He is, in fact, one of the last to practice the 300-year-old
tradition of a crypto-community of Jewish ancestry. His prayer in
Ladino (1) expresses the messianic longing for a redeemer of
the House of Israel.
Jewish messianic fervor is not a relic from past centuries : Witness
the happenings this spring around the 90th birthday of the Lubavitcher
rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who, according
to some of his followers, will soon reveal himself as the messiah.
One week before the birthday, 800 sympathizers from the intellectual, political
and religious community of Washington, D.C., gathered for dinner to praise
and honor the man who is known simply as the Rebbe. On the day itself -
April 14 (11 Nisan) - 10,000 followers filled Yad Eliyahu Stadium
in Tel Aviv; in Crown Heights, where the revered sage lives surrounded
by 15,000 followers, emotional pandemonium swept through the community
as children took the streets and sang - "We want Moshiach now!"
In Turkey, a small, secretive remnant of several thousand people survives from another time of messianic anticipation - followers of Shabbetai Tzvi, the seventeenth century Jewish mystic who declared himself the messiah and ended up converting to Islam.
To some Jews he became the false messiah; to others, called Dônme
(apostates) by Turks and Ma'aminim (true believers) by themselves, Shabbetai
Tzvi lies on, the unrecognized messiah who
will one day return.
The messianic movement initiated by Shabbetai Tzvi swept across the
world from England to Persia, from the Netherlands to Morocco and from
Germany to Yemen. Staid Jewish businessmen sold their homes and possessions
and prepared for the journey to Jerusalem redeemed. It was the most widespread
messianic movement in Jewish history. So deep was its mark and so striking
its
consequences that centuries could not erase them.
Shabbetai Tzvi was born in Smyrna (Izmir), Turkey, in 1626, probably on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, Tisha b'Av, the day in 586 B.C.E. the Babylonians destroyed the Solomonic Temple, the day in 70 C.E. the Romans destroyed the Second Temple. According to a midrash, the messiah would be born on that day.
Versed in the kabbalah, the esoteric and mystical teachings of Judaism, Shabbetai Tzvi led a life of seclusion and piety in his early adolescence. During this period came the first manifestations of a severe psychic disturbance. Shabbetai Tzvi was agitated by sexual temptations. He began to suffer from alternating episodes of depression and exaltation. Nevertheless, handsome and endowed with a musical voice, he attracted many admirers. An eye witness reported that he acquired the reputation of an inspired man. At the age of 18, Shabbetai Tzvi was ordained a chacham, a title designating him as a rabbi.
Young scholars his age collected around him, studying Talmudic and mystical lore. Like him, they took ritual baths in the seaand they accompanied him in the fields outside the city, where they devoted themselves to the mysteries of the Torah (2).
Between ages 20 and 24, Shabbetai Tzvi was twice married.Neither marriage
was consummated; both ended in divorce. When, in 1648, news reached Turkey
of the massacre of more than 100,000
Jews in the Ukraine led by the Cossack Bogdan Chmielnitzki, a belief
grew in Shabbetai Tzvi's heart that he was chosen to be the savior of his
afflicted people. During periods of exaltation he would behave extravagantly,
doings things that were prohibited by rabbinical law or custom. Boldly
non conformist, he even pronounced the ineffable name of God, Yahweh, the
name Jews utter only in prayer and even then only as Adonai, never as the
Lord's personal name that was pronounced only once a year on the Day of
Atonement by the hight priest in the Holy of Holies. Considered by many
a lunatic, Shabbetai Tzvi initially evoked a certain compassion in the
rabbis of Smyrna, but later they banished him from his native town.
For several years Shabbetai Tzvi wandered, reaching Salonica in Greece
and then Constantinople (Istanbul). In both places he gained sympathizers
but was eventually expelled from these cities
as well. In Salonica, he celebrated a nuptial ceremony with the Torah
under the canopy. In Constantinople, in a frenzy of piety, he celebrated
in one week the festivals of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot to atone for
all sins ever committed by Israel during festival times. Throughout his
career, Shabbetai Tzvi exhibited a predilection for shifting dates, changing
fixed times and moving Sabbaths and holy days.
