to Judaism. According to Scholem, the Donmeh numbered around 200 fami-
lies. They were honored by Nathan of Gaza for their piety and devotion.
The Donmeh first appeared in 1676, and were initially centered in
Adrianople. After 1676, they moved to Salonika, where they remained until
- The Donmeh’s core belief was that the conversion of the Messiah had
inverted the world theologically, good becoming evil, piety becoming heresy,
and vice versa. To this end, they compiled a list of eighteen precepts to
replace the Ten Commandments. They redefined the prohibition on adultery,
for example, as optional. They replaced conventional Jewish holidays with
new ones, including Hag ha-Keves(literally, the Festival of the Lamb), which
they celebrated with an orgy a week after Purim; and Hag ha-Semachot(liter-
ally, the Festival of Happiness), in which they commemorated Shabbetai Zvi’s
birth on the ninth of Av.
After 1680, the Donmeh began to fragment into subsects. In 1680,
Shabbetai Zvi’s second wife, Jochebed, also known as Aisha, proclaimed her
younger brother Jacob Querido to be the reincarnation of Shabbetai Zvi. This
prompted a disagreement between the original Donmeh community and fol-
lowers of Querido. Initially, this disagreement worked to the benefit of the
Donmeh. The propaganda competition that ensued wound up by attracting
many new followers and conversions of Jews to Islam, including a growing
number of adherents from Poland. When Jacob Querido died around 1695,
the Donmeh split into two groups: the original community became known as
Izmirim, the followers of Jacob Querido as Ya’akoviim.
During the early eighteenth century, the Izmirim split again when
Baruchiah Russo, son of one of the original followers, was proclaimed by his
disciples to be the reincarnation of Shabbetai Zvi. In 1716, a third subsect
formed around him, known as the Konyosos. This sect was the most radical and
zealous among the Donmeh. After Russo died in 1720, his grave became a pil-
grimage site. Six hundred followers visited the site in 1774. Among the
Konyosos were Jacob Frank and his followers, the radical fringe of the Donmeh.
Frank (1726–91) was a teacher in Czernowitz and initially a conservative
Sabbatean. By 1752, his reputation as an inspired Sabbatean attracted the
attention of the Konyosos Donmeh, who recruited him, brought him to
Salonika, and conferred on him the Sephardic honorific Hakham Ya’akov (Jacob
the Sage). When he returned to Poland in 1755, he was referred to as Jacob
Frank – Frank being the term that Polish Jews used to describe Sephardic Jews.
A year later, while in the community of Lanskroun, he was discovered conduct-
ing Sabbatean rituals in a locked house, and forced to flee to back to the
Ottoman Empire. He became an icon for secret Sabbateans in Poland and
Moravia, who were especially drawn to his theological distinction between
Torat de-azilut(Torah of emanation) – which he believed contained the truth of
Judaism – and Torat de-beriah(Torah of creation), which he claimed was the false
Torah studied and observed by Jews who were not Sabbateans.
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