Mark Levene
The Donme, the Followers of Shabtai Tzvi: The ‘Other’ Jews of Salonika
Summary
Before and after WWI, the role of the Salonika-based Donme became the stuff of conspiracy theories heralding the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But who were the Donme, and why did this smalll crypto-Jewish sect play such a significant both in reality and in the fevered imaginations of political pundits and media?
Mark Levene
Mark Levene is an emeritus fellow at the University of Southampton and in the Parkes Centre for Jewish/non-Jewish relations. His books on Jewish history, genocide, and climate change apart, Mark has for many years worked with Trudy Gold at LJCC. He is also coproducer of The Greek Project, Greek Study Tour Holidays with Intellectual Bite (www.greekproject.co.uk).
It means, I think, betrayer in. No no no, I’m wrong there. It means convert but that could also be interpreted to mean turncoat. And that’s why there’s this sort of ambiguity about the term Dönme. It essentially has become a negative or pejorative term.
They couldn’t. Under Islam, to, to do something like that is betrayal. And they would be, you see, look. There’s the parallel here. Let’s try and make the parallel. Supposing you were a new Christian, a converso who had been Jewish and you had then moved across the ocean to a Spanish America. Say to a place like Curacao in the, in the Caribbean. When the Dutch arrive later, large groups of conversos revert back to being Jewish. Even though they’ve lost a lot of their Jewish knowledge, as it were. They revert back. But the conditions enabled them to do so. Within an Ottoman Muslim world, there is no framework within which somebody who has been Dönme can revert back to being Jewish unless they, for instance, were able at some stage, to emigrate to Palestine. Now, or somewhere else. Now I don’t know of instances like this but for the most part, there is no equivalent movement of Dönme back to being Jews as there is for instance, conversos. Where the opportunity allows within the Western world for them to do so. If you get my comparison. Hope that’s okay.
As I said, people do not tend to refer to themselves by this name. As a general rule. They tend, if where they live now, as a general rule, not to refer to themselves in this way at all. Though they are often referred to as Salonikla. In other words, people who have come from Salonika. And I’m just trying to think, what would be an equivalent of this if you didn’t want to, if you didn’t want to make a big deal about your background. Perhaps even Jewish people in England who want to assimilate and to be seen as true blue Englishmen and not to have their background made a big thing about. This is how Salonikla tend to behave while knowing something about their background which has been, in terms of its Jewishness has been more or less altogether lost.