After returning to Smyrna for a while, Shabbetai Tzvi decided
to visit the Holy Land, reaching Jerusalem via Rhodes and Cairo. He visited
holy graves, prayed near the tombs of the patriarchs in
Hebron and devoted himself to ascetic practices. Members of the Jewish
community, although astounded by his stange character, nevertheless flocked
to him. He gained their esteem after
successfully raising financial aid on a visit to Cairo for the impoverished
Jewish community of the Holy Land.
In 1664, during a second visit to Cairo lasting two years, Shabbetai Tzvi married Sarah, a Polish-born orphan in her 20s. Sarah's parents had perished in the Chielnitzki massacres.
Reputedly promiscuous, she wandered through Europe, arriving at the
port of Leghorn, Italy, where she claimed she was destined to marry the
messiah. When Shabbetai Tzvi heard this, he sent
messengers to Leghorn to bring her to Cairo. The wedding ceremony was
held with great pomp. His marriage was interpreted as an emulation
of the prophet Hosea, who had married a whore under divine inspiration.
Whore or not, Shabbetai Tzvi's union with Sarah coincided with a relatively
stable period in his psychic life, a time when he realized his madness
and searched for a cure.
A meeting between Shabbetai tzvi and Nathan of Gaza was a turning point in Shabbetai Tzvi's mission. Nathan, a young but renowned kabbalist, engaged in mystical practices and ascetic disciplines.
As a devoted kabbalist, he was on the lookout for the messiah, whose imminent coming was then a prevailing belief. He knew of Shabbetai Tzvi's pretentions. Shabbetai Tzvi, for his part, had heard of Nathan as a man of God, able to disclose the hidden parts of people's souls. And so it came about that Shabbetai Tzvi, searching for a healer for himself, arrived in Gaza to visit Nathan, the physician of souls.
Shortly before Shabbetai Tzvi's arrival, Nathan experienced an ecstatic vision that revealed to him that Shabbetai Tzvi was the expected messiah. So when Shabbetai Tzvi came to Nathan seeking a cure, Nathan told him that his agonies were not symptoms ofdiseased soul but the signs of his soul's high rank, which didnot need any tikun (repair). While they were celebrating on theeve of Shavuot, Nathan fell into a trance and anounced thatShabbetai Tzvi was the messiah. Nathan even produced anapocryphal text in which Shabbetai Tzvi's appearance as theredeemer of his nation was supposedly prophesied.
On the 17th of Sivan (May 31, 1665) in Gaza, Shabbetai Tzvi proclaimed himself messiah. He appointed 12 "apostles" to represent the 12 tribes. Riding around on horseback in majestic state, Shabbetai Tzvi came to Jerusalem where he circled the walls seven times.
Nathan proclaimed the need for mass repentance to hasten the coming of Redemption. Letters went out to communities in North Africa, Asia and Europe. In one of these letters Nathan wrote :
"The time of redemption has come ... Shabbetai Tzvi has the power to justify the great sinner, even Jesus (3) ... he will take the crown of the Turkish king, without war, and will make the sultan his servant ... he will proceed to the river Sambatyon to bring back the lost tribes".
Rumors reached Europe about the appearance of the Ten Lost Tribes of
Israel, said to be marching under the command of a prophetic and saintly
man about whom all sorts of miraculous stories were
told.
In Palestine, messianic news traveled like wildfire, encountering strong opposition from outstandings rabbis of Jerusalem, who banished Shabbetai Tzvi from the city. Heading north, Shabbetai Tzvi traveled through Safed in the Galilee and Aleppo in Syria to Smyrna, where Jews had long forgotten the ban placed on him for his earlier bizarre behavior and, his fame having preceded him, welcomed him to his birthplace and the king-mesiah. Hundreds of people accompanied him wherever he went, causing a tumult among the people of Smyrna. On December 12, 1665, he smashed the locked doors of the synagogue that was the headquarters of his opponents and, once inside, called men and women alike to read the Torah and distributed kingdoms of the earth among his supporters, forcing them to pronounce the forbidden name of God.
