TheDönmeh (Hebrew:דוֹנְמֶה,romanized: Dōnme,Ottoman Turkish:دونمه,Turkish:Dönme) are a group ofSabbateancrypto-Jews in theOttoman Empire who wereforced to convert toIslam, but retained theirJewish faith andKabbalistic beliefs in secret.[1][2][3][4]
The Sabbatean movement was centered mainly inThessalonika.[1][4][5] It originated during and soon after the era ofShabbetai Tzevi, a 17th-centuryRomaniote Jewishrabbi andKabbalist who claimed to be theJewish Messiah and eventuallyfeigned conversion to Islam under threat ofcapital punishment from theOttoman sultanMehmed IV.[3][6] After Zevi'sforced conversion to Islam,[1][3][4][6] a number of Sabbatean Jewspurportedly converted to Islamwhile remaining secretly faithful to Judaism after their leader, and became known as the "Dönmeh".[1][3][4][7] Some live on into 21st-centuryTurkey.[1][8][9][10] As of 2016, there were still 2,000 non-assimilated Dönmeh.[11]
The Turkish worddönmeh ("apostates")[1][4] derives from the verbal rootdön- (Ottoman Turkish:دون) that means "to turn", i.e., "to convert", but in the pejorative sense of "turncoat".
The independent scholarRıfat Bali defines the termdönmeh as follows:
The term Donme is a Turkish gerund meaning 'to turn, revolve or return' and, by extension, "to betray" (i.e., 'go back on') and 'to convert' to another religion. It has come in popular parlance to refer to religious converts in general, and, more specifically, to the seventeenth century followers of the Jewish false messiah Sabbatai Sevi and their descendants, who outwardly converted to Islam but retained their secretive religious practices over the next several centuries, maintaining close communal and blood ties and practicing strictendogamy. While the great majority of the community's members abandoned their practices during the first quarter century, their past identity has continued to haunt them within Turkish society, and the term Dönme itself remains one of opprobrium.[12]
The Dönmeh were sometimes calledSelânikli ("person fromThessalonika") oravdetî (Ottoman Turkish:عودتی, "religious convert"). Members of the group referred to themselves as "the Believers" (Hebrew:המאמינים,romanized: ha-Maʾminim),[2][4][13]Ḥaberim "Associates",[4] orBaʿlē Milḥāmā "Warriors",[4] while in the town ofAdrianople (nowEdirne) they were known assazanikos,Judaeo-Spanish for "littlecarps",[4] perhaps about the changing outward nature of the fish[14] or because of the prophecy that Sabbatai Zevi would deliver the Jews under thezodiacal sign of thefish.[4]
WhenSabbatai Zevi (1626–1676)converted to Islam in Ottoman Court possibly in exchange for amnesty in 1666, some of his followers followed him into Islam whiles others gave esoteric explanations and dismissals of his conversion.[1][3][4][6] Zevi’s final wife, Ayse, and her father, the esteemed rabbi Joseph Filosof, were originally from Salonica. After Zevi’s death, they returned to the city and played a key role in founding the new religious sect he had initiated. By 1900, Thessaloniki was home to a community of around 10,000 Judeo-Spanish-speaking Muslims.[15] This group was followed by about 3,000 other Sabbateans in 1683, shortly after the death ofNathan of Gaza, which occurred in 1680.[16] Despite their outward conversion to Islam, the Sabbateanssecretly remained faithful to Judaism and continued to hold theirKabbalistic theology, along with Jewish beliefs and rituals.[1][2][16] These included: recognizingSabbatai Zevi as theJewish Messiah, observing certainJewish commandments with similarities to those inRabbinic Judaism,[1][2] andJewish prayers inHebrew andLadino. They also observed rituals celebrating important events in Tzevi's life and interpreted his conversion in accordance with their own interpretation ofLurianic Kabbalah.[1][2]
The Dönmeh divided into several branches. The first, the İzmirli, was formed inİzmir (Smyrna) and was the original sect, from which two others eventually split. The first schism created the Jacobite (Turkish:Yakubi) sect, founded byJacob Querido (c. 1650–1690), the brother of Tzevi's last wife.[14] Querido claimed to be Tzevi's reincarnation andproclaimed himself as a Messiah in his own right. The second split from the İzmirli was the result of Beruchiah Russo (1677–1720), which claimed to be Tzevi's successor. These allegations gained attention and gave rise to the Karakashi (Turkish:Karakaşi;Ladino:Konioso), branch, the most numerous and strictest branch of the Dönmeh.[17]
