Introduction tice is proof of their being secret Jews. Jewish historians in Turkey share
this assumption. Thus Avram Galanté, the author of the first monograph
on the group, published in 1935 , would not concede that they could have
maintained a unique ethno-religious identity, nor some of them have been
pious Muslims, instead arguing that they had a tendency to be reconciled
with Judaism, an approach that has continued to prevail among work that
explores their religious tenets and practices in the context of Jewish his-
tory and does not allow for the complexity of their history, experience, or
dynamic expression of religion to emerge.
Turkish historians have been bewildered by the Dönme in part because
on the surface, Dönme practice appeared to be hybrid. While ostensibly
following the requirements of Islam, including fasting at Ramadan and
praying in mosques, one of which they built, the Dönme at the same
time practiced kabbalistic rituals, and recited prayers in Hebrew and
Ladino, the language of most Jews in the Ottoman Empire.^76 It would
seem as if the distinct paramount values of Judaism and Islam were given
equal consideration, and that the Dönme maintained both religions.^77
Yet rather than being a hybrid of Judaism and Islam, in which the two
religions coexisted side by side, the Dönme religion syncretized elements
of the two, merging or combining them to form new ritual and para-
mount values in the process. Their religion was a spiritual synthesis based
on two religions, which incorporated elements of Kabbalah Judaism and
Sufi Islam—Bektaşi for the Karakaş and Mevlevi for the Kapancı—into a
new construction that neither Jews nor Muslims recognized. As Benayahu
argues, “Islam was the outward garment” of their religion, “but its inward
spirit was not founded upon the bases of the Torah, as the situation de-
manded, but, on the contrary, impaired the root principles of Judaism.”^78
For the Dönme, unlike Jews or Muslims, Shabbatai Tzevi’s (and his suc-
cessors’) messiahship and rituals based upon it were the central elements
in their religion.
Yet being Dönme was not limited to maintaining unique rituals and a
distinct creed. Attached to their religious core was an ethnic identity. The
Dönme chose to distinguish themselves from Jews and Muslims. They
managed to maintain cultural difference through social segregation while
assimilating into Ottoman society.^79 They assimilated while remaining
a devout religious community, forming both a closed caste protecting a
unique religion and a fully acculturated group fitting in with their sur-
rounding culture. They thus created and maintained an ethnic social