Then Shabbetai Tzvi went up to the ark, took out a scroll and, after singing "Meliselda", an old Castilian erotic love song, proclaimed himself the messiah of Israel, fixing the date of the redemption for June 18th, 1666. He announced that in a short time he would seize the crown of the Ottoman sultan and reestablish the Kingdom of Israel.On December 30, 1665, Shabbetai Tzvi left Smyrna by ship for Istanbul with a group of followers.
Considering Shabbetai Tzvi in open rebellion against the sultan, Turkish
authorities arrested and imprisoned him when the ship arrived at
the Dardanelles. Tension mounted among Jews as well
as among Muslims. An eye witness in Constantinople reported :
"Seven to eight hundred women were prophesying for several months in the Galata quarter of Constantinople, acting as if possessed and imitating the enthusiastic behavior of such as have received the spirit. Several women had to be bound and beaten in order to drive out the spirit of folly that had turned their brains and caused them to rave and indulge in disorderly behavior".
The enthusiastic messianic anticipation among communities in Europe,
Asia and North Africa was not very different. Almost all these comunities
had suffered humiliation and oppression within
recent times. The grievous memory of the expulsion from Spain in 1492
and Portugal in 1497 was still alive; marranos, or secreJews, fleeing the
atrocities of the Inquisition, wandered through Europe, hoping to return
freely to Judaism. In Poland and Russia
Jews were subject to mass slaughters. During these times of distress and helplessness, mystical beliefs imbued almost allexisting Jewish comunities. Faith in messianic redemption becamea way to survive. Jewish communities from all over sentdelegations to Turkey to meet Shabbetai Tzvi.
On September 16, 1666, sumoned before the Imperial Court in Adrinople
(now Edirne), Shabbetai Tzvi was ordered to choose death or conversion
to islam. A former Jew, Mustapha Hayatizade,
physician to Sultan Mehmet IV, convinced Shabbetai Tzvi to accept Islam.
Shabbetai Tzvi adopted the name Aziz Mehmed Efendi.
To cope with the cruel reality of Shabbetai Tzvi's apostasy, his believers
had to choose between forsaking k!
abandoned him. For the faithful, however, a new, mystical theosophical
interpretation emerged to legitimate Shabbetai Tzvi's apostasy. Shabbetai
Tzvi's task as a Muslim was to gather the "holy sparks" that were dispersed
among the gentiles - a necessary step toward redemption. Only the
messiah could fulfill this mission, so the explanation went, and to do
so he must hide his identity and act within the heart of the enemy. This
explanation appeared plausible to those who still believed in the messianic
mission of Shabbetai Tzvi because it fit into the prevalent Lurianic view
of kabbalah.
After converting to Islam, Shabbetai Tzvi lived in Adrianople in Turkey
and sometimes in Constantinople. Leading a double life, he outwardly
performed the duties of Islam while continuing
secretly to observe Jewish rituals. After denunciation by some Jews
and Muslims of his two-faced behavior and his libertine sexual practices,
Shabbetai Tzvi was exiled in 1673 to Dulcigno
(Ulcini) at the southern end of the Dalmatian coast, in Albania, where
he died, in his fifties, on the Day of Atonement, September 17, 1676. A
letter in his own handwriting, written toward the end of his life, asks
friends from the nearby community of Berat to send him a prayer book for
the New Year and the Day of Atonement.
From the time of his conversion until Shabbetai Tzvi was expelled to Albania, 200 families followed in his footsteps and ostensibly embraced Islam. Shabbatean beliefs continued to spread within the Jewish world; a second mass conversion to islam by followers of Shabbetai Tzvi took place after his death in 1683 in Salonica, earlier proclaimed by Shabbetai Tzvi as a holy city.
