About Society for Sabbatean Studies
Who are we?
We are a community of individuals who are either fully or partially descendants of Sabbateans, and who share a deep interest in the history and culture of the Sabbatean community. Sabbateans, or better known as Donmes in Turkish, are broadly defined as those who are connected to the legacy of Sabbatai Sevi, (1626-1676) who claimed himself as the long-awaited Jewish “messiah” in 1648, created one of the biggest religious movements in 1665, and then converted to Islam in the Ottoman Empire in 1666. Some followed his footsteps and, settled in Salonica and established a community with a distinct Sabbatean belief system that has survived to the present day. During the turbulent era of the First World War, around 15,000 Donmes were resettled to what is now Turkey as part of the population exchange. They went on to play significant roles in the establishment of modern Turkey. To explore and understand this heritage in a more organized fashion, we founded a non-profit, USA-based organization called the Society for Sabbatean Studies in 2021.
What do we do?
The Society believes it is now time to reclaim our heritage and history; therefore, we conduct weekly online meetings to advance our objectives. For the past 4 years, we have held about 200 meetings with about 500 members, enhancing our understanding of diverse aspects of Sabbatean culture and history. These meetings have served as a platform for connecting, engaging, and fostering collaboration among the Sabbatean descendants worldwide.
We are also collaborating closely with the academic community specialized in the subject of Sabbateanism. Collectively, our efforts are focused on promoting, educating, and safeguarding cultural, intellectual, archaeological, traditional, culinary, artistic, public and private heritage of Sabbateans.
In a significant milestone for Sabbatean history, our community is uniting to establish a repository for cultural, traditional, religious, and academic sources, including artifacts, manuscripts, articles, books, newspapers, magazines, and video/audio recordings related to Sabbateans.
Belonging to one of the most conspiracy-prone minority groups in Turkey and beyond, one of our objectives is to effectively engage with external parties to accurately portray the Sabbatean community and offer comprehensive and factual information. We believe that humanizing and shedding light on this marginalized community can help break down stereotypes and misconceptions that have been perpetuated for far too long.
In addition to preserving the cemeteries and graves across different regions of Turkey as a respect to our ancestors, we strive to engage with younger generations of Sabbatean descendants to instil pride in their cultural heritage through education.
