peace Treaty at its 100th Anniversary (17–18 July 2023), Atatürk Research Center Publications 608, Ankara, 2025. ISBN: 978-975-17-6121-7.
Rıza Nur's Memoirs
Anatomy of a Source · The 1967 EditionThe primary source on which Islamist circles base their Haim Nahum allegations is the memoirs of the Lausanne delegation's second plenipotentiary: Hayat ve Hatıratım (My Life and Memoirs), Rıza Nur, Volume III.
Rıza Nur wrote the following about Haim Nahum: "For some time Nahum, the former Chief Rabbi of Istanbul, began to be seen at our hotel. I noticed him one day talking to İsmet. I don't know what he did or who he used as an intermediary. He attached himself to İsmet. What a Jew!… He never leaves İsmet's side now. He knows meal times, and he waits by the elevator. He immediately takes İsmet's arm, grabs him by the waist. And İsmet is his. He walks İsmet up and down the lobby for no reason… In the end, with all the Jewish clinginess, he wormed his way in. He won't let go of İsmet's lapels. Now he doesn't leave his room either. İsmet appointed him advisor. He has even started paying him a daily wage."
Source: Rıza Nur, Hayat ve Hatıratım, Volume III, Altındağ Yayınevi, Istanbul, 1967, pp. 1081–1083.
Why can these statements not be accepted directly as "proof of the doctrine"? Who was Rıza Nur, and under what circumstances did he write this text?
| FEATURE | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|
| Birth / Death | 1879, Sinop — 1942, Istanbul |
| Role at Lausanne | Second plenipotentiary (Minister of Health) |
| Relationship with İsmet İnönü | Deep rivalry and personal resentment; the discomfort he felt at İnönü taking precedence is clearly visible throughout the memoirs |
| When were the memoirs written? | Approximately 10 years after the events, in the late 1930s |
| Other issues | Written as a response to Atatürk's Nutuk; an effort to position himself as the "real hero"; strong subjectivity |
The 2023 paper by Nuh Akçakaya of Selçuk University notes: Kadir Mısıroğlu's publication of the work "claimed to be Rıza Nur's" Hayat ve Hatıralarım has been presented as "objective evidence" to portray the Young Turks and the Lausanne delegation as conspirators. In the academic literature there are strong reservations about using these memoirs as a historical source on their own.
Akçakaya further demonstrates that a large portion of conspiracy theories in Turkey are fed by Western sources and that "the stories follow a narrative that keeps repeating itself."
Source: Nuh Akçakaya, "Conspiracy Theories in Turkey: A Comprehensive Investigation into Themes, Origins, and Sources," Mülkiye Dergisi, 47(4), 2023, pp. 1191–1224.
One more critical point: even within Rıza Nur's own words, there is not a single sentence linking the abolition of the Caliphate to Nahum. The relevant passage in Rauf Orbay's memoirs begins with the phrase "it was apparently understood that" — meaning he himself presents it as a hearsay account.
"Whether or not it was decided at Lausanne, shortly after this treaty was signed, the Islamic world was deprived of the Caliphate, the institution that united it under one roof."
— RIZA NUR'S OWN WORDS ON THE CALIPHATE; IMPLICITLY ACKNOWLEDGING IT WAS NOT A DECISION TAKEN AT LAUSANNE · SOURCE: AYŞE HÜR, AVLAREMOZ, 2025Where Did the Protocols Come From?
Maurice Joly (1864) · The Okhrana (1903) · The Journey to TurkeyTo understand the Haim Nahum allegations, one must first understand the framework into which they are inserted: the narrative of a "Jewish conspiracy." The foundational text of this narrative is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Maurice Joly was a French lawyer. In 1864 he wrote an imaginary dialogue to satirize the despotic rule of Napoleon III: a conversation in hell between two dead philosophers, Machiavelli and Montesquieu. Machiavelli explained every method of ruling by deceiving the people — press control, economic manipulation, social division… Joly published it anonymously in Brussels. He was imprisoned nonetheless.
In the book's preface, Boris Souvarine writes: "Stalin had not read this book — but he instinctively followed the same path." This sentence summarizes the book's central thesis: despotism is universal, and every authoritarian regime employs the same tactics. These tactics belong to no single ethnic group.
