Ottoman History Podcast - Sabbatai Sevi and the Ottoman-Turkish Dönmes

Episode Date: March 27, 2017

Episode 308 with Cengiz Şişman hosted by Matthew Ghazarian Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud In 1665, an Izmir-born Rabbi named Sabbatai Sevi (1626-76) was proclaimed to be the Jewish Messiah. His messianic movement attracted tens of thousands of followers and become known throughout the early modern world. Ottoman authorities, however, arrested Sevi in 1666, and, under duress, the charismatic leader converted to Islam. Many members of his movement followed suit and became the communities who today are called dönme (which literally means "convert"). After Sevi's death, dönme communities continued to outwardly practice Islam but inwardly retain practices of Judaism. In this episode, Cengiz Şişman talks about his research on the development of Sevi’s movement, the trajectories of dönme communities, and questions of conversion and communal boundaries, which became more pressing in the late nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries. « Click for More »

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Ottoman History Podcast. I'm Matt Gazarian, here in Istanbul with Cengiz Cişman, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Houston, Clear Lake. Thanks for joining us on the podcast today. Thanks for having me today. Our discussion will focus on Sabbatai Sevi, a Jewish rabbi who, in 1665, was proclaimed to be the Jewish Messiah. Unlike a number of other messianic religious movements, Sabbatai Sevi's gathered tens of thousands of followers.

religious movements, Sabeti Sevi's gathered tens of thousands of followers. We'll also be discussing the donme, the communities of Sevi's followers who, after his death, inwardly retained practices of Judaism, but presented themselves to the outside world as pious Muslims. To guide the conversation, we'll use Cengiz's recent book, The Burden of Silence, Sabetay Sevi and the Ottoman Turkish Dönmez, published by Oxford University Press in 2015. First, let's cover some basics for our listeners. Tell us briefly, who's Sabetay Sevi? And can you give us a brief timeline of his movement? timeline of his movement. Sabatai Sevi or Shabtai Sevi in Hebrew spelling is one of the most remarkable historical characters. It is not that I've been working on him for so many years, close to two decades now, but that is really a historical fact because he created one of the most impressive widespread historical religious and social movements in the early modern setting.

The movement and then the magnitude of movement was like stretching from Isfahan to London to Moscow to Yemen even to Morocco. And the movement combined Jewish, Christian, and Islamic elements, and it created one of the earliest transnational and transreligious movements. And it is also one of the rare events that movement reached as far as to the New World. The contemporary president of Harvard University, Ingris Mader, for example, was talking about the recent stirs among the Jews as early as 1666 and 1667, which means that, that again we are facing one of the most interesting historical phenomenon. So who is Shabtai Tzvi?

I mean Shabtai Tzvi was a Jewish rabbi who was born into a relatively wealthy Jewish family in the Ottoman Smyrna or Izmir in 1626. Since he was born in Shabbat, he was named as Shabtai and he was the youngest son of the family and then he was pushed or recommended to go into learning and studying and he did. He was such a talented man that you know he finished his education in traditional Jewish learning, and as young as at the age of 18, he was ordained as a rabbi. But his quest for knowledge did not stop there. I mean, he found himself studying Jewish mysticism, or technically called as Jewish Kabbalah. Jewish Kabbalah, simply put, Jewish mysticism, whose roots go all the way to the times of

Moses according to Jewish lore. And legend has it that Moses received indeed two Torah at Mount Sinai. The one that we know, the written Torah, and he also received an oral Torah, and that became the very essence, very foundation of Jewish mysticism in the long run. So Shabtai Svi, you know, developed an interest into this rich Jewish lore at the age of 20s. So just to take stock, we have this young Jewish man born in Izmir, 1626. He will go on to form a successful messianic movement and have tens of thousands of followers believing he is the Messiah. Could you talk a little about his later life that you talk about in the book and his travels, particularly maybe focusing on two characters

