Amy Singer (Ph.D. Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, 1989

Amy Singer (Ph.D. Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, 1989

Amy Singer (Ph.D. Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, 1989) is professor of
Ottoman history in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv
University. Her research began with an in-depth study of the relations between Ottoman
officials and Palestinian peasants, in an effort to move Ottoman agrarian history beyond
cataloguing the demography and agricultural production of villages (Palestinian peasants
and Ottoman officials, 1994, Turkish: Kadılar Kullar Kudüslü Köylüler İstanbul: Tarih
Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1996; reprinted Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2008). From
the documentary materials of this study there emerged another story that of an Ottoman
public kitchen endowed in Jerusalem in the mid-sixteenth century (Constructing Ottoman
Beneficence, 2002; Osmanlı'da Hayirseverlik: Kudüs’te bir Haseki Sultan İmareti.
İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2004). The study of one endowment (vakıf/waqf)
prompted a more general interrogation of Islamic charity (Charity in Islamic Societies,
2008; İyilik Yap, Denize At: Musulman Toplumlarda Hayırseverlik (Istanbul: Kitap
Yayınevi, 2012).
At present, her research focuses on the Ottoman city of Edirne (Byzantine Adrianople)
and on public kitchens across the Ottoman Empire. In this project and more broadly, she
is exploring digital tools for historical research.