The Lost Messiah: The Astonishing Story of Sabbatai Sevi

In the 17th century, Rabbi Sabbatai Sevi called himself the so long awaited real Messiah. It was an apocalyptic time for the Jewish people. In Poland and the Ukraine one hundred thousand Jews had been slaughtered and three hundred communities destroyed in the Chmielnicki massacres. Sabbatai Sevi was a manic-depressive person, alternating periods of `great illumination' with times of deep depression. His Messianic call was heard mainly by the downcast, the poor, the distressed and the troubled, which had in any case nothing to loose. By following the new Messiah, they could consider themselves as an elected (and selected) group of people who were chosen by the representative of God on earth and who would receive in the shortest of times eternal bliss. Sabbatai Sevi called for an overthrow of all religious laws and of all human behavior (sexual taboos). He liberated women (who could read the Torah) and organized sexual orgies (`God permitted that which is forbidden'). But, his revolutionary ardor undermined the established power of the orthodox rabbis, who became his most ferocious enemies and who ultimately could organize (bribe) his downfall. Confronted with a death penalty proclaimed by the reigning Sultan, Sabbatai Sevi converted to Islam (!) under the condition that he would persuade his followers to do the same. A big part of these followers didn't believe and couldn't accept his apostasy and their own downfall. They pretended that this apostasy was a disguise or that not the rabbi, but his shadow, had converted to Islam. Another part followed him and observed the Islamic laws in public, but they couldn't marry true Muslims. They were called the Dönme (the Turncoats). Some descendants of the Dönme became later members of the Young Turks. John Freely delved deeply into the archives and did meticulous field work in order to evocate the life and times of an apostate Messiah, of his prophet and his staunch followers. Not to be missed.

As a Jew, I had heard of the Shabbati Sevi (a.k.a. "Tzvi") story, most of which was told as if the writer was spitting a curse over their shoulders. The "False Messiah" and how much of a total disaster he left in his wake. I had heard but most of these stories were bitterly written and spoken of and I had very little hard facts to sift through. I had not read Gershom Scholem's works, which are cited repeatedly by Freely; Scholem provided quite a bit of information it seems on Shabbati's life. I had actually read a few lines that peaked my interest in Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's monumental book "Meditation and Kabbalah", a book I treasure. Kaplan's take was that Shabbati had dabbled in very high and very dangerous Kabbalistic techniques and that he was obviously transformed by his experiences. So, I wanted more....I noticed that my dad had Freely's book on hand and so I borrowed it, read it and here are my views. Clearly S.S. (Shabbati Sevi) was gifted but also prone to mental imbalances from an early age. He was also a seeker of experiences far from the normal, mundane sort that was reached by your average observant Jew, whether in Turkey or anywhere else. Having been exposed to teachers and Kabbalistic texts at an early age, having found an experiential facility with spiritual realms, S.S. was the perfect candidate for entering the dangerous realms that traditional Jews around the world have always said lies waiting for those who would dabble in the esoteric for the wrong reasons or even for the right reasons. Kabbalah has been framed as the mystical hence (largely) unknown avenue to the spiritual life. However, S.S. came upon the world shortly after the lifetime of the very great and influential lives of the Kabbalists of S'phat, in Israel. I refer now to the Ari and his students and colleagues. S.S. lived at a time when more of the mystical texts were surfacing for Jews to learn from. And learn he did and grow and ascend and perhaps stumble. While it is tempting to judge S.S. by the results of what is known, I will only say that his life is ultra strange. That he, in his states of ecstatic illumination (Freely calls it) was capable on many occasions to deeply impress others with his aura, cannot be cast aside just because his critics say he was deranged. I am reminded of the Talmudic saying that stated that when Prophecy was banished from the world, the Lord hid it in the mouths of children and madmen. Think on this before you decide that S.S. was this or that. What is clear from Freely's wonderful story is that S.S. most certainly attained extraordinary high levels of "connection" to realms of spirituality and that in these realms he returned to his normative states a totally transformed person. That these experiences led him to believe that he had been chosen the Redeemer is clear. What we do not know is what he really truly experienced and what we too would have made of such an experience. How we can account for his erratic, so