that stuck with me, his wife Sarah and Nathanathan of gaza great i mean uh again after his interest into kabbalah shortly afterwards rather i mean he thought that he was the messiah he was a long-awaited messiah because judaism was or is such a like no messiah and messianic centered religion that you know the time and space in judaism is constructed around uh this idea of messianism and in history we have seen tons of messiah or pretending messiahs in jewish history but none of them became successful or impactful and then their followers just you know reach up to like a few hundreds but in the case of shabtai svi it i mean again he created such a like you know famous like influential movements of course that such a like, you know, famous, like, influential

movement. Of course, that did not happen overnight. You know, he first expelled from his hometown, Izmir, because of his antinomian and strange acts. And then he began to wander. That is something like fitting to this idea, Jewish idea of like, you know, wandering Jew, and then he traveled wide and away everywhere in the Ottoman Empire. He visited all the Jewish communities, and still, I mean, he was being expelled from everywhere he went to, until the point when he met one of the most influential and also very, very, very man in Eitan of Gaza in 1665. That was a momentous event in the history of Shabtai Sevi himself and in the history of his movement. But even before that there was another character that you already mentioned his wife Sarah.

She had a very interesting story. She is indeed an interesting person, quite an idiosyncratic person. We don't know very much about her earlier life, but she was orphaned in Poland back in the Jewish pogrom called Komeninski pogrom in like 1648. And then he came to Holland and then he was, she was born in, she was like raised in one of the orphanages and then came to Italy and then once she saw, she dreamt that she was destined to marry a messiah. And then she began her quest and then she found herself in Cairo during which time Shabtai was in Cairo. I mean the story is, but they got married.

But the thing is, you know, Sarah was somewhat a, has like somewhat a loose virtue to the extent that she was called even as a harlot. Shabtai nevertheless, you know, married to her. And until that point, he had like two unconsummated marriages because of that there were so many rumors about his sexual potency. But his marriage to Sarah erased all of those rumors.

But the thing is, with Sarah, certain licentious, certain wantonness, sexual perversion became part of the Sabbatian shabtai's thought, so to speak. shabtai's thought so to speak and in the long run actually we see the impact of that sexual antinomianism and that based itself on the Talmudic idea of the messianic age is going to come when old men's are sinners or when old men's are righteous so in a way Sabbatian antinomianism preferred the first equation first part of the equation that you know old men's are going to be somewhat sinners through those antinomian and strange acts so just to make sure i got it straight the sort of encouraging or yeah encouraging of these antinomian acts was a sort of way to to show that this is the time of the Messiah, who happens to be Shabbatai Sevi.

Yes. Got it. Because, you know, the Messiah is here, therefore Messianic Age is here, therefore we subject to a different rule and ruling. We subject to a new Torah, which is the antinomian, which is the asymmetrical of the Torah that we have today. That's the idea in Messianic Age.

So Nathan of Gaza, in that regard, becomes a crucial person, and with his inclusion to the movement and with his advocacy of his messiahship, the Messianic movement began in reality in 1665, and in less than a year, the movement created one of the largest religious movements in history. So we have these two important figures, Sarah, his wife, and Nathan of Gaza, who helped catapult Shabbatai Sevi to fame or infamy, depending on whose viewpoint you're taking. I was curious about the Ottoman response to Shabbatai Sevi's movement. They eventually do arrest him and present him with basically two options, death or conversion to Islam. He opts for conversion and then dies 10

years later. We'll get to that story in a second, but I'm curious about this arrest. My understanding was that the Ottomans tended to avoid intervening in the religious affairs of its Christian and Jewish communities. But why in the 17th century then do they decide that they need to intervene in Sabatai Sevi's movement? The reason being, I guess, the movement became uncontrollable at some point and it began to harm the social order that Ottomans envisioned to have. As you said, according to the principles of loosely defined millet system, because there was lots of discussion on the millet system, whether it was there or not, but I believe that in the 17th century there was something there,

which somewhat gave an organization an order to the management of the diversity, management of minorities. to the management of the diversity, management of minorities. So according to that principle, Ottomans did not intervene into their internal affairs until that internal affair transcends itself from the communal borders. So in the case of Sabbatians, Sabbatian movement, we realized that the movement, again, had a potential to harm the social order. And we also know that there were lots of complaints coming from either Jewish authorities or at some point even coming from merchants in Izmir,

