Conclusion
The desire to ensure secrecy about the group’s origins stemmed from
many causes. These include the threat of violence, the first the Dönme
had faced in their nearly three centuries of existence. The economic dis-
crimination of the wealth tax alerted them that their efforts over two de-
cades at assimilation had failed; their ancestors were known to be Jews,
causing them to be considered masked or hidden, secret Jews. Fear of
the Holocaust made them realize the danger of being regarded as Jews,
leading to ethnic anxiety and the internalization of racism.^55 Unlike in
the case of the Southwestern crypto-Jews, such a context did not rein-
force their identity, but instead combined with the other factors, includ-
ing the difficulty of maintaining their religion in a new homeland, and
constant pressure to become secular Turkish nationalists, served as cause
for the ultimate weakening of the religious bonds that had once been
their reason for being. Facing strong prejudice, many Dönme decided to
abandon their separate ethno-religious identity to defend themselves (and
their descendants) from hatred and violence. Difference and stigma had
the effect of marginalizing a people living in an environment that stressed
homogeneity. One might think that this would help the Dönme remain
isolated and cohesive as a corporate body, as in Salonika. In fact, realizing
after two decades in Turkey that the pressure on them would not relent,
and that the only choice was to become secular nationalists, Dönme iden-
tity and religion to all intents and purposes largely dissolved after World
War II, and they intermarried.