Lyn Julius
Sabbatai Zevi
Summary
Sabbatai Zevi was an Ottoman Jewish mystic and ordained rabbi from Smyrna. Zevi, who was active throughout the Ottoman Empire, claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah and was the founder of the Sabbatean movement. Lyn Julius discusses why the 17th-century Sabbatean movement was the most important messianic movement in Judaism and why it’s difficult to get an objective view on Zevi’s life.
Lyn Julius
Lyn Julius was born in the UK and educated at the French Lycée in London and the University of Sussex. The daughter of Jewish refugees from Iraq, she is a journalist and founder of Harif, the UK Association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa (www.harif.org). Lyn blogs daily at Point of No Return (www.jewishrefugees.org.uk). Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Huffington Post, Jewish News, and Jerusalem Post. She has a regular column in the Times of Israel and JNS News. Her book Uprooted: How 3,000 Years of Jewish Civilization in the Arab World Vanished Overnight has been translated in to Norwegian, Portuguese and Arabic, and a Hebrew version is in progress.
Well, I’m not an expert on religion, but I do believe the concept of a Messiah is very much part of Judaism. You know, it is said that a Messiah will arise, a descendant of King David and that will usher in a period of peace and harmony and the brotherhood of man. And of course Ezekiel talks about turning swords into plough shares and that kind of thing.
Well, money didn’t seem to be a problem for him. You know, you could see from his house that, he had a very grand looking house. He came from a wealthy family. He was given money by people like Rafael Joseph, who was a Kabbalist in Egypt. So money was not an issue. And it’s amazing how people did travel far and wide in those times. They went the length and breadth of the Ottoman Empire and they came from Poland to Jerusalem and that sort of thing. It is amazing how people did get around.
So, the peak of it was during that year, between 65 and and 66, 1666. But if you are talking about the Dönme, well obviously they survived until the present day and their descendants still live in Turkey. And they still practise sort of bits of his whole philosophy. And as somebody pointed out, obviously, Sabbateanism did influence Hasidism. So you can say that it kind of lasted. There was a kind of legacy there.