because people stopped paying their debts and then creating some problems on the streets and etc. So at that point Ottomans felt themselves to intervene into the affairs and that's how things got started from the Ottoman point of view. Because the Ottomans, based on the Ottoman records, we realized that Ottomans called it fitne, like a sedition. So when any movement or any idea was perceived as fitna, it is a time for the Ottomans to intervene in a way. Got it. So this is not an exception to that basic rule we see in history of, in general, they leave Jewish and Christian communities themselves. It follows

the same rule. It just, in this case, the Ottomans saw that this was going beyond simply an intra-Jewish religious affair. This was becoming political. It was becoming difficult to contain. Certainly. Rather than explaining the cause of the movement only with Jewish causes, which was somewhat almost a norm in Jewish studies for so many years, we have to also look at the larger Ottoman and even larger Eurasian context. Therefore, in my study, I contextualize the movement, A, in the Jewish context, and B, in the Ottoman context, and C, in the larger Eurasian context. So, Ottoman context, as you said, is quite important in terms of following the trajectory

of the moment even after its demise 17th century Ottoman Empire was of course a time of crisis and changes I mean Ottoman Empire were at war with almost all of their their neighbors that created a certain amount of instability and then Jews on Ottoman Jews were not an exception to that instability. And therefore, they were somewhat ready to hear some messianic calls.

And there is also, of course, the Euro-Asian context that we had to mention here. That is the Christian context, that the year 1666 is such a crucial year for especially millennialists the people who were expecting the second coming of Jesus but according to some certain understanding of Christianity Jesus was going to come for sure but before his coming certain prophecies needed to be realized one of which was the coming of Antichrist. And Christians in Europe, especially evangelical

and, you know, millenarian Christians, were thinking that in the year 666, 1666, Dajjal or Antichrist is going to appear. And to those Christians, Jewish Messiah was no other than Antichrist so when someone from the East a Jewish guy from the East proclaimed that he was the Messiah for the millennial Christians it was an aha moment I mean they were saying that aha I mean now the sign for the the biggest sign for the second

coming of Jesus is here. It was a bit of a perfect storm that seeds of messianism already had been sowed in Europe and in such a troubling and unstable Ottoman context that up comes this successful messianic movement. Yeah, to me, I mean, I'm teaching like, you know, global history in my school, and to me, the Sabatian movement, again, is one of the earliest examples of this religious global movement in the early modern setting. Welcome back to Ottoman History Podcast. I'm Matt Gazarian, here today with Cengiz Cisman talking about Sabatai Sevi and the Donme communities of the Ottoman Empire. We followed the story of Sabatai Sevi and the Donme communities of the Ottoman Empire. We followed the story of Sabatai Sevi

himself, how he claimed to be a Jewish messiah and led a growing movement until he was arrested by Ottoman authorities and, under duress, converted to Islam. You know, one question I had in particular was this issue of sincerity. I know from works, I'm thinking specifically of Deringill on conversion and apostasy in the Ottoman Empire, that in the 19th century, Ottoman authorities became increasingly concerned with the sincerity of converts to Islam, fearing that people might convert for political reasons and then reconvert back to their previous faith at a more opportune moment. So I was wondering, were Ottoman authorities in 1666 also raising similar sincerity concerns, or was it a different time, different conceptions of religion? So from the Ottoman perspective, of course, it was just one of those

many other conversion cases. And the expected thing is that that usually the converts were supposed to follow Suid with other converts. In the case of Sabbatians, we understand that even Ottomans realized that there is something unusual about them because they did not follow Suid with the other converts. Rather they kept some of their beliefs inside, but at the outside, they were basically following the Ottoman public religion. They were Muslim and Turk in public, but Messianic Jews, not Jews, but it's very important, they were Messianic Jews in their private lives. And that created a double life, which continued basically until today. And so in this aftermath, you point out that sabotage believers, who then come to be called the donmeh, or converts, they faced three major

issues, you write. A crisis of leadership, persecution from rabbinical authorities, a crisis of leadership, persecution from rabbinical authorities, and reintegration into Ottoman society. And in trying to address all three of these issues, they split into three major subsects, the Yakubi, the Karakash, and the Kapanja. Can you talk a little bit about the debates and events that created these subsects and how their beliefs differ from each other? So now Shabtai died. And since he died now or disappeared from our mortal eyes, the first question was that, you know, what are we going to do and who is going to lead us? And at that point, they were mainly concentrated in Salonika. Salonika became the headquarter of Donme existence in a way until the modern times. They said first that, you know, okay, Yakub Celebi is going to be our first leader. Why?