Source: Maurice Joly, Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu, Brussels, A. Mertens et fils, 1864. (Full text: La Bibliothèque électronique du Québec, 2010.)
An examination of the full text of the Protocols in Victor Marsden's English translation shows that the document consists of 24 protocols and includes a preface, introduction, and "Who are the Elders?" sections. The preface states that the translator himself was "a victim of the Soviet Revolution" and that translating the "diabolical spirit" of the text into English "made him ill" — a detail that clearly reveals the text's propagandistic framing.
The "Introduction" section presents the text as the records of speeches delivered at the First Zionist Congress in 1897. Yet the falsity of this claim — that the text was directly plagiarized from Joly's 1864 work — was proven paragraph by paragraph to the public in 1921 by London Times correspondent Philip Graves, and was ruled "a crude forgery" by a Swiss court in 1934.
The supplementary section titled "Visiting the Protocols" presents a pro-Protocols stance and cites Henry Ford's 1921 statement, "This document fits the world's situation." This appendix is a concrete example of how the text was put into ideological circulation despite the findings of its historical forgery.
Source: The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, trans. Victor E. Marsden, full text analysis.
In 1903 in Russia, the Okhrana (Tsarist secret police) copied Joly's text word for word. The only change: "Machiavelli" became "an Elder of Zion." Napoleon III's tactics of despotism became, verbatim, "the Jewish plan for world domination."
In his paper "The Roots and Themes of Turkish Antisemitism" published in the ISGAP Papers by École Pratique des Hautes Études (Sorbonne) researcher Rıfat Bali, the following is noted: one of the most important figures in Turkish antisemitism is retired colonel Cevat Rıfat Atilhan. Atilhan published numerous antisemitic books and journals in the 1930s and 1940s, which profoundly influenced the next generation of Islamist and nationalist politicians.
Notably: in the 1940s, the Turkish Armed Forces General Staff purchased 40,000–50,000 copies of one of Atilhan's antisemitic books and distributed them to officers. This is a documented example of the state-sponsored dissemination of antisemitism.
Source: Rıfat N. Bali, "The Roots and Themes of Turkish Antisemitism," The ISGAP Papers: Antisemitism in Comparative Perspective, Volume Two, ed. Charles Asher Small, ISGAP, New York, 2016, pp. 9–32.
In 1921 London Times correspondent Philip Graves proved the forgery to the public by placing the Protocols and Joly's work side by side. In 1934 a Swiss court condemned the Protocols as "a crude forgery." In 1993, when Russian Federation archives were opened, the connection to Okhrana agent Matvei Golovinski was documented.
According to Akçakaya's paper, the conspiratorial literature that began in Europe after the French Revolution reached Turkey with a delay but took lasting hold. Western discourse about Jews and Freemasons directly fed conspiracy theories in Turkey. In transmitting this discourse to the Ottomans, the 1908 Turkey Report of British Ambassador Gerard Lowther and the memoirs of British diplomat Gerald H. Fitzmaurice were decisive. The Protocols and Kadir Mısıroğlu's publication of the Rıza Nur memoirs were then added to this chain.
Source: Akçakaya, op. cit., pp. 1207–1208.
Erbakan's Chain of Sources
The Steps of Ideological ConstructionFor those researching the topic, a critical question is: from which sources did Erbakan construct his "Haim Nahum Doctrine" allegation? It is not based on direct academic documents, primary archives, or official records of the period.
The article "The Inside Story of Lausanne" by Necip Fazıl Kısakürek in the 6 October 1950 issue of Büyük Doğu magazine is the first systematic expression of the allegation: that "the agent of the secret agreement behind the artificial independence by which Turks were forced to sacrifice their religion was, in a word, Jewry," and "the person appointed to this" was Haim Nahum.
In his Emirdağ Lahikası published in 1959, Said-i Nursi quoted these lines verbatim and added: "The Jewish Lord Curzon and Haim Nahum… fully explain the mystery of the terrible oppression of Nurcus by arbitrary laws over twenty-five years."
