The Lost Messiah: The Astonishing Story of Sabbatai Sevi

The Lost Messiah: The Astonishing Story of Sabbatai Sevi

by JohnFreely (Author)

Synopsis

This is the astonishing story of Sabbatai Sevi, 17th-century rabbi, Kabbalist and probable manic depressive, who convinced large numbers of Jews throughout Europe, the Middle East and North Africa that he was their long-awaited Messiah. And then, on threat of painful death from the Turkish Sultan, apparently converted to Islam and in so doing created the strange Donme sect - outwardly Muslim, yet clinging secretly to Sabbatai's strange form of mystical Judaism - a sect that may survive to this day. When John Freely came across this remarkable story in an old Jewish bookshop in Istanbul, he was instantly fascinated. Brilliantly evoking the world of 17th-century Jewish diaspora in the Ottoman empire, the ghettoes of Venice and Rome, the bazaars of Cairo, the Sultan's palaces in Istanbul and the synagogues of North Africa, Freely takes us deep into the esoteric world of Jewish mysticism and a messianic cult which still inspires belief in the Kabbalah.

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Quantity

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Edition: New edition
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 26 Sep 2002

ISBN 10: 0140284915
ISBN 13: 9780140284911

Media Reviews
This is a tantalising account of a true enigma. Glasgow Herald
Author Bio
John Freely was born in New York in 1926, joined the US Navy at the age of seventeen and served in the Second World War. He received a Ph.D. in physics from New York University in 1960, and since then he has lived in New York, Boston, London, Athens, Istanbul and Venice. Freely's first book was STROLLING THROUGH ISTANBUL. Since then he has written over twenty books, including ISTANBUL and INSIDE THE SERAGLIO (1999).