Because Yakub Celebi's sister, Ayşe, was Şabtay's last wife. By the way, Sarah died with two kids and now Shabtai married second time. And then he was, by the way, in the exile in last three years of his life in Albania, Ulgun in Albania. And then that's why Yakup Çelebi was the one who had to get leadership. But there was a resistance to this idea. They said that, you know, there was another guy whose name was Baruch Yerushalem. He was born nine months after Shabtai's death. Therefore, the reasoning was that, you know, since there is this transmigration of soul idea in Jewish Kabbalah and mysticism, they said that, you know, Shabtai's soul, messianic soul, was transmigrated to this new baby, Baruch Yeruso, who was known as Osman Baba in later traditions.

And they said, Osman Baba is going to lead us. And since Osman Baba, even in his youth, was such an idiosyncratic character, there was another resistance to him and the community was also split. One more time, and by the turn of the 18th century, now we had three subsects. So basically, there's this really charismatic messianic leader. Once he passes, the question is, who takes the baton? And they split on different issues, whether it's this Osman Baba,

whether it's Yaqub Ecelebi, whether it's this Osman Baba, whether it's Yakubi Celebi, whether it's whomever. Yes. In a way, I mean, they followed three different paths until the modern times and then they created three subsects and that's one of the mistakes

in the scholarship that people usually refer Donmez as if they are being one big homogeneous group. Rather, to me, again, we are facing or talking three different religious sects. So in your sixth chapter, you describe the parallel lives of Donmes. You talk about how the 18 commandments that come to be accepted by these three subsects dictated that they, quote, simulate the quality of being Muslim, but stay entirely Jewish in their innermost worlds.

Now, living like that could be seen by some as being a burden. Is that what you mean by your title and burden of silence that they sort of had to live with this difficulty? You described for example burial rites and how they had to sort of present as pious Muslims on the outside but then would have a separate ceremony for their dead privately without the corpse since the corpse would need to be resting in an Islamic cemetery. Just one example but I'm just curious about this the burden or the corpse would need to be resting in an Islamic cemetery. Just one example, but I'm just curious about this, the burden or the difficulties of these two worlds and how that relates to your title.

Right, again the title was a Kabbalistic term indeed, it's called the Ma'a Seduma, burden of silence but it could be translated in so many different ways. At face value may sound that it is a burden and it has some negative connotations but it's not necessarily so because in mystical traditions or secret traditions believers are given some secrets some some treasures so to speak and then if you are willingly be part of that traditional lore that secret actually would give you a power. It's a privilege because you are being chosen and privileged to have that secret. It's a good thing, really.

But the moment that you want to break that silence, that burden became a heavy burden for you. So in a way, that burden of silence of silence you know brings a double legacy to the believers in the coming centuries. I mean at first it may empower you but in the long run it may even it may like harm you and then even kill you. So with that idea in mind I mean three subsects can develop a parallel life in public as you said they were like not turks and then muslims but in private they were they were like messianic jews and that parallel life and space in a way is the reason to explain how they carried their enigmatic identity throughout the centuries right and this is actually where i wanted to shift gears a bit to talk about the 19th century and the Ottoman Empire, the modern, the secular. In your seventh chapter, you claim that although