Years later Kadir Mısıroğlu claimed that a secret second treaty of 24 articles had been concluded at Lausanne, that this treaty contained all the revolutions beginning with the abolition of the Caliphate, and that this was accomplished through Haim Nahum.
Source: Ayşe Hür, op. cit., Avlaremoz, 2025.
The political logic of Erbakan's use of this framework is clear. Rather than discussing the real causes of economic problems, social disintegration, and governance failures, linking all of them to a single "external power" and a single "secret plan" both mobilizes the masses and obscures the real causes.
Even Dr. Ali Yılmaz, who conveys the contents of the "Haim Nahum Doctrine" from Erbakan's perspective, could not avoid writing: "On this subject, there exists neither clear information nor any academic study."
This admission from a pen that supports the doctrine allegation itself shows just how weak the academic foundation of the subject is.
Source: Dr. Ali Yılmaz, "The Haim Nahum Doctrine and Its Basic Principles," Antalya Bugün, antalyabugun.com.tr.
The "Haim Nahum Doctrine" — Claims and Facts
Erbakan's Five Articles · Documentary TestingThe number of articles presented as the "Haim Nahum Doctrine" in Erbakan's speeches and in widely circulated social media graphics varies between 5 and 7 depending on the source. The most common version is as follows:
1. You will leave them hungry.
2. You will leave them unemployed.
3. You will make them slaves to debt.
4. You will distance them from their religion.
5. You will divide them.
6. You will pit those you have divided against each other.
7. You will soften them into a morsel and swallow them.
Source: Speeches attributed to Prof. Dr. Necmettin Erbakan. For the 5-article version, see: Dr. Ali Yılmaz, "The Haim Nahum Doctrine and Its Basic Principles," Antalya Bugün.
Let us test these articles against the documents:
| ERBAKAN'S CLAIM | DOCUMENTARY STATUS |
|---|---|
| "Leave hungry, leave unemployed, enslave with debt" — economic weakening | Not a single document exists showing that Nahum prepared such an instruction or plan. Dozens of internal and external causes for Turkey's economic problems have been documented. |
| Collapsing the education system | There is no primary document linking Ottoman and Republican education policies to Nahum. |
| Distancing from religious and national values | Secularization policies were directly the internal decisions of Mustafa Kemal and the Unionist cadre. Nahum was a Turkish state advisor in this process, not a foreign agent. |
| Creating social division and conflict | Undocumented allegation. Nahum in fact advocated for Turkish unity and supported the Kemalist movement. |
| Making Turkey dependent on Israel | Chronological impossibility: Nahum left Turkey in 1923. The State of Israel was founded in 1948 — 25 years later. Erbakan attempted to bridge this contradiction with the argument that "Jews make long-term plans." |
Court Jew, State Jew, or Levantine Mediator?
Benbassa's Academic Framework · Historical ContextThe academic framework in which Esther Benbassa situates Nahum's historical role reveals how superficial the one-dimensional picture offered by conspiracy theorists really is.
Court Jew: Jews in absolutist regimes of 17th- and 18th-century Europe who provided financial support to rulers — wealthy bankers and merchants. Similar figures also existed in the Ottoman Empire — in the 17th century the Duke of Naxos, in the 19th century the banker Abraham Camondo.
State Jew: Jews who occupied positions in state hierarchies in secular nation-states of the type that emerged in 19th-century France, where religion and state affairs were separated. This was not possible in the Ottoman Empire: religion and nationality were not separated; it was extremely rare and limited for a non-Muslim to rise through state ranks.
Nahum's real position: According to Benbassa, Nahum was neither a fully-fledged court Jew nor a state Jew; more properly a "Levantine shtadlan" — an informal mediator between the community and the state who provided mutual benefit to both sides.
"Nahum was the privileged intermediary of both Jews and Turks; a Levantine shtadlan, diplomat and politician. He embodied the transitional period of Ottoman Jewry; a Judaism caught between integration and the call of the West."
"Nahum was the most rabbinical of diplomats and the most diplomatic of rabbis."
Source: Benbassa, 1995, pp. 33–39 (conclusion of the introduction).
