Jewish History / Waiting for the Messiah
by Dan Yardeni
Three and a half centuries ago, a young, charismatic rabbi, Shabbetai Zvi, declared himself to be the Messiah and promised that the Jewish people would soon be redeemed and would return to Palestine, the ancestral Jewish homeland. Masses of Jews believed in him, and the events of that epoch, which are among the most turbulent in Jewish history, culminated in tragedy: In 1668, forced by the Ottoman sultan to choose between death and conversion to Islam, Shabbetai Zvi opted for the latter. Although most of his disciples abandoned him after his conversion, several thousand emulated their leader by outwardly accepting, though they continued to see themselves as Jews.
The historical and theological aspects of this episode in Jewish history have been extensively discussed by Jewish and non-Jewish scholars, including Gershom Scholem. However, little is known about the present-day descendants of the Sabbateans.
During my last visit to Istanbul, I met Rifat Bali, the author of “A Scapegoat for All Seasons,” through a mutual friend. A distinguished scholar who has written articles and books about Jewish life in the Ottoman Empire, Bali leans more toward documentation than analysis in his historical studies. In the book’s 400 pages, he cites hundreds of historical documents depicting the past and present vicissitudes of the Sabbateans’ descendants, who in Turkey are called the Doenmeh.
Tags: Doenmeh, Dönmes, Sabbatai Sevi, Sabbatai Zevi, Sabbateans
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May 18th, 2009 at 4:04 am
Doubtless the anti-semitic turn in Turkey and its effect on the Donmeh there are significant.
More worrying and surely a minefield for researchers will be the role of Papal-loyal Sabbateans in Israel.
As the prospect of war against Iran loom it is thought that present day Sabbateans like Netanyahu and Perez and their CFR allies in the US and the Vatican are about to cut a deal.
This very day in fact as we speak the US President meets Netanyahu in the aftermath of the Pope’s visit to the Holy Land last week.
It is likely that the Pope’s support for a two state solution of the Israel/Palestine issue will be approved.Thus the sunni states in the region will be brought on side for an attack on Iran.
In the conflagration that follows Israel will be blamed for the carnage and lose any standing in the world it now holds.
The Sabbatean founders of the Israeli state are thought to have had this self-implosion as their final goal all along.
It would be a great shame therefore if researchers neglected to pursue this line of enquiry before nations and peoples are engulfed in another Sabbatean Holocaust.