Notes to Pages 2–4
- See the main Ottoman account of the conversion—Abdurrahman Abdi
Pasha, Vekāyi‘nāme, Köprülü Library, Istanbul, MS 216 , fols. 224 a–b—translated
for the first time into English in Marc David Baer, Honored by the Glory of Islam:
Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2008 ), 127. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations in this vignette are from
this source; the wording has in part been modified. - On Shabbatai Tzevi’s “manic depression,” see Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi,
125 – 38. - The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln, trans. Marvin Lowenthal (New York:
Schocken Books, 1977 ), 45. This is an allusion to Isaiah 26. - See Elisheva Carlebach, The Pursuit of Heresy: Rabbi Moses Hagiz and the
Sabbatian Controversies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990 ). - See Jacob Barnai, “Messianism and Leadership: The Sabbatean Move-
ment and the Leadership of the Jewish Communities in the Ottoman Empire,”
in Ottoman and Turkish Jewry: Community and Leadership, ed. Aron Rodrigue
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992 ), 167 – 82 ; and Esther Benbassa
and Aron Rodrigue, Sephardi Jewry: A History of the Judeo-Spanish Community,
14 th– 20 th Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000 ), 59. - I agree with the finding of Festinger et al.: “when people are committed to
a belief and a course of action, clear, disconfirming evidence may simply result
in deepened conviction and increased proselytizing.” Leon Festinger, Henry W.
Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological
Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World (New York:
Harper Torchbooks, 1956 ), 12. - Esriel Carlebach, “Ohne Messias: Dönmehs,” in id., Exotische Juden: Ber-
ichte und Studien (Berlin: Welt Verlag, 1932 ), 169. - See Harris Lenowitz, The Jewish Messiahs: From the Galilee to Crown
Heights (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998 ), 98 – 100. - Matt Goldish, The Sabbatean Prophets (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 2004 ), 46. News of Shabbatai Tzevi’s messianic calling was often
disseminated by former conversos, and some of the convincing evidence for the
veracity of the movement came from former converso Shabbatean prophets.
Ibid., 49. - Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi, 915.
- Abraham Danon, “Une secte judéo-musulmane en Turquie,” Revue des
études juives 35 ( 1897 ): 275. The reference in the Talmud is Pesahim 49 b. - Meir Benayahu, “Ha-tnu‘a ha-Shabta’it be-Yavan,” Sefunot 14 (Sefer Y avan
IV, 1971 – 77 ): 107. On this point, see also Gershom Scholem, “Teuda hadasha
me-reshit ha-tnu‘a ha-Shabta’it,” in id., Mehkerim u-mekorot le-toldot ha-Shabta’ut
ve-gilguleha (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1982 ), 218 – 32.