Donmei practices and institutions had helped guiding them in maintaining the secret community in an Islamic society, it offered no solution for contending with the secularism and rationalism of modern life. As a result, these three subsects all had within them three sort of factions emerge. Those who were more orthodox, who wanted to keep tradition, reformists, who wanted to make incremental change, and liberal factions who wanted to dispense with a lot of tradition altogether. So could you talk a little bit about this sort of emergence, the ways that you saw it, and how it guided your approach to this history in the 19th century? Donmez, by that time actually, I mean in Salonika especially, were the ones who were working with, you know, say the consuls, like they were working

at the British or French consuls, and they were always more connected to the outside world and then into business life. They were almost like, you know, some of them went to Europe and then got their education there. And by the second half of the 19th century, they were the ones who established the first modern educational institutions and schools and whatnot. And the graduates of those schools became the fed into the Ottoman bureaucracy and business and military and you name it. And the traditional Donme social norms and regulations

actually was not enough to meet the challenges of those modern ideas and practices. Donme youth, as early as the 19th century, began to challenge their traditional settings. And it would come no surprise to see that Donme theology is inherently antinomian, so the Donme youth, in a way, did not have difficult time, say, to adopt those radical, challenging, modern ideas.

And therefore, they became the early liberals in Salonika, along with, of course, other liberated, say, Turks and Ottomans and Armenians and Jews. Because now we are in the larger Tanzimat setting, without which, of course, we cannot understand what's happening to this particular community in the 19th century. Absolutely. And in fact, I wanted to talk a bit about the Donmeys in Salonika in particular. You call it the engine of Ottoman and Turkish modernization, and you point out that the Donmeys were one of the most influential, if not the most influential, group of people in that city. So if Salonika is

the engine, they're driving the bus. As a result, you suggest that they were an important factor behind Ottoman and Turkish modernization projects in the 19th century, and you connect their political and economic power to these other movements that we may not always associate with donmes like the young turks or freemason lodges i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about those connections and how you see donmes playing a larger role in the tanzimat and the constitutional period and ottoman modernization you should not get me wrong. I'm not saying that, you know, I'm not like trying to like minimize the role of like Jews,

for example, in the city, because, you know, traditionally, Salonika had been always like, you know, heavily populated by the Jews, again, throughout the centuries. But Donmez, I mean, had like the Turkish privileges that they could occupy seats in, say, government or in institutions that could not be occupied by other minorities. Therefore, I mean, they cleverly took a good advantage of these two worlds and then made a good use of it at the end of the 19th century. And that's why they were impactful. They were able to have these sort of merchant networks, but then didn't face the sort of glass

ceiling that a non-Muslim may have faced in the empire for bureaucratic or any position of authority, really. Absolutely. Because again, I mean, at the surface, I mean, they were regular Turks and Muslims. And also, I mean, that's something that we did not have a chance to talk, but theologically speaking, too, I I mean their Turkishness and their Muslims Muslimness were justified actually even at the beginning that you know they had to go through an Islamic and Ottoman face anyway for the redemption because according to Sabathian theology Muslimness is a penultimate stage before the redemption. Therefore, it was perfectly fine to act as such,

and they got this privilege. And when it comes to the connection to other developments, as I said, the second half of the 19th century was a time, the Tanzimat period, and the young generations were being liberated from left and right, from again Jewish circles, Turkish circles, Muslim circles, Armenian circles. But these people needed to have new settings where they could meet and create a new solidarity. They need that solidarity when they do criticize their traditional lives.

And Genç Osmanlılar, young Ottomans and young Turks, and later on Freemason lodges, became new houses which united people under a different banner, under somewhat more universal ideas. And it is no surprise again to see that, you know, first Mason lodges were in Thessalonica. And those young people again were into media and bureaucracy and military and finally of course their ideas found some more receptive ears in Committee of Union and Progress. And in a way, through Union and Progress Party and during their domination of Ottoman politics in the late period,

in a way, dönme ideas or practices, but liberated dönme ideas and practices, transcended Salonika and became a widespread Ottoman thing. So by the founding of the Turkish Republic, the Donme of Salonika have virtually all left for Turkey or various other places through forced migration, through the population exchanges with Greece or other circumstances. What is the status of Donme communities in the 20th and even 21st centuries? Despite the fact that by the 1900s, Salonika was almost a big Donme city, Donme city state almost, because they were running politics and then economy and then media. But 1912, of