Despite lingering suspicions throughout the 19th century that the Thessaloniki's Dönmeh were secretly Jewish, the group gradually evolved into a distinct heterodox Muslim sect, shaped in part by Sufi influences as their connection to Judaism faded. Wealthier Dönmeh families increasingly intermarried with mainstream Muslims and became integrated into Ottoman urban society. By the late 19th century, the Dönmeh were active in expanding Muslim education in Thessaloniki and played a significant role in the city's commercial, administrative, and intellectual life. Some became prosperous merchants, building European-style villas along the seafront and entering municipal governance, while others worked in skilled trades such as barbering, coppersmithing, and butchery. Their embrace of European education and reformist ideas helped turn Thessaloniki into one of the most progressive and politically dynamic cities in the Ottoman Empire.[15]
Some commentators have suggested that several leading members of theYoung Turks, an anti-absolutist movement ofconstitutional monarchist revolutionaries who in 1908forced the Ottoman sultan to grant a constitution to the Ottoman Empire, were actually Dönmeh.[18] One of the leaders of theİzmir plot to assassinate PresidentMustafa Kemal Atatürk in İzmir after the establishment of theTurkish Republic was a Dönme namedMehmed Cavid,[19] a founding member of theCommittee of Union and Progress (CUP) and the formerMinister of Finance of the Ottoman Empire.[20][21][22][23] Convicted after a government investigation, Cavid Bey was hanged on 26 August 1926 inAnkara.[24] After the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, Atatürk'sTurkish nationalist policies, which had leftethnic and religious minorities in the lurch, were accompanied byantisemitic propaganda by nationalist publishers in the 1930s and 1940s.[25]
In 1923, during the compulsory population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the Dönme of Thessaloniki were classified as Muslims and relocated to Istanbul. There, a smaller but influential community emerged, including businessmen, newspaper publishers, industrialists, and diplomats, many of whom continued to thrive in Turkish society.[15] In 1932, theJewish Telegraphic Agency reported 15,000 Dönme in Istanbul.[26]
As far as ritual was concerned, the Dönmeh followed bothJewish andMuslim traditions, shifting between them as necessary for integration intoOttoman society.[27] Outwardly Muslims and secretly Sabbatean Jews, the Dönme observedMuslim holidays likeRamadan but also keptShabbat, practicedbrit milah, and celebratedJewish holidays.[4] Much of Dönme ritual was a combination of various elements of Kabbalah, Sabbateanism, Jewish traditional law andSufism.[28] The most basic of these rules of interaction was toprefer relations within the sect rather than with those outside of it, and to avoid marriage with either Jews or Muslims. In spite of this, they maintained ties withrabbinic Jews who were secretly Sabbateans and had not formally converted to Islam, and even with Jewish rabbis, who secretly settled disputes concerningJewish law.[17]
Dönmeliturgy evolved as the sect grew and spread. At first, much of their literature was written inHebrew but, as the group developed,Ladino replaced Hebrew and became not only the vernacular but also theliturgical language. Although the Dönmeh had divided into several sects, all of them believed thatShabbetai Tzevi was theJewish Messiah and that he had revealed the true "spiritualTorah",[17] which was superior to the practical, earthly Torah. The Dönmeh celebrated holidays associated with various points in Tzevi's life and their history of conversion. Based at least partially on the Kabbalistic understanding of divinity, the Dönmeh believed that there was a three-way connection between theemanations of the Divine, which engendered many conflicts with Muslim and Jewish communities alike. The most notable source of opposition from other contemporary religions was the common practice of exchanging wives between members of the Dönmeh.[17]
Dönme hierarchy was based on the branch divisions. The İzmirli, made up of the merchant classes and the intelligentsia, topped the hierarchy. Artisans tended to be mostly Karakashi while the lower classes were mostly Yakubi. Each branch had its prayer community, organised into akahal or congregation.[17] An extensive internal economic network provided support for lower-class Dönmeh, despite ideological differences between the different branches.[29]
