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, and continued to practice Jewish rituals covertly. They recognized Sabbatai Zevi as the Jewish Messiah, observed certain rituals with similarities in Judaism and prayed in Hebrew and later in Ladino. They also observed rituals celebrating important events in Zevi's life. They interpreted Zevi's conversion in a Kabbalistic way.
There are several branches of Dönmehs. The first was the Ismirli formed in İzmir, Turkey (Smyrna). The second were the Jakubi, founded by Jacob Querido, a successor to Zevi who also made messianic claims. Also there were the Osman Baba led by Berechia. This group taught Jacob Frank, who led the Frankists in 18th century eastern Europe, and the fifth were the Lechli who are of Polish descent who lived in exile in Salonika (modern Thessaloniki, Greece) and Constantinople.
The Dönmeh played an enormous role on the Young Turk movement, a band of modernist revolutionaries who brought down the Ottoman Empire. At the time of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, some among the Salonika Dönmeh tried to be recognized as non-Muslims to avoid being forced to leave Salonika. After the foundation of the Turkish Republic, 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, the Dönmeh were instrumental in establishing trade, industry and culture in the emerging Republic of Turkey, which is partially due to the prominence of Rumeli immigrants in general and of Salonica in particular in the early Republic years.
Although they married within their own community only, in theory, mixed-marriage and assimilation began at the end of 19th century. As of the end of 20th century the Dönmeh were fully integrated to the Turkish society, and the intermarriage restriction has been largely ignored since the 1960s except by the Karakashi branch of them.
Since the publication of the book Şebeke "Network" by the socialist writer Professor Dr. Yalçın Küçük in 2002, a new wave of conspiracy theories popular among the right-wing and left-wing nationalists emerged. According to these speculative postulates, the Dönmeh are related to each other through a network that consequently links them to "International Jewry" and they are the ones behind consecutive governments in Turkey.
An interesting case is the one of Ilgaz Zorlu, a Dönmeh publisher who founded Zvi Publishers in 2000 and sought recognition as a Jew, but a Beth Din refused to recognize his Jewishness without a full 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. The court voted in his favor. His acts are seen controversial by many, particularly due to his cooperation with Muslims like Mehmed Şevket Eygi.
Işık University, which is part of the Feyziye Schools Foundation (Feyziye Mektepleri Vakfi - FMV), and Terakki schools were founded originally by the Dönmeh community in Salonica in the last quarter of the 19th century but ceased to be community schools after their move to Istanbul.
. Estimates of the numbers vary, but they seem to number close to 100,000 and perhaps many more. Isik University (a private university in Istanbul) and the Feyziye Schools Foundation under whose umbrella the University is operating, were rumored to be founded by the Karakash group of Donmeh.
A group calling itself Donmeh West, founded in California in 1983 by Reb Yakov Leib, considers itself a "Neo-Sabbatian collective," and draws on Sabbatai Zevi's teachings to form a syncretistic movement [2] which also draws heavily on Sufism, Judaism, and other faiths. Donmeh West does have direct historical ties to the Donmeh active in Turkey
ReferencesISBN 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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