Information AboutDonmeh |
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HISTORY While outwardly Muslim , the Donmeh secretly remained Jews, and continued to practice Jewish rituals covertly. They worshipped Sabbatai Zevi as the Messiah and an incarnation of God, observe certain Jewish rituals and pray in Hebrew and Aramaic and secretly celebrate Jewish Festivals And Fasts . They also observe Ritual s celebrating Zevi. They interpreted Zevi's conversion in a Kabbalistic way. Zevi had to rescue the bits of God spread among Religion s by converting to different confessions. Some of the original Donmeh were Muslims who were converted to ''Sabbateanism''. There are several branches of the Donmeh. The first was the Ismirli formed in Izmir in what is now Turkey . The second were the Jakubi founded by Jacob Querido , a successor to Zevi who also made messianic claims. Also were the Othman Baba led by Berechia. This group taught Jacob Frank who led the ''Frankists'' in 18th Century Eastern Europe and the fifth were the Lechli who are of Polish Descent who lived in exile in Salonika and Constantinople . While being accepted by the Muslim society, they only Married Within Their Own Community which resulted in several Recessive genetic traits being typical of Donmeh. Several Donmeh were among the Young Turks , Turkish intellectuals who tried to reform the Ottoman Empire. At the time of the Interchange of Greek and Turkish populations between Turkey and Greece, the Salonika Donmeh tried to be recognized as not Muslims to avoid forced transport to Anatolia . In the Republican era, they strongly supported the pro-Western and ''laïque'' reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk , an attitude that bolstered the suspicions of Muslims towards them. Donmeh have always been targets of Anti-semitism in Turkey but since the publication of the book ''Şebeke "Network"'' by Socialist writer Prof. Dr. Yalçın Küçük in 2002 , a new wave of Conspiracy Theories popular among the right-wing and left-wing nationalists emerged. According to these theories, Donmeh are related to each other through a network that consequently links them to " International Jewry " and they are the ones behind consecutive governments in Turkey (compare to ZOG ). An interesting case is the one of Ilgaz Zorlu, a Donmeh publisher who founded ''Zvi Publishers'' in 2000 and sought recognition as a Jew but a Beth Din denied his application. Then he filed a lawsuit against the Turkish government and managed to change his "religion entry" in his ID records from Islam to Judaism . His acts are seen controversial by many, particularly due to his cooperation with renowned anti-Semites like Mehmed Şevket Eygi. Isik University (a private university in Istanbul, Turkey) and the Feyziye Schools Foundation (Feyziye Mektepleri Vakfi - FMV) under whose umbrella the University is operating, are claimed to be founded by the Donmeh. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS |
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