After theestablishment of the State of Israel in 1948, only a few Dönme familiesmigrated from Muslim-majority countries to Israel.[30] In 1994, Ilgaz Zorlu, an accountant who claimed to be of Dönme origin on his mother's side, started publishing articles in history journals in which he revealed his self-proclaimed Dönme identity and presented the Dönmeh and their religious beliefs.[31] As theHakham Bashi of Turkey and theChief Rabbinate of Israel did not accept the Dönmeh as Jews without a lengthyconversion to Judaism,[32][33] Zorlu applied to theIstanbul 9th Court of First Instance in July 2000. He requested that his religious affiliation in hisTurkish identity card to be changed from "Islam" to "Jew" and won his case. Soon after, the TurkishBeth Din accepted him as a Jew.[34]
However, Dönmehare not recognized as Jews by theIsraeli nationality law and are not eligible for theLaw of Return.[32] For thePortuguese law of return, the decision to recognize dönme as Jews or not is outsourced to local Jewish communities.[35] The Dönme's situation is similar to that of theFalash Mura.
Turkish antisemitism and thecanards upon which it relies are centred on the Dönmeh.[36] According to historianMarc David Baer, the phenomenon has deep roots in late-Ottoman history, and its legacy of conspiratorial accusations persisted throughout the history of the Turkish Republic and is kept alive there today. Modern antisemitism tends to present Jews as a ubiquitous, homogenous unit acting undercover via diverse global groups in pursuit of global political and economic control via secretive channels. As a crypto-Sabbatean sect, the Dönme always made an easy target for claims about secret, crypto-Jewish political control and social influence, whether charged with setting in motion political upheaval against the status quo, or accused of shaping an oppressive regime's grip on the status quo.[36]
The Dönme history of Sabbatean theological and ritual secrecy grounded in Jewish tradition, coupled with public observance of Islam, make accusations of secret Jewish control convenient, according to Baer.[36] "Secret Jew", then, takes on a double meaning of being both secretly Jewish and Jews who act secretively to exert control; their secret religious identity in the first place is compatible, forconspiracy theorists, with their secretive influence, especially when they cannot be distinguished from ordinary Turkish Muslims who reside everywhere, and, as Baer argues, when the modern antisemite sees the Jew as necessarily "everywhere". The Dönme's manoeuverings were said to have lain at the heart of theYoung Turk Revolution and its overthrow of SultanAbdul Hamid II, the dissolution of the Ottoman religious establishment, and the founding of asecular republic.Pro-sultan,religious Muslim political opponents painted these events as a globalJewish and Freemasonic plot carried out by Turkey's Dönme.Islamists put forward aconspiracy theory claimingAtatürk was a Dönme in order to defame him as they have been opposed hisreforms, and they created many other conspiracy theories about him.[36]
RabbiShabbetai Tzevi ofSmyrna (1626–76), whoproclaimed himself messiah in 1665. Although the "messiah" wasforcibly converted to Islam in 1666 and ended his life in exile 10 years later, he continued to havefaithful followers. A sect was thus born and survived, largely thanks to the activity ofNathan of Gaza (c. 1644–90), an unwearying propagandist who justified the actions of Shabbetai Zevi, including his final apostasy, with theories based on theLurian doctrine of "repair". Sabbatai's actions, according to Nathan, should be understood as the descent of the just into the abyss of the "shells" in order to liberate the captive particles of divine light. The Shabbetaian crisis lasted nearly a century, and some of its aftereffects lasted even longer. It led to the formation of sects whose members were externally converted to Islam—e.g., the Dönmeh (Turkish: "Apostates") ofSalonika, whose descendants still live inTurkey—or toRoman Catholicism—e.g., thePolish supporters ofJacob Frank (1726–91), the self-proclaimed messiah andCatholic convert (inBohemia-Moravia, however, the Frankists outwardly remained Jews). This crisis did not discredit Kabbalah, but it did lead Jewish spiritual authorities to monitor and severely curtail its spread and to use censorship and other acts of repression against anyone—even a person of tested piety and recognized knowledge—who was suspected of Shabbetaian sympathies or messianic pretensions.
