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WAITING FOR THE MESSIAH
Ha'aretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spa ges/1083958.html
May 7 2009
Israel
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of historical documents depicting the past and present vicissitudes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.
The complexity of the descendants' situation is reflected in the very
meaning of the term "Doenmeh," which is translated as "convert," in
a pejorative sense (the members of the sect refer to themselves as
ma'aminim, Hebrew for believers). A tendency toward self-imposed
segregation and extreme secrecy characterizes the succeeding
generations of this unique community of crypto-Jews, who willingly
converted to Islam but continued to see themselves as Jews at the
same time. Most of the testimony Bali offers is from men and women
who are identified only by their initials.
The present generation may well be the last one to retain the
fragmented memories of the living members of this sect. A Doenmeh
friend of mine told me his father had informed him that his father's
mother used to go to the beach every Friday to recite a prayer in
Ladino. My friend's father remembered only the phrase "Esperano a-te"
(I will wait for you [O Messiah]).
An intriguing question is whether Ataturk himself was a Doenmeh. An
entire chapter is devoted to this issue, though no clear-cut
conclusions are drawn. Nevertheless, circumstantial evidence supports
the assumption that he was of Jewish descent (this point in itself
is of little importance except for the fact that it has helped
fuel Turkish anti-Semitism). Nonetheless, it can be stated with
certainty that most members of Ataturk's inner circle were declared
or clandestine Doenmeh.
Another theory, referred to in Bali's book, discusses the role of
the Doenmeh in preventing Turkey from aligning with Hitler's Germany
during World War II. According to this theory, the Doenmeh, as the
country's rulers, knew that if the Nazis entered their country, they
themselves would be annihilated together with the members of Turkey's
Jewish community.
Another popular conspiracy theory argues that the Doenmeh were
responsible for initiating the Armenian genocide. This is a convoluted
conspiracy theory intended to exonerate the Turkish nation from the
charge of having carried out the mass murder of the Armenians and to
shift the blame to the "scapegoat for all seasons," the Doenmeh.
Most of today's Doenmeh are descendants of 20,000 Doenmeh residents of
Salonica who were exiled to Turkey in the 1920s as part of a population
exchange between Greece and Turkey. Their exile came in the wake
of a ruling of that city's rabbis, who refused to recognize them as
Jews, something that would have allowed them to remain in Greece as a
minority. The historical irony of that decision is that it actually
saved their lives; nearly every member of the Jewish community of
Salonica was ultimately annihilated in Auschwitz or Majdanek.
Ha'aretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spa ges/1083958.html
May 7 2009
Israel
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.
The complexity of the descendants' situation is reflected in the very
meaning of the term "Doenmeh," which is translated as "convert," in
a pejorative sense (the members of the sect refer to themselves as
ma'aminim, Hebrew for believers). A tendency toward self-imposed
segregation and extreme secrecy characterizes the succeeding
generations of this unique community of crypto-Jews, who willingly
converted to Islam but continued to see themselves as Jews at the
same time. Most of the testimony Bali offers is from men and women
who are identified only by their initials.
The present generation may well be the last one to retain the
fragmented memories of the living members of this sect. A Doenmeh
friend of mine told me his father had informed him that his father's
mother used to go to the beach every Friday to recite a prayer in
Ladino. My friend's father remembered only the phrase "Esperano a-te"
(I will wait for you [O Messiah]).
An intriguing question is whether Ataturk himself was a Doenmeh. An
entire chapter is devoted to this issue, though no clear-cut
conclusions are drawn. Nevertheless, circumstantial evidence supports
the assumption that he was of Jewish descent (this point in itself
is of little importance except for the fact that it has helped
fuel Turkish anti-Semitism). Nonetheless, it can be stated with
certainty that most members of Ataturk's inner circle were declared
or clandestine Doenmeh.
Another theory, referred to in Bali's book, discusses the role of
the Doenmeh in preventing Turkey from aligning with Hitler's Germany
during World War II. According to this theory, the Doenmeh, as the
country's rulers, knew that if the Nazis entered their country, they
themselves would be annihilated together with the members of Turkey's
Jewish community.
Another popular conspiracy theory argues that the Doenmeh were
responsible for initiating the Armenian genocide. This is a convoluted
conspiracy theory intended to exonerate the Turkish nation from the
charge of having carried out the mass murder of the Armenians and to
shift the blame to the "scapegoat for all seasons," the Doenmeh.
Most of today's Doenmeh are descendants of 20,000 Doenmeh residents of
Salonica who were exiled to Turkey in the 1920s as part of a population
exchange between Greece and Turkey. Their exile came in the wake
of a ruling of that city's rabbis, who refused to recognize them as
Jews, something that would have allowed them to remain in Greece as a
minority. The historical irony of that decision is that it actually
saved their lives; nearly every member of the Jewish community of
Salonica was ultimately annihilated in Auschwitz or Majdanek.