This academic framework is extremely important. The reason Nahum was valuable to both the Ottoman and Turkish governments was not that he had infiltrated their system as an "agent," but rather that by remaining outside the system he was able to play the role of a trusted intermediary. What made him "untouchable" in politically turbulent times was precisely this: he was never the formal part of any government, and so he survived every change of government.
Consider this: in 1908, the man of the Unionists. In 1918, after the fall of the Unionists, the man of the new government — Grand Vizier İzzet Pasha. In 1919, when the Kemalist movement was not yet strong, the intermediary of the Kemalists. In 1922–23, the Lausanne advisor of the Republic of Turkey.
This flexibility is the hallmark not of a conspirator but of an experienced mediator who knew how to survive. Moreover, this flexibility was met with suspicion not by those inside the existing system, but by Western powers who always looked at Nahum from the outside.
The Scapegoat Mechanism
Functional Logic · Historical PatternThe Haim Nahum allegation is the product of a mechanism that has been invoked repeatedly throughout history: the selection of a scapegoat. This mechanism is consciously used by those in power to conceal the real causes of genuine problems and to direct social anger toward a specific target.
There is a problem: economic crisis, military defeat, popular uprising.
Solution A: Investigate the real cause, pursue structural reform. Difficult, costly, puts power at risk.
Solution B: Find a scapegoat. Easy, cheap, protects power.
Jews were repeatedly used throughout history for this second option. As a minority present everywhere yet considered "native" nowhere, easily marked as "the other" due to religious difference, and fitting the "secret conspiracy" theory due to their diaspora condition, the ground was laid for the accumulation of historical prejudice against them.
Akçakaya's paper notes: the greatest historical trick of the Protocols is that despotic regimes projected their own tactics (manipulation, propaganda, censorship, economic control) onto someone else — the Jews. In other words, the Okhrana took a text Joly had written precisely to criticize Tsarist despotism and repackaged it as a "Jewish conspiracy." This is one of history's greatest historical projections: the real culprit offloads their own crimes onto another.
Source: Akçakaya, op. cit., pp. 1202–1204.
In the Turkish context, this mechanism worked as follows: the objections of Islamist circles to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, to the secularization policies of the Republic, and to the economic problems experienced were real and legitimate. But rather than targeting the real addressees of those objections — internal political choices, structural problems, governance failures — attributing all of them to a single external figure, the "Jewish agent Haim Nahum," was both easier and ideologically more functional.
"The actors cast as the subjects of conspiracy theories largely consist of figures presented as conspirators by the Western world. It appears that conspiracy theorists in Turkey have imitated these stories and adapted them to events in their own country."
— NUH AKÇAKAYA, "CONSPIRACY THEORIES IN TURKEY," MÜLKIYE DERGISI, 47(4), 2023, P. 1218Conclusion: Document or Belief?
The Difference Between Historical Analysis and Ideological ConstructionAfter reading this article, a reader might ask: "So are you saying Haim Nahum is definitely innocent?" No. This article does not make such a claim. Our claim is different and more modest:
Not a single primary document, not a single archival record, not a single academic study has ever been produced to support Erbakan's "Haim Nahum Doctrine" allegation. Even those who directly defend this allegation — as we have quoted above — are forced to say "there exists neither clear information nor any academic study on this subject."
What Rıza Nur said: Nahum was seen wandering in the hotel, showed friendliness toward İsmet, was appointed as an advisor.
What Erbakan presented: Nahum was a Zionist agent assigned to collapse the Turkish economy, weaken Islam, and enslave the population with debt.
The distance between the two is the distance of a transformation from a subjective, personally motivated observation to a systematic conspiracy theory. The "doctrine" was born from the merging of Rıza Nur's subjective, antisemitic statements with the framework of the Protocols.
The real portrait of Haim Nahum is this: he was a multilingual, multicultural Ottoman intellectual who earned the trust of both the Jewish community and the state in the late Ottoman period. He defended the Kemalist movement in Europe, contributed to the Turkish cause, and then moved to Egypt, where he worked to preserve the academic heritage of the Jewish community. He was neither a Zionist agent nor the architect of a "diabolical plan."
