Introduction According to the rabbis, the Dönme were deviants, engaging in all cat-
egories of what was considered religious perversion in the early modern
period, including criminal acts, sexual deviance, transgression of Jewish
ritual law, offenses against communal ordinances, transgression against
rabbinic law and authority, and, of course, apostasy.^64 A Salonikan rabbi
opined in 1765 that the Dönme were apostates who persisted in their her-
esy, desecrated the Sabbath, posed as if they had embraced another reli-
gion, acting like Muslims: they were “the converts among us, who rebelled
against the words of God in distant times and continue to hold to their
impurity until today”; accordingly, “there is no difference between them
and the Gentiles at all, transgressing against all that is written in the Torah,
certainly taken for Gentiles in every matter.” Therefore, “for all intents
and purposes they must be considered non-Jews.”^65 In the late nineteenth
century, Sephardic Jews simply ignored the subject of the Dönme in their
writings, because they considered them well outside the Jewish fold.^66 At
times of crisis, the Dönme drew the ire of Jews. A circular published by
the chief rabbi in Istanbul in 1914 blasted the Dönme for their alleged
frightening immorality, sexual perversity, infidelity, lack of honor, dishon-
esty, religious blasphemy, trickery and charlatanism, financial impropriety,
and lack of ethics.^67 The circular blamed the corruption of Salonikan Jews
on the Dönme. The Dönme possessed beliefs and maintained traditions
that Jews regarded as heresy. If they observed Judaism, it was a version of
Judaism that Jews condemned, like the religion of the first Christians.
The feelings were mutual. The Dönme did not consider themselves
Jews, nor that they were secretly practicing Judaism in an atmosphere
of persecution either. They were not crypto-Jews, privately engaging in
the dogged practice of Judaism, to which they remained inwardly true,
always nourishing a hope that at some time in the future when the politi-
cal conditions were favorable, they would be able to return to Judaism
openly again.^68 For Janet Liebman Jacobs, crypto-Judaism is “the clan-
destine observance of Judaism among individuals and families who had
undergone conversion but who secretly remained faithful to Jewish be-
liefs and traditions.”^69 For Maurus Reinkowski, a crypto-Jew “continues
to secretly adhere to his original religion, whether in a rather unconscious
continuation of religious practices or in the form of a conscious loyalty
to the former religion.”^70 These definitions cannot be applied to Dönme
practices. In fact, when the Dönme “reverted to form” in the twentieth
century, they became Muslims. Expelled from Thessaloníki in 1923 as part