The Dönme. Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks

(Romina) #1

 Notes to Pages 173–177



  1. Ahmet Midhat Pasha served as grand vizier from July to October 1872 ,
    and again from December 1876 to February 1877. After playing a leading role
    in the coup of 1876 and authoring the Ottoman constitution, he was exiled to
    Arabia by Sultan Abdülhamid II in 1877 ; he died, in suspicious circumstances, at
    Ta’if, near Mecca, in 1884. See Zürcher, Turkey, 384 – 85.

  2. Galanté, Nouveaux documents sur Sabbetaï Sevi, 62.

  3. Apparently, the Karakaş shaved neither their heads nor their beards; the
    Kapancı did not shave their heads but shaved their faces. The importance of
    shaving for Dönme distinction led to the claim that all the barbers in Salo-
    nika were Dönme. Ben-Tzevi, “Preface,” 74 ; Gordlevsky, “Zur Frage über die
    ‘Dönme,’ ” 216.

  4. Authors from Galanté to Ortaylı have repeated the false assertion. See
    Galanté, Nouveaux documents sur Sabbetaï Sevi, 63.

  5. Vatan, January 20 , 1924 , 2.

  6. Vatan, January 21 , 1924 , 2.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Vatan, January 22 , 1924 , 2.

  9. David Hollinger, “Amalgamation and Hypodescent: The Question of
    Ethnoracial Mixture in the History of the United States,” American Historical
    Review 108 ( 2003 ): 1366.

  10. See Viswanathan, Outside the Fold, 75 – 82.

  11. Gövsa, Sabatay Sevi, 6.

  12. Gövsa was a well-known writer and teacher. Zeki Gürel, İbrahim Alâettin
    Gövsa, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Kültür Bakanlıgˇı, Türk büyükler dizisi (Ankara,
    1995 ). See also Marc David Baer, “Osmanlı Yahudilerinin mesihi ve onun Tür-
    kiye Cumhuriyetindeki izleri,” trans. Esra Özyürek, Virgül 11 (September 1998 ):
    48 – 51. Gövsa authored nearly forty works of education and literature, popular
    encyclopaedias and dictionaries. He is especially famous for children’s litera-
    ture. He taught Turkish in a Jewish school in 1910 – 11 and was the director of
    the Karakaş Dönme Makriköy [Bakırköy] Girls’ School at the beginning of the
    1920 s. For over a decade, beginning in 1929 , he served in parliament, represent-
    ing Rıza Nur’s Sinop as well as Istanbul, and once held the office of chief inspec-
    tor in the Department of Education. He died of a heart attack on Republic Day
    while writing his column for the daily Hürriyet.

  13. Baer, “Osmanlı Yahudilerinin mesihi”; Gürel, İbrahim Alâettin Gövsa.

  14. Yedi Gün, no. 212 (March 31 , 1937 ): 14 – 6 , 26 ; no. 213 (April 7 , 1937 ): 11 – 2 ;
    no. 214 (April 14 , 1937 ): 12 – 3 ; no. 215 (April 21 , 1937 ): 12 – 3 , and no. 216 (April
    28 , 1937 ): 12 – 3 , 25. The series mainly concerned the life of Shabbatai Tzevi, with
    a short section on the Dönme at the end of the last section. The book, which
    was published two years later, is an expanded version of the series, bringing the

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