DOENMEH (Dönme), sect of adherents of Shabbetai Ẓevi who embraced Islam as a consequence of the failure of theShabbatean messianic upheaval in the Ottoman Empire. After Shabbetai Ẓevi converted to Islam in September 1666, large numbers of his disciples interpreted his apostasy as a secret mission, deliberately undertaken with a particular mystical purpose in mind. The overwhelming majority of his adherents, who called themselvesma'aminim ("believers"), remained within the Jewish fold. However, even while Shabbetai Ẓevi was alive several leaders of thema'aminim thought it essential to follow in the footsteps of their messiah and to become Muslims, without, as they saw it, renouncing their Judaism, which they interpreted according to new principles. Until Shabbetai Ẓevi's death in 1676 the sect, which at first was centered largely inAdrianople (Edirne), numbered some 200 families. They came mainly from theBalkans, but there were also adherents fromİzmir,Bursa, and other places. There were a few outstanding scholars and kabbalists among them, whose families afterward were accorded a special place among the Doenmeh as descendants of the original community of the sect. Even among the Shabbateans who did not convert to Islam, such asNathan of Gaza, this sect enjoyed an honorable reputation and an important mission was ascribed to it. Clear evidence of this is preserved in the commentary onPsalms (written c. 1679) of Israel Ḥazzan of Castoria.
Many of the community became converts as a direct result of Shabbetai Ẓevi's preaching and persuasion. They were outwardly fervent Muslims and privately Shabbateanma'aminim who practiced a type of messianic Judaism, based as early as the 1670s or 1680s on "the 18 precepts" which were attributed to Shabbetai Ẓevi and accepted by the Doenmeh communities. [...] These precepts contain a parallel version of theTen Commandments. However, they are distinguished by an extraordinarily ambiguous formulation of the commandment "Thou shalt not commit adultery," which approximates more to a recommendation to take care rather than a prohibition. The additional commandments determine the relationship of thema'aminim toward the Jews and the Turks.Intermarriage with true Muslims is strictly and emphatically forbidden.
At the command [of the sultan], Shabbetai was now taken fromAbydos toAdrianople, where thesultan's physician, a former Jew, advised Shabbetai to embrace Islam as the only means of saving his life. Shabbetai realized the danger of his situation and adopted the physician's advice. On the following day [...] being brought before the sultan, he cast off his Jewish garb and put a Turkish turban on his head; and thus his conversion to Islam was accomplished. The sultan was much pleased, and rewarded Shabbetai by conferring on him the title (Mahmed) "Effendi" and appointing him as his doorkeeper with a high salary. [...] To complete his acceptance of Mohammedanism, Shabbetai was ordered totake an additional wife, aMohammedan slave, which order he obeyed. [...] Meanwhile Shabbetai secretly continued his plots, playing a double game. At times he would assume the role of a pious Mohammedan and revile Judaism; at others he would enter into relations with Jews as one of their own faith. Thus in March 1668, he gave out anew that he had been filled with theHoly Spirit atPassover and had received a revelation. He, or one ofhis followers, published a mystic work addressed to the Jews in which the most fantastic notions were set forth, e.g., that he was the true Redeemer, in spite of his conversion, his object being tobring over thousands of Mohammedans to Judaism. To the sultan he said that his activity among the Jews was to bring them over to Islam. He therefore received permission to associate with his former coreligionists, and even to preach in their synagogues. He thus succeeded in bringing over a number of Mohammedans to hiscabalistic views, and, on the other hand, in converting many Jews to Islam, thus forming a Judæo-Turkish sect (Dönmeh), whose followers implicitly believed in him (as theJewish Messiah). This double-dealing with Jews and Mohammedans, however, could not last very long. Gradually the Turks tired of Shabbetai's schemes. He was deprived of his salary, and banished from Adrianople to Constantinople. In a village near the latter city he was one day surprised whilesinging psalms in a tent with Jews, whereupon the grand vizier ordered his banishment toDulcigno, a small place inAlbania, where he died in loneliness and obscurity.