The Donme are one of the most remarkable groups in the Middle East. A Jewish sect that had converted to Islam but still retained much of it's previous faith and practice, carried out in secret, they dont intermarry with other Muslims while have becoming influential in various political positions in the Muslim world (Ismail Cem and the Ipekci family for example). This (and perhaps Bernard Lewis' book but I tend to avoid anything written by him) is perhaps the only decent study of the Donme sect and its founder Sabbatai Sevi. The term Donme is a Turkish word meaning 'turncoat' it seems from the book that they were never realy recognised as true Muslims (such examples are the fact that there were specific 'Donme Mosques' in Salonika, there were never for example 'Albanian' or 'Bosnian' Mosques even though they were a distinct group that had converted to Islam) But I have no idea why a previous reviewer chose to say that Sabbatai Sevi was forced to convert to Islam as the book itself makes no such claim. Their history is remarkable and Mr Freely goes into great detail discussing the life of the founder Sabbatai Sevi and his main student Nathan of Gaza. How the group developed and the controversy they caused in the major cities of the Ottoman world such as Izmir and Istanbul, the leaders arrest and his conversion to Islam. The book then goes into some detail to suggest where he may be buried and then the mass conversion of his followers in Salonika, how they became greatly involved particually in politics such as the Young Turk movement and even the Mevlevi order in Salonika. The book then goes on to detail their expulsion from Greece (along with all other Muslims) to Turkey and their settlement in Istanbul. How even they have a sepperate cemetary from other Muslims and their gravestones are distinct from other Turkish Muslim ones. The book also covers the history of the followers of Sabbatai Sevi in Europe who did not convert to Islam but Catholicism particually in Poland and Eastern Europe and some of the famous descendents of that group. It is even more interesting that at the same time this book came out a similar one in Turkish was published. It would seem that this is yet another small effort of Turkey comming to terms with its past. Well worth a read for anyone with an interest in either Islamic studies or Jewish history.

The crucial year is Anno Domini 1666 - Hegira 1067. In that year "Jews in various part of the Middle East and Europe were taken by a messianic frenzy... began selling their goods... preparing for their joint return to the Holy Land". A hectic exchange of letters span the Mediterranean, but also the New world is interested: in far away Brazil Portuguese Marranos talk about unfolding events, in Boston the sermons of reverend Cotton Mother wonder about the coming end of the Diaspora. A sense that something important is going to happen grips the entire world. For a few months time seems to stop. Oldenburg, the secretary of the British Royal Academy writes inquisitively to Spinoza, the ten lost tribes of Israel are reported to have put Mecca under siege, the anointed Messiah is coming to restore the Jewish nation to the promised land and will humble the infidel enemy. The world upside down. But the climax comes to a strange result: Sabbatai Sevi, the self appointed messiah, is forced by the Turkish authorities to abjure the Jewish faith and become a Muslim. In a sense this is the turning point but not the end of the story, like one could be easily led to think: a definite change none the less. Because most of his followers kept their faith remaining in the Jewish religion (the still existing Sabbatian Jews), some joined him in the apostasy (the still existing Muslim Domne community), some of them, still faithful to his message, joined the Catholic Church (Yes! The picturesque Frankist community). In the tumultuous unfolding of events we are guided by John Freely to the discovery of a vanished world: the many Jewish communities (Romaniotes, Sephardis, Askenazi, Karaites, Mustaribs,...) and the many cradles of the Diaspora (multinational Salonika, Alexandria, Cairo, Izmir, Istanbul, but also far away places like Amsterdam, Ferrara in Italy and the too many communities in Central Europe). In a sense, this book can be read as well as a travel book: to search the material, Freely followed physically the footsteps of the Sabbatians and his effort to unearth that world is in itself a real pleasure. Most of that world has gone, wiped by two world wars and by the mad specter of nationalism: the great Jewish communities of Greece are no more, gone the royal palace in Edirne, gone the Jewish quarter in Salonika, gone the Jewish quarters of Alexandria and Cairo, but sometimes a place has been able to defy time: Berat in Albania (truly gripping the description of the city), but also the valley of Nightingales in Istanbul. A vanished world: a multinational empire where Greeks and Jews, Turks, Armenian and Arabs coexisted. A world that was apparently much more culturally global than our own and with an area that spanned from the new world to far away cities on the edge of India. A world in which many languages coexisted: the official Turkish and the semiofficial Greek, the multinational Ladino, Arabic and Yiddish...(it is curious that Sevi was not flu