Faith in Shabbetai Tzvi as messiah, his apostasy and the mass conversions that followed opened a breach in the Jewish world; the first steps were taken toward formation of a cryptoªcommunity. The Turks began to call these ostensible converts to islam "Dônme", a popular Turkish term for apostate, meaning literally "the one who has turned". Implying renegate, variable and even unreliable, it is a confusing and deprecatory term.
Traditional Jews used the epiphet minim (heretics) to castigate the
Shabbateans. The Shabbateans, in turn, called themselves "believers", ma'aminim
in hebrew. They never adopted Dônme to
refer to themselves. With the years, ma'aminim went out of use and
the secret Shabbateans simply referred to themselves as "us" or "we" (Dônme
is the name most widely known).
The Dônme found many convert, disguised or secret supporters
outside the Shabbatean sect itself, so that Dônme beliefs
pervaded Jewish communities, penetrated religious life and
influenced spiritual inclinations and attitudes. Gershom Scholem, the
great scholar of Jewish mysticism, reports that "there is full proof that
a fair number of men of great Talmudic learning and even officiating rabbis
joined Shabbatean groups and found it possible to live in a state of high
tension between outward orthodoxy and inward antinomianism" (4).
Salonica became the spiritual center of the Dônme community. TheDônme community knew flourishing days, experienced deep communal dissensions and created its own legacy. Despite the vicissitudes of history, it continued to exist for more than three centuries and renants of its survive today.
The Dônme are voluntary converts, a phenomenon without
precedent in Jewish history. They practice Islam publicly but adhere to
a heretical Jewish theosophy : Shabbetai Tzvi replaced the Ten
Commandments with a new religious order based on 18 precepts, Las Incommendensas,
as the Dônme call them. Las Incommendensas include the
Ten Commandments but the formulation of the prohibition of adultery is
ambiguous, resembling a suggestion of prudence. Other commandments regulate
relations between the believers in Shabbetai Tzvi and Turks and Jews.
Secretly carrying out their rituals in hidden synagogues, the Dônme married only among themselves. Today, only the Karakash, one small group of three to four thousand Dônme, continue in the traditional ways and does not marry out. The remaining 40,000 to 60,000 Dônme who retain some memory of their heritage have ceased all observance and restrictions on marriage.
One of the Dônme's distinctive rituals was the Festival
of the Lamb, celebrated in spring on the night between the 21st and 22nd
of Adar. It is unlikely that even the Karakash continue to practice this
festival. As practiced in former times, at least two married couples and
often many more participated in the ceremony. The meat of that spring's
newly born lambs was eaten for the first time that year. After the meal,
the lights were extinguished and couples made love without distinguishing
between their partners. Children born from this encounter were considerd
sacred. This kind of festival celebrates the new year and also is linked
to the creation of the universe. It has its roots in
pagan beliefs and orgiastic rituals known from other ancient cultures
of the Middle east, such as the Iranian Noruz and the Roman Saturnalia.
Spring festivals were the expression of the rebirth of nature after winter,
the spring equinox being interpretd as the wedding of the sky with the
earth. The analogy between this practice and messianic rebirth after the
days of the apocalypse is clear : the existing order will be abolished
and instinctive needs can be freely enjoyed.
Although the Dônme maintain their traditions, they have not made a complete brak with Judaism. For more than 200 years, they have not brought their disputes to Turkish courts. As knowledge of Talmud decreased among them, they consulted rabbis to settle controversial cases. As long as the Dônme lived in Salonica, preservation of their Jewish character was feasible because of their proximity and steady contact with its large, bustling Jewish population. Many members of the Dônme community in Salonica were among Turkey's reform leaders - the Young Turks - and members of an influential reform organization known as the Committee for Progress and Union. In 1909, the revolution of the Young Turks overthrew the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II. The first administration that then came to power, laying the foundation of the future Turkish republic, included three Dônme ministers - Nuzhet Faik, Mustafa Arif and Mehmet Javid.
