IJMH https://doi.org/10.1177/0843871420920961 The International Journal of Maritime History 2020, Vol. 32(2) 288–304 © The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0843871420920961 journals.sagepub.com/home/ijh Article The Mediterranean culture of fishing: Continuity and change in the world of Jewish fishermen, 1500–1929 Shai Srougo University of Haifa, Israel Abstract This essay discusses the maritime Jews and their changing role in the fishing occupation in the Mediterranean sea. The first part presents the trends in historiography regarding the Thessalonikian Jewish fishermen in Ottoman and Post Ottoman periods. The second section explores the maritime world of Jewish fishermen in Ottoman Thessaloniki between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. We will establish the cultural identity of the Jewish fishermen, which expressed itself in Thermaikos Bay. The third part depicts the reasons for the collapse of the Jewish sea tenure in Greek Thessaloniki, especially between the years 1922-1924, and continues to describe one of the responses; the settlement of several fishing families in Acre (in Mandatory Palestine). Their experience in the new environment was short (1925-1929) and we will investigate the linkage between their cultural marginality in the core society to the failure of forming a Jewish maritime community in Acre. Keywords Cultural isolation, fishing culture, Jewish sea tenure, marine fisheries regulation, Mediterranean Jews This research presents a cultural portrait of Jewish fishermen in the Ottoman and Post- Ottoman Mediterranean. The Jewish use of the sea as a source of livelihood existed only in the Mediterranean, as in other parts of the world Jews worked only in a land environ- ment. We will study the experience of Jewish fishermen who shared the unique identity of the peoples who settled in Mediterranean port-cities. The notion of a unique identity Corresponding author: Shai Srougo, Department of Jewish History and Biblical Studies, University of Haifa, 199 Aba Khoushy Ave. Mount Carmel, Haifa Israel. Email: ssrougo@univ.haifa.ac.il 920961IJH 0 0 10.1177/0843871420920961International Journal of Maritime HistorySrougo research-article 2020