From the seventeenth until the middle of the twentieth century, the majority of the population in the İstanbul district of Balat was Jews. Reşad Ekrem Koçu says that the crowded, daily life of Balat was lively, gay and full of activity, and that ii ... in Istanbul Balat meant the Jew and the Jew Balat. It was after the Ayazma Kapı (Gate of the Sacred Spring) fire in 1660 that the Jews were settled in Balat and Hasköy. However, it is known that Jews lived in Balat since the fifteenth century. Until 1660 they lived mostly in the Jewish quarter around Eminönü. When Hatice Türkan Sultan the mother of Mehmet IV, decided to build the Yeni Cami Mosque (the New Mosque) in Eminönü after the fire, the Jewish quarter consisting mostly of wooden houses was demolished and the people were moved to Balat and Hasköy, while same were settled in various other villages on the shores of the Golden Ham. Nevertheless many of the families in the Jewish quarter preferred to live in the old part of Istanbul and settled in Balat. Edmondo de Amicis, who visited Balat in the nineteenth century, observes the following: "I saw the delicate, fine features, the soft air of resignation, and almond-shaped eyes full of sweetness and tenderness which are the characteristics of the Jews of Istanbul. The profiles of Rebecca and Rachel standing in the doors of their houses, resting their long, slim-fingered hands on the curly heads of their children, reminded me of Rafael paintings."

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