A sect of crypto-Jews, descendants of the followers of Shabbethai Ẓebi, living today mostly inSalonica,European Turkey: the name (Turkish) signifies "apostates". The members call themselves "Ma'aminim" (Believers), "Ḥaberim" (Associates), or "Ba'ale Milḥamah" (Warriors); but at Adrianople they are known as "Sazanicos" (Little Carps)—a name derived either from the fish-market, near which their firstmosque is supposed to have been situated, or because of a prophecy of Shabbethai that the Jews would be delivered under thezodiacal sign of thefish. The Dönmeh are said to have originated with Jacob Ẓebi Querido, who was believed to have been areincarnation of Shabbethai.
The community is outwardly Mohammedan (following the example set by Shabbethai); but in secret observes certainJewish rites, though in no way making common cause with the Jews, whom they call "koferim" (infidels). The Dönmeh are evidentlydescendants of Spanish exiles. Theirprayers, as published by Danon, are partly inHebrew (which few seem to understand) and partly inLadino. They live in sets of houses which are contiguous, or which are secretly connected; and for each block of houses there is a secret meeting-place or "kal" ("ḳahal"), where the "payyeṭan" reads the prayers. Their houses are lit by green-shaded lamps to render them less conspicuous. The women wear the "yashmak" (veil); the men have two sets of names: a religious one, which they keep secret, and a secular one for purposes of commercial intercourse. They are assiduous in visiting the mosque and infasting during Ramadhan, and at intervals they even send one of their number on the"ḥajj" (pilgrimage) toMecca. But they do not intermarry with the Turks.
They are all well-to-do, and are prompt to help any unfortunate brother. They smoke openly on the Sabbath day on which day they serve the other Jews, lighting their fires and cooking their food. They work for the Turks when a religious observance prevents other Jews from doing so, and for the Christians on Sunday. They are expert "katibs" or writers, and are employed as such in the bazaars and in the inferior government positions. They have the monopoly of the barber-shops. The Dönmeh are divided into three subsects, which, according to Bendt, are: the Ismirlis, or direct followers of Shabbethai Ẓebi of Smyrna, numbering 2,500; the Ya'ḳubis, or followers of Jacob Querido, brother-in-law of Shabbethai, who number 4,000; and the Kuniosos, or followers of Othman Baba, who lived in the middle of the eighteenth century. The last named sect numbers 3,500. Each subsect has its owncemetery.
Born inSmyrna in 1626, he showed early promise as aTalmudic scholar, and even more as a student and devotee ofKabbalah. More pronounced than his scholarship were his strangemystical speculations and religious ecstasies. He traveled to various cities, his strong personality and his alternatelyascetic andself-indulgent behavior attracting and repelling rabbis and populace alike. He was expelled from Salonica by its rabbis for having staged a wedding service with himself as bridegroom and theTorah as bride. His erratic behavior continued. For long periods, he was a respected student and teacher of Kabbalah; at other times, he was given to messianic fantasies and bizarre acts. At one point, living inJerusalem seeking "peace for his soul," he sought out a self-proclaimed "man of God,"Nathan of Gaza, who declared Shabbetai Zvi to be the Messiah. Then Shabbetai Zvi began to act the part [...] On September 15, 1666, Shabbetai Zvi, brought before the sultan and given the choice of death or apostasy, prudently chose the latter, setting a turban on his head to signify his conversion to Islam, for which he was rewarded with the honorary title "Keeper of the Palace Gates" and a pension of 150 piasters a day. The apostasy shocked the Jewish world. Leaders and followers alike refused to believe it. Many continued to anticipate a second coming, and faith in false messiahs continued through the eighteenth century. In the vast majority of believers revulsion and remorse set in and there was an active endeavor to erase all evidence, even mention of the pseudo messiah. Pages were removed from communal registers, and documents were destroyed. Few copies of the books that celebrated Shabbetai Zvi survived, and those that did have become rarities much sought after by libraries and collectors.