course, is the time Salonika basically replaced hands from Turks to the Greeks. And that was a big watershed event for that history that, in a way, brought the end of the classical structure of the community. 1917 was another momentous event. There was a big Salonika fire which burned down all the traditional neighborhoods, Jewish, Muslim and Donme neighborhoods. But the last big event of course, population exchange as a result of the Lausanne Agreement between Greece and Turkey, that the Greeks were supposed to go to the room rather, like we're supposed to go to Greece and then Turks were supposed to come

here and since Donmes were considered as Turks they were all expelled from Salonika there were some you know initiatives asking to stay in Salonika because we know that few Donmes send a petition to Greek parliament saying that look I mean we were not typical Turks look I mean why don't you exclude us from this population exchange but from the Greek point of view it didn't matter because their aim was to Hellenize the city at an expense so they did not really bother with this petition and almost all of them except few of them them, almost of them came to Turkey, into different cities, mainly to Istanbul and Izmir. And then they now, you know,

become to play pivotal roles in the formation of this young Turkish Republic, including formation of the ideology of Turkish Republic that turned to be the secularism. I mean, Donmez, in a way, liberal Donmez, became the staunch supporters of secularism with the expectation that that new identity, new secular identity, could really conclusively redeem them from the yoke of both traditional Jewish and also Donme orthodoxy. What about the importance of studying Donmes today?

Why is this sort of study significant and how are they remembered? 10-15 years ago, the topic was quite hot in Turkey. the topic was quite hot in Turkey and there were several big shots like authors wrote on this one and then their books were sold in tens of thousands. I mean in Turkey it's just so hard to buy like sell a book like more than thousand on a subject but here you're talking about hundreds of thousands of volumes

were being sold on this very topic Ama burada bu konuda satılan çoğu bölümden yüzlerce sayıda konuşuyoruz. Çünkü bu konu Türkiye'de büyük bir konspirasyon konusudur. Bazı insanlar, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'na, modern Türk Hükümeti'ne veya bir başka bir ülkeye ulaşmak için önemli bir karakterden birisi. or to form or to establish the modern Turkish Republic. And to some others, they are the ones who are running Turkey today. I think that, you know, it is being remembered somewhat differently and also instrumentalized somewhat differently by different segments. I mean, Donbass themselves try to remember and reconstruct, of course, their history from a theological vantage point that they always try to show that, you know, they had been part of the secular culture from the

beginning, as if it had been the case since the 17th century. That is a clear reconstruction, and to me, it's again also somewhat distorting the history. It is true that some of the dharmists became part of the secularization, modernization process, but not all of them necessarily. Again, for the Islamists, it also played a great role, especially when they did form their own identity in the last 20-30 years. They wanted to have a new other to delegitimize some of the practice of Turkish Republic including secularism and they blamed the Donmez as a scapegoat saying that it was the Donmez who kind of created the secular modern Turkey which was also very anti-Islamic. And for the nationalist

segments or they also had different meanings. But at the end of the day, Donme history is being remembered by different segments. And they've been instrumentalized by also different people. And that's why the topic is not going to die out any foreseeable future. Not only in Turkey, but also in Israel too. any foreseeable future, not only in Turkey, but also in Israel, too. I mean, if you look at the Jewish scholarship, there's also a great deal of interest into Sabbatean studies from Jewish studies perspective as well. Well, we've come very far today in our discussion from 1626

and the birth of this fellow in Izmir all the way up until the present. I want to thank you for coming on the podcast today. I thank you very much for having me. And for those of you who'd like to find out more, I encourage you to pick up a copy of the book The Burden of Silence, Sabatai Sevi and the Ottoman Turkish Donmez published by Oxford University Press in 2015. I also encourage you to visit us online at our website,

ottomanhistorypodcast.com, where you can find the bibliography of further reading, as well as leave comments and ask questions about the topics we covered. You can also join us on Facebook, where you can stay in touch with our community of over 20,000 listeners and follow news and upcoming series and episodes. That's all for our conversation today. Thanks for listening, and until next time, take care.