At the time of the revolution, few Dônme lived in Turkey; the center of community - about 16,000 strong - was in Salonica. There they remained until after the Turko-Greek war, when a treaty in 1924 provided for an exchange of populations. During the period of amnesty before exchange, members of the sect, whishing avoid their transfer to Turkey, asked the rabbis of Salonica to permit them to return to Judaism. Their application was rejected by the rabbis because children who were the fruit ofthe Festival of the Lamb were mamzerim, conceived from anadulterous relationship, according to halachah (Jewish religiouslaw). The Dônme left for Turkey.
The rabbis' ruling saved the Dônme from extermination during theHolocaust. From March 14, 1943, until August 7 of the same year, the Nazis filled 19 railroad convoys with the Jews of Salonica, shipping them off the death camps in Poland. By the end of August, 43,850 Jews - 95 percent of the Jewish population of Greece - had been exterminated at Auschwitz and Birkenau.
When the Dônme community departed from Turkey in 1924 they found their new home less hospitable than Salonica. Their Jewish links and their peculiar lifestyle made them vulnerable prey for Turkish fundamentalists and extremists, who accused the Dônme of hypocrisy and perfidy. Not being officially defined as a community, the Dônme were unequipped to defend themselves.
Becoming more and more inhibited, they had to choose betwween remaining
a secret, self-contained community or total assimilation and disappearance.
During World War II, the Dônme community was recognized
as a separate entity by the Turkish government. As the government struggled
to meet the country's financial needs, it issued a wealth tax, knows as
varlik vergisi. While Muslims citizens were taxed at 5 percent of their
income or capital, non-Muslims
citizens were forced to pay much higher assessments. The Dônme
were given their own category, they had to pay 10 percent of income and
the capital letter D was maked by their names.
Throughout this century, as Dônme have entered Turkish
society - often at the highest levels - they still struggled
with ambiguity about their Jewish, Shabbatean and Turkish allegiances.
A child
in the Dônme community does not receive any clear guidance
about the community or its Jewish connections. The child only learns at
puberty that he or she belongs to a separate community. Only
on the wedding day has the Dônme son or daughter the
right to know all the community's sedrets anbout their faith in their messiah,
Shabbetai Tzvi, and to become fully acquainted with their rituals.
To this day the few thousand Karakash - orthodox Shabbateans -
live mostly in their own neighborhood in Istanbul with their own synagogue,
steadfastly maintaining their faith. No outsider can enter their homes.
Inbreeding has taken its physical toll, producing distinctive deformities
such as disproportionally large heads and puny bodies. A Dônme
cemetery is located on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; the mosque in
Istanbul from which funerals leave for this cemetery is popularly kown
as the "Jewish mosque". Rumors say that the Dônme possess
a library and some
personal relics from Shabbetai tzvi - his ring, his caftan and
his slippers.
These Karakash Dônme are the last Shabbateans, the surviving descendants of those children of Israel who once found themselves swept up in one of the strange, dramatic events of Jewish history. It is only a few who will remember the ancient promise, "Shabbetai Tzvi we wait for you" still intoned as morning light first brightens the sky on the shore of the Bosphorus.
(1) Ladino is the liturgical language used in Spain and elsewhere
by Sephardic Jews. The everyday language spoken by sephardim is
called Judeo-Spanish.
(2) Shabbetai Tzvi and Nathan felt an empathy for Jesus. According to Shabbatean belief, the soul of the messiah had been reincarnated 18 times from Adam onward, including, probably, Jesus. Reportedly Shabbetai Tzvi once exclaimed : "What has Jesus done that you ill-treated him thus? I shall see to it that he will be counted among the prophets"?(3) Thomas Coenen, Ydele verwachtinge der Joden (Amsterdam,1699).
(4) Coenen, 35-36.
(5) Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah (New York and Scarborough, Ontario: Dutton, 1978).
The founder of Morit, an association for the preservation of Turkish Jewry's heriatge, Dr. Gad Nassi is an Israeli psychiatrist and author. He currently leads a research team investigating Middle Eastern dimensions of the Jewish mystical heritage.