As Mehmed wanted to make the city his new capital, he decreed its rebuilding.Inalcik, Halil. "The Policy of Mehmed II toward the Greek Population of Istanbul and the Byzantine Buildings of the City." Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23 (1969): 229–249, specifically 236. And in order to revivify Constantinople he ordered that Muslims, Christians and Jews from all over his empire be resettled in the new capital. Within months most of the Empire's Romaniote Jews, from the Balkans and Anatolia, were concentrated in Constantinople, where they made up 10% of the city's population.Avigdor Levy; The Jews of the Ottoman Empire, New Jersey, (1994) The forced resettlement, though not intended as an anti-Jewish measure, was perceived as an "expulsion" by the Jews.J. Hacker, Ottoman policies towards the Jews and Jewish attitudes towards Ottomans during the Fifteenth Century in "Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire", New York (1982) Nevertheless, the Romaniotes would remain the most influential Jewish community in the Empire for decades to come, determining the Chief Rabbis of the towns and the Hakham Bashi of the Ottoman Empire until their leading position was lost to a wave of new Jewish arrivals. These events initiated the first great numerical decline of the Romaniote community.
As Mehmed wanted to make the city his new capital, he decreed its rebuilding.Inalcik, Halil "The Policy of Mehmed II toward the Greek Population of Istanbul and the Byzantine Buildings of the City." Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23 (1969): 229–249 specifically 236. And in order to revivify Constantinople he ordered that Muslims, Christians and Jews from all over his empire be resettled in the new capital. Within months most of the Empire's Romaniote Jews, from the Balkans and Anatolia, were concentrated in Constantinople, where they made up 10% of the city's population.Avigdor Levy; The Jews of the Ottoman Empire, New Jersey, (1994) The forced resettlement, though not intended as an anti-Jewish measure, was perceived as an "expulsion" by the Jews.J. Hacker, Ottoman policies towards the Jews and Jewish attitudes towards Ottomans during the Fifteenth Century in "Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire", New York (1982) Nevertheless, the Romaniotes would remain the most influential Jewish community in the Empire for decades to come, determining the Chief Rabbis of the towns and the Hakham Bashi of the Ottoman Empire until their leading position was lost to a wave of new Jewish arrivals. These events initiated the first great numerical decline of the Romaniote community.