The false prophets and the mysterious intrigues - 5

The numbers of Jews, who declare Islam to comply with Shabbetai Zevi in 1666, have been noted two hundred families that mainly are deployed in Edirne (Adrianople), around Shabbetai. In 1683, another enormous wave of Islam declaration occurred amongst Jews resided in Ottoman and their numbers reached to 300 families only in the port of Thessaloniki. These “Proselytes” were supported by some prominent rabbis. The group was led by Joseph Filosof, the Rabbi of Thessaloniki Port and Shabbetai’s father in law, and Solomon Florentine.
These Jews were called “Dönmeh” which means “Apostate” or “Proselyte”. Since the eighteenth century, Shabbetai Zevi’s followers settled in Yemen, Iran, Ottoman and North of Africa. The largest living centers of Dönmehs were the cities of Thessaloniki, Izmir and Istanbul. In the eighteenth century, some groups of Shabbetai Zevi’s followers immigrated from Poland and other points to Thessaloniki. This important commercial Port was the main focus of Dönmehs until 1924. The Jewish Encyclopedia adduced that nowadays the settlement of Shabbetai Zevi’s followers is in Turkey, Italy, Poland, Morocco and Kurdistan.
Dönmehs of Thessaloniki lived separated from other inhabitants of the city in their own neighborhoods. The Jewish Encyclopedia writes Dönmehs outwardly introduced themselves as they are Muslim and they strictly believed in doing of Islamic rites. Their heads were on friendly terms with the leaders of Sufi sects, especially the Bektashi’s. The first group of Dönmehs led by Jacob Qerido, the younger brother of Joseph Filosof, went on pilgrimage to Mecca in 1690. However, they were Crypto-Jews and they did their rituals, which were mixed of traditional Jewish rites and new customs of that time. Dönmeh’s dogma consists of ten principles in memoriam of the “ten lost tribes of Israel”. Dönmeh’s leaders had a furtive relationship with a number of Jewish rabbis of Thessaloniki. Furthermore, Dönmeh’s matrimony was only practiced among them and they banned the marriage with Muslims “seriously and forcefully”. Dönmehs were all familiar with Hebrew language and they spoke Hebrew and Ladino (A Judeo Spanish language) among themselves. Only in 1870, the Turkish language became common among them. In 1774, Carsten Niebuhr, a Danish explorer, reported the number of Dönmehs of Thessaloniki to 600 households that they only married among themselves. At the time of the First World War, their number was estimated 10 to 15 thousand people.
Dönmeh’s cult leadership was done by a rich and powerful oligarchy that they were called in Turkish as “Qapan Chiler”. Members of the middle class of Dönmeh cult were called “Yaqubler”. There is a third group among Dönmehs who form the lower class population, and they were called the “Konyosos”. Each person of Dönmehs had a Turkish and Hebrew name which was used outwardly and inwardly. They also retained their old Spanish names and used them at the funeral. Dönmehs wrote their writings on the very small papers that they easily hide them. Dönmehs so skillfully managed to hide their inner problems as the only source for their acquaintance was rumors going around in surroundings.
At the time of the French Revolution (in 1789), the leadership of Thessaloniki’s Dönmehs was entrusted to a powerful and influential body called Dervish Effendi, who his Jewish name was Judah Levi Tovah. In the early of eighteenth century, Dönmehs were led by Baruchiah Russo (died in 1721), who was known by the Islamic name of Ottoman Baba.
Dönmehs applied the successful experience of Christian Marranos in the Islamic world and they were entrusted many positions of Ottoman bureaucracy in the nineteenth century. Dönmehs played a significant role in development of the “Ottoman Freemasonry”, “the western reform” of the state, and the establishment of “Ottoman constitutionalism”. “The Committee of Union and Progress and Young Turks movement” was formed within this parochial and coherent cult. Succinctly, several Dönmeh ministers attended in the first constitutional government of Ottoman (in 1909) that one of them was Javed Beg, the Minister of Finance. Javed Beg belonged to Baruchiah Russo’s family, and he entrusted with the wardenship of Dönmeh cult. We will discuss about Javed Beg scrambling and his links with Sir Ernest Cassel, the famous Jewish plutocrat, in the future. The Movement of Young Turks was started from the city of Thessaloniki and it was begun by the Leadership of Dönmehs. The Jewish Encyclopedia has bilaterally and perspicaciously stated the affiliation of Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Ataturk) to Dönmeh cult. It writes: “According to many Jews of Salonika, which is denied by the Turkish state, Mustafa Kemal Pasha belonged to Dönmeh Jews”.
Following the establishment of Mustafa Kemal Pasha government in 1924, many of Dönmehs left the Port of Thessaloniki, and they mainly settled in Istanbul and a few of them deployed in Izmir and Ankara. In subsequent decades, Dönmehs did not immigrate to Israel and stayed in Turkey. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, even the “Institutional Framework” of Dönmehs was present until 1960. There is no mention of their affiliation to Islam in their domestic literature, conversely they call themselves as the real Jews and they still believe in Shabbetai Zevi.
The Jewish Encyclopedia adds: “In the early of eighteenth century, Dönmehs were accused of “sexual immorality”. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the sexual promiscuity [chaos] was common among them through their some generations”. In the poems of Judah Levy Tovah (Dervish Effendi), which were published in 1960, in contained the audacious defenses in favor of the abolition of sexual restrictions. They have a special feast called the “festival of the Lamb” in which they do some Orgiastic Ceremonies.
