Origin from 1666
The Donmeh are the descendants of the minority of Sabbatai Zevi's followers who followed him into outward conversion to Islam after his own conversion in September 1666, rather than abandoning his messianic claim when it failed to produce the deliverance they had anticipated. Publicly practicing Islam while maintaining secret religious life drawing on Sabbatean teaching, the community persisted for centuries chiefly in Salonica and later Ottoman lands, eventually splitting into further subgroups over doctrinal disagreements about Zevi's own nature. Their existence documents one of the most direct examples in Jewish history of a following that persisted, transformed rather than dissolved, after the specific date it had anticipated passed without the deliverance it expected.
Facts
Trajectory
Membership Over TimeIn the 1923-24 Greek-Turkish population exchange, an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Donmeh were forced to leave their community in Salonica for Turkey, reducing the number remaining in Salonica itself to no more than a hundred by 1924. 3 Membership Over TimeSourced to the subject's own accountThe Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported 15,000 Donmeh living in Istanbul in 1932, an independent press count close to Baer's later scholarly range for the resettled community. 4 Membership Figure As Of Membership Figure As OfSourced to the subject's own account Basis of the Membership FigureSourced to the subject's own account Basis of the Membership FigureScholarly or Demographic Estimate 3 Status
Status TodayIn active religious use 1 Disputed
Origin PeriodAfter the 1921 to 1922 Greco-Turkish War the central community relocated from Salonica to Istanbul, and communal institutions broke down under growing assimilation; most accounts treat the community as having ceased to exist as an organised, identifiable group by the mid twentieth century, though a small non-assimilated remnant is estimated to persist informally today, so no single settled end year is recorded. Origins
Origin Period Origin Period Place of OriginSalonica (Thessaloniki), Ottoman Empire 1 FounderFormed from the minority of Sabbatai Zevi's followers who followed him into outward conversion to Islam in 1666. 1 History
Separation or DivergenceSeparated from the broader Sabbatean movement and from normative Judaism when its members followed Sabbatai Zevi into outward conversion to Islam in 1666, while maintaining secret adherence to Sabbatean teaching. 1 Connections
Associated With
The Donmeh represent the successor community formed from believers who followed Zevi into outward conversion rather than abandoning the claim.
Source Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626 to 1676Gershom Scholem
Objects and Practices of This Tradition
An outside television documentary examining the Donmeh's history and modern descendants, not a production of the community itself.
Source Sazanikos, the Last Donmeh (Mavi Boncuk)
Studied By
Source Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626 to 1676Gershom Scholem
Successor Of
Source Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626 to 1676Gershom Scholem
Sources
1. Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626 to 1676
Gershom Scholem, Princeton University Press, 1973
2. D?nmeh (Wikipedia)
Lead section, second paragraphQuote, Lead section, second paragraph
a 17th-century Romaniote Jewish rabbi and Kabbalist
3. The Donme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks (Baer, 2010)
Marc David Baer, Stanford University Press, 2010
4. Donmeh Historical Timeline, Citing Jewish Telegraphic Agency 1932 Report (Sephardic Genealogy)
Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
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