Conspiracy theories do their greatest harm when they prevent us from searching for the real causes of real problems. Saying "Haim Nahum is behind everything" renders invisible the errors of economic management, the weaknesses of education policy, and the internal dynamics of social conflict. This does not solve our problems; it merely postpones them and makes it possible to evade responsibility.
After tracking Nahum through the archives for years, Esther Benbassa reaches this conclusion: Haim Nahum had to be a different kind of rabbi — not merely because of what he thought, but because of the period and position in which he lived. As the Ottoman Empire collapsed, in an era when nationalism was enveloping everything, being the leader of a minority meant necessarily assuming a diplomatic and political function.
Nahum's greatest achievement, and simultaneously the target of his heaviest accusations, was this: his ability to make the voice of the Jewish community heard in a Muslim-majority state — never from the "outside" but always from "inside." What made him dangerous was his political skill. What made him an "agent" was having that skill while being Jewish.
Source: Benbassa, 1995, pp. 38–39.
History teaches us this: a society's attributing its crises to an external enemy serves no purpose other than to delay the resolution of those crises. The real causes of the Ottoman Empire's collapse — structural economic backwardness, delays in military modernization, the centrifugal forces created by the wave of nationalism — lie far deeper than anything Haim Nahum did at Lausanne.
The source of the social transformations experienced in the early years of the Republic of Turkey is not the "doctrine" of a single rabbi, but the internal logic of centuries of Westernization winds, wars, and the construction of a new nation-state. The only thing that can render these invisible is to say "Haim Nahum did this."
"The Protocols are not a 'document' but a 'weapon' — and its true target is not Jews but the public's attention to its real problems."
— FROM RESEARCH NOTESSources and Notes
Primary and Secondary Sources Used in This ArticleBenbassa, Esther. Haim Nahum: A Sephardic Chief Rabbi in Politics, 1892–1923. Trans. Miriam Kochan. The University of Alabama Press (Judaic Studies Series), Tuscaloosa and London, 1995. ISBN: 0-8173-0729-X. [PRIMARY ACADEMIC BIOGRAPHY] This comprehensive biography, translated from French, is based on primary sources including the Alliance Archives (Paris), Central Zionist Archives (Jerusalem), German Foreign Ministry archives (Bonn), British Foreign Office archives (London), and French Foreign Ministry archives (Paris). It is the only work documenting Nahum's life, career, and the political context of the period with academic rigor, going beyond both the defenders of the conspiracy theory and those who wish to fully exonerate Nahum. It is a historical obligation for anyone wishing to make any claim about Haim Nahum to read this book.
Akçakaya, Nuh. "Conspiracy Theories in Turkey: A Comprehensive Investigation into Themes, Origins, and Sources." Mülkiye Dergisi, 47(4), 2023, pp. 1191–1224. Selçuk University. An academic article examining how conspiracy theories in Turkey are fed by Western sources, their common terminology, and their historical chain.
Öztan, Ramazan Hakkı. "When Emmanuel Carasso Turned Italian: A Biography of Extraterritoriality and Questions of Nationality in the Ottoman Empire." Osmanlı Araştırmaları / The Journal of Ottoman Studies, LXIII (2024), pp. 309–340. Trinity College Dublin. Based on Ottoman archives, this article documents the biography of Emanuel Karasso, connected to Haim Nahum, and his post-Lausanne legal process.
Bali, Rıfat N. "The Roots and Themes of Turkish Antisemitism." In: The ISGAP Papers: Antisemitism in Comparative Perspective, Volume Two, ed. Charles Asher Small. ISGAP, New York, 2016, pp. 9–32. École Pratique des Hautes Études (Sorbonne). An academic article documenting the historical roots of antisemitism in Turkey, the role of Cevat Rıfat Atilhan, and the relationship between the National View movement and antisemitism.
Benbassa, Esther. Letters of the Last Ottoman Chief Rabbi: From the Alliance to Lausanne. Trans. İrfan Yalçın. Milliyet Publications, Istanbul, 1998. A comprehensive work based on primary sources concerning Nahum's letters and the Jewish politics of the period.