In the seventeenth century, the Cabbala sect was spread through the North of Africa and Yemen by people like as Hayyim Ben Attar al-Marakeshi and Shalom (Salem) Ben Joseph Shabbazi, the famous Jewish poet lived in Yemen. In this era, also some prominent Jewish figures led Cabbala circles in Tunisia and Algeria. Mordechai Ben Moses Sasson al-Baghdadi established an influential circle of Cabbala sect in Baghdad that was present until the twentieth century in the area. Isaac Ben Moses also settled in the village of Hariri (Arbil of Kurdistan) and founded Hariri family. One of the sons of Isaac, called Phinehas, was active in the story of Shabbetai Zevi. His other two sons, named by Hayyim and Isaac, were the rabbis of city of Rawandoz, Erbil. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Hariri family members were active in Kurdistan and they were considered as the leaders of Cabbalism in Mesopotamia.
In the second half of the eighteenth century, Rabbi Shalom Mizrahi Sharabi (1720-1777), from a Jewish family lived in Yemen, deployed in Jerusalem and he became as the spiritual leader of the Cabbala sect in North of Africa or according to the Jewish Encyclopedia “All around the East”. He was renowned as a “saint” and “Wizard” in Palestine. Sharabi’s Sufism was conspicuously similar to the Muslim Sufi’s one. A group of elite students attended around him and they were considered to be leaders. Thus, Jerusalem was turned to be one of the most important centers of production of Jewish Sufis and their struggle in the North of Africa and the East. Regarding to the historical past and intellectual and political atmosphere of Cabbala School, it is clear that this center could have serious effects on Sufi sects and be as an inspiration source for Messianic Claimants among the Muslims. The Jewish Encyclopedia states: "The conformable authority of the circle rapidly stabilized in all Islamic countries and gained very strong positions”. Sharabi’s Sufism was stationed in Jerusalem until the twentieth century.
Around half of the eighteenth century through the mystical Cabbala sect and based on the heritage of Shabbetai Zevi and Nathan of Gaza, another trickster named Jacob Frank emerged and founded a sect which is known by the “Frankest”
Jacob Ben Judah Lieb, who was known by the name of Jacob Frank (1726-1791), belonged to a wealthy merchant contractor family, and his wife also belonged to a wealthy merchant family. Frank’s family affiliated to the Jews settled in Ukraine and he was born in a small town in the region of Podolia in the north of Kiev (Ukraine). Frank was attracted to Cabbala way in his youth; he read Zohar Book and conjoined to Shabbetai Zevi’s cult. In 1753, He went to the Port of Thessaloniki and lived for a while with Dönmehs. Then he explored in Adrianople and Izmir, and returned to Thessaloniki once again.
In December 1755, Frank traveled to his homeland with two rabbis, named by Rabbi Mordechai and rabbi Rahman, in order to get the wardenship of Dönmeh cult in Poland by order of its leaders. Frank was at the head of the Shabbetai’s cult in Podolia but later he was involved in a scandal in January 1756. When Frank and his followers had engaged in the Orgiastic Ceremonies of Shabbetai’s sect in a locked house, due to sudden opening of windows, people were informed and arrested all of them. The city’s officials liberated Jacob Frank because they thought he is a citizen of the Ottoman Empire. Frank returned to the Ottoman and he became Muslim for a short time. Soon after, he went to Podolia once again and he seized the leadership of Shabbetai’s cult in Galicia, Ukraine and Hungary. Later, Jacob Frank, and a flock of hundreds of his Jewish followers converted to Christianity (Catholicism). The bishop of the region also gladly accepted them in Christianity. Jewish Encyclopedia states:
“In the years of 1756-1760, a large part of the followers of Jacob Frank had converted to Catholicism and they formed a sect similar to Dönmeh in Poland. They were Catholics only in appearance”.
This was an apparent conversion to the faith of Christianity and the establishment of a new organization of “Crypto-Jews”. The Jewish Encyclopedia explicitly pointed out Frankest sect as a secret Jewish cult in elsewhere.
Christianization of Frank attracted some Christians of Poland and Eastern Europe to this sect. According to above source, the owners of Frank’s sect were wealthy and highly educated Jews of Poland and Russia, a group of rabbis of small Jewish communities and descendants of some figures of Eastern Europe Jewish communities. Major part of cult members was Jewish hostlers and bartenders. In Moravia and Bohemia, a number of wealthy Christian families converted to the cult. It should be added that the followers of Jacob Frank’s cult were known as the cult of Shabbetai Zevi at that time and they regarded themselves as the Believers namely the followers of Shabbetai Zevi. The cognomen of “Frankest” was referred to them from the nineteenth century.
Despite the apparent conversion of Frank and his followers to Christianity, prowling of above cult prompted people discontent and following the disclosure of their sexual acts, government officials arrested Frank in Warsaw in February 1760. Jacob Frank was respectfully banished to a castle in Czechoslovakia for 13 years. From 1762, his wife joined him. During this period, his numerous followers went to visit him and did the ceremonies, which were tinged with sexual acts, within and outside the castle.