Donmeh

The Dönmeh officially practiced and practice Islam. They are not regarded as Jews, whereas most Sabbateans during and after Sabbatai Zevi were Jews and practiced only Judaism.

Dönmeh refers to a group of Sabbatean Crypto-Jews of the Near East who are followers of the seventeenth century Jewish Messiah Sabbatai Zevi. They are also called Selânikli (person from Thessaloniki) or referred to as avdetî, a Turkish word for a religious convert.

The Dönmeh emerged in the late seventeenth century, after Sabbatai Zevi shocked the Jewish world by outwardly converting to Islam while imprisoned by the Ottoman government. He later began teaching a fusion of and Jewish ideas, attracting both Muslims and some of his on Jewish followers. Dönmeh teachings took on a life of their own after Sabbatai's death and the movement split into several factions. They were reprortedly influential in the Young Turk movement which ultimately toppled the Ottoman Empire. Numbering about 15,000 in the late twentieth century, Dönmeh adherents today are found primarily in Turkey.

Backgrouond

Sabbatai Zevi's claim to be the Jewish Messiah met with unprecedented success, affected a large percentage of the Jews of both the Ottoman Empire (including the Holy Land) and Europe. At the height of Sabbatai's popularity Sultan Mehmed IV order that Sabbatai be brought to Adrianople, where he declared himself a Muslim, saying: “God has made me an Ishmaelite; He commanded, and it was done.” The sultan rewarded with the honorable title of Effendi and appointed him as the royal doorkeeper with a substantial salary. A number of Sabbatai's followers also declared themselves to be Muslims.

Sabbatai's conversion was devastating for most of his followers and also encouraged the sultan to pressure more Jews to convert, a policy which the sultan's mother reportedly prevented. Nevertheless, despite Sabbatai's apostasy, many of his adherents still upheld him as the Messiah. Some of these understood his conversion to Islam as a messianic act of tikkun, the Kabbalistic formula of cosmic restoration by which the whole world would be returned to God. Sabbatai's most important supporters, the prophet Nathan Gaza and Sabbatai's secretary Primo, both promoted this idea. In many Jewish communities, Sabbataeanism thus refused to die, despite rabbinical bans an excommincations.

For his own power, Sabbatai himself seems to have continued to encourage faith in his messianic role. In 1668, he announced he had received a new revelation, and he reportedly published a mystical claiming his purpose in converting to Islam was to bring Muslims to Judaism. To the sultan, however, apparently said just the opposite. Thus Sabbatai was allowed to carry out his ministry among his former followers and to preach in their synagogues. His ministry indeed brought a number of Muslims to accept his kabbalistic teachings while also bringing Jews to a new type of Islam. Thus, the Judeo–Turkish sect later known as the Donmeh was born.

The Turkish government eventually saw Sabbatai's as duplicitous, and he was banished to Istanbul, and later to the village of Dulcigno (today called Ulcinj) in Montenegro, where he died in 1676.

History

While outwardly Muslim, the Sabbateans secretly remained close to Jewish beliefs. To protect their former Muslim members from the charge of apostasy, they practiced some Jewish rituals, such as infant circumcision, covertly. They recognized Sabbatai Zevi as the Jewish Messiah, observed certain rituals with similarities in Judaism, as well as prayed in Hebrew, and later in the Spanish-Jewish dialect of Ladino. They also observed rituals celebrating important events in Zevi's life, and interpreted Zevi's conversion in a kabbalistic manner, as an act of tikkun.

Several branches of the Dönmehs evolved over the next century. The first and main branch was the Ismirli, formed in İzmir, Turkey (Smyrna), the center of Sabbatai's ministry, around the time of Sabbatai's own conversion. The second were the Jakubi, founded by Jacob Querido, claims to have incarnated Sabbatai's spirit and,led his disciples on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He died in Alexandria on his way back, and was succeeded by his son, Berechiah. Also known as Osman Baba, Berechia led his group down a more antinomian path, and may have encouraged conversions to Christianity as well as Islam. His group in tern taught taught Jacob Frank, who famously led his European followers in eighteenth eastern Europe to accept Christian baptism. Finally, there were were the Lechli, mostly Jews of Polish descent who lived in exile in Salonika and Constantinople. Because of the underground nature of the Dönmeh movement, few details are known about their activities, with the exception of the Frankists, who became notorious.

In the late nineteenth century, the Turkish Dönmeh reportedly played an important role on the Young Turk movement, the band of modernist revolutionaries who brought down the Ottoman Empire. At the time of a required population exchange between Greece and Turkey, some among the Salonika Dönmeh sought to be recognized as non-Muslims to avoid being forced to leave Salonika. After the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the Dönmeh strongly supported the Republican, pro-Western reforms of Atatürk that tried to restrict the power of the religious establishment and to modernize the society. In particular, members of the Dönmeh were instrumental in establishing trade, education, industry, and culture in the emerging Republic of Turkey, partially due to the prominence of immigrants from Salonica in the early Republic years.

The Dönmeh originally married within their own community only, at least in theory, but mixed marriage and assimilation began in earnest at the end of nineteenth century. By the end of the twentieth century, the Dönmeh were fully integrated to the Turkish society, and the intermarriage restriction has been largely ignored since the 1960s in most branches of the movement.

Since the publication of the book Şebeke "Network" by the socialist writer Professor Dr. Yalçın Küçük in 2002, a new wave of conspiracy theories against the Karakashi has emerged. The Dönmeh are thus suspected of having created a network linked to "International Jewry," secretly manipulating the consecutive governments in Turkey.

Few of the Dönmeh in Turkey admit to their association with the tradition. An exception is publisher Ilgaz Zorlu, who founded Zvi Publishers in 2000 and sought recognition as a Jew, but a Beth Din (rabbinical court) refused to recognize his Jewishness without a formal conversion. He claimed to have converted in Israel and then filed a lawsuit for changing his religion from Islam to Judaism in his registry records and ID. A Turkish court then ruled in his favor.

Işık University, which is part of the Feyziye Schools Foundation (Feyziye Mektepleri Vakfi - FMV), and Terakki schools were originally founded by the Dönmeh community in Salonika in the last quarter of the nineteenth century but ceased their association with the schools Dönmeh after their move to Istanbul.

Estimates of the number of Dönmeh adherents vary, ranging from 15,000 to 100,000 and sometimes many more.

A group calling itself Donmeh West, founded in California in 1983 by Reb Yakov Leib and consisting mainly of an internet community, considers itself a "Neo-Sabbatian collective." It draws on Sabbatai Zevi's teachings to form a syncretistic movement which also draws heavily on Sufism, Judaism, and other faiths. Donmeh West does have direct historical ties to the Donmeh community in Turkey

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Tarih ve Toplum Dergisi, Iletisim Yayinlari, Istanbul, Temmuz 2002

See also

• Converso
• Marrano
• Muslim Jew
• Fall of the Ottoman Empire
• Jacob Frank
• Jewish Museum of Turkey

External links

• Donmeh - Frequently Asked Questions
• The Dönmes: Crypto-Jews under Turkish Rule by Jacob M. Landau Jewish Political Studies Review 19:1-2, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
• An article by Emin Çölaşan (Turkish)
• A new book about Sabbateans by M. Sevket Eygi (Turkish)
• Sabbatean controversy between Ahmet Hakan and M. Sevket Eygi (Turkish)

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