Arı, Kemal. "The Jewish Community and Chief Rabbi Haim Nahum Efendi in the War of Independence." Turkish-Israeli Joint Military History Conference II, General Staff Military History and Strategic Studies Publications, 2003. An academic assessment of Nahum's role during the National Struggle.
— Primary Sources
Conference on Near Eastern Affairs, Lausanne, 1922–1923. Records of Proceedings and Draft Terms of Peace. Presented to Parliament by Command of His Majesty. H.M. Stationery Office, London, 1923. Cmd. 1814. [OFFICIAL LAUSANNE CONFERENCE RECORDS — PRIMARY ARCHIVE PRESENTED TO BRITISH PARLIAMENT] This 882-page document covers the complete minutes of all three main commissions and ten sub-commissions, the statements of the delegating parties, and the draft treaty. The official Turkish delegation list includes only three names: İsmet Pasha (first delegate), Rıza Nur Bey (second delegate), Hasan Bey (third delegate). The name "Haim Nahum" does not appear anywhere in these 882 pages of official records. The question of the Caliphate never entered Lausanne's official agenda. İsmet Pasha explicitly described the Jewish community in the minorities session as "an industrious and intelligent element that deserves to be held up as a model of quiet conduct toward all sections of society." Directly accessible via British archives: archive.org/details/recordsofproceed00confuoft
Joly, Maurice. Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu. Brussels: A. Mertens et fils, 1864. (Electronic edition: La Bibliothèque électronique du Québec, 2010, 475 pp.) The source from which the Protocols were directly plagiarized. Written to satirize the despotism of Napoleon III; the Okhrana repackaged this text as a "Jewish conspiracy."
Rıza Nur. Hayat ve Hatıratım (My Life and Memoirs), Volume III. Altındağ Yayınevi, Istanbul, 1967. The personal memoirs of the second plenipotentiary of the Lausanne delegation. Statements about Haim Nahum appear on pp. 1081–1083. Caveats to be noted when using this source: subjectivity, personal rivalry directed at İsmet İnönü, written approximately 10 years after the events.
U.S. Department of State. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1923, Volume II: Turkey — American Participation in the Lausanne Conference, Documents 723–829. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Official U.S. correspondence at Lausanne. Access: history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1923v02/ch70subch1
Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Lausanne Peace Treaty at its 100th Anniversary. Ed. Necdet Hayta, Ramazan Erhan Güllü. Atatürk Research Center Publications 608, Ankara, 2025. ISBN: 978-975-17-6121-7. Complete proceedings of the international symposium held on 17–18 July 2023. Key articles include: Demirci, "Lausanne: The 100th Anniversary of the Transition from Military to Diplomatic Struggle"; Ertan, "The Turkish Delegation Participating in the Lausanne Conference"; Güllü, "Debates on the Definition of Minority at the Lausanne Conference." — Prof. Demirci explicitly recorded in this work: "Lausanne is the only treaty still in force; it has no expiry date and no secret articles."
The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. Trans. Victor E. Marsden (1934). Full text analysis. This document contains a preface, 24 protocols, an introduction, and a "Visiting the Protocols" appendix. The internal inconsistencies of the document and the translator's own admission that "translating the text made him ill" clearly expose its propagandistic framing. The plagiarism of Joly's text was proven paragraph by paragraph by the London Times in 1921, ruled upon by a Swiss court in 1934, and in 1993 Russian archives documented the Okhrana connection.
— Online Sources
Hür, Ayşe. "Haim Nahum, the Chief Rabbi of the Unionists and Kemalists, on the 65th Anniversary of His Death." Avlaremoz, 23 November 2025. A comprehensive article conveying the real biography of Haim Nahum based on primary sources. avlaremoz.com
Yılmaz, Dr. Ali. "The Haim Nahum Doctrine and Its Basic Principles." Antalya Bugün. An article conveying the articles Erbakan presented as the "doctrine." The author's own note: "On this subject, there exists neither clear information nor any academic study." antalyabugun.com.tr
All historical claims in this article are based on the sources listed above. Interpretations belong to the author. Citations are given with source references within the text. We encourage our readers to independently examine all sources.
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