Dönmeh

The Jewish writer Gluckel of Hameln, who lived through the ordeal, wrote in her memoir that the whole experience was like a woman suffering through major labor pains, suffering and suffering, but instead of birthing a child, the labor ends only with a fart.

Some decided to follow Sabbatai and convert to Islam, forming what became known as the Donmeh, people who lived outwardly like Muslims but as Jews in secret.

They believed that Sabbatai was undergoing a secret mission, and they needed to follow his lead to convert.

Some of the ideas of the Donmeh, namely the idea that Sabbatai's soul had been reincarnated, led to new movements.

One movement, influenced by a man named Jacob Frank, went on to create a Sabbatean sect known as the Frankists, which incorporated ideas from both Judaism and Christianity.

The third group that formed after Sabbatai's conversion, though small, is perhaps the most interesting.

They nominally became Muslims.

And they actually got a name, the Donmeh.

D-O-N-M-E-H, which is still a group that can be found within Turkey.

And they are recognized that Jews who at one point in mass converted to Islam, but were never quite sure, you know, other Muslims were never quite sure what they were doing.

I just don't think you can make – I suppose if you committed so much to that narrative that Muslims are the evil of everything, then you can't connect that other bit because it breaks that chain.

And then when you point out that the Muslims you're probably talking about that are really pushing this are what we call Donmei, which is Sabbatean Satanists, the same Sabbatean Satanists, I would say, that are the bad guys at the very top.

The disconnect has to happen because it's too full.

It's too complete.