Who are crypto-Jews?
Judaism in Five Minutes - Sarah Imhoff
Sasha M. Ward [+]
University of Washington (PhD candidate)
Sasha M. Ward is a Ph.D. candidate in Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on Sephardi Jewish life in the Eastern Mediterranean, with an emphasis on the late Ottoman and early Turkish Republican periods. Her dissertation explores the political weaponization of antisemitic conspiratorial rhetoric by the Turkish government throughout the twentieth century. Specifically, Sasha is interested in the quotidian history of the real descendants of those crypto-Jews who followed the so-called “mystical messiah” Shabbatai Sevi (17th century) into Islam (known broadly as Dönme), and their imagined political, social, and economic influence.
Description
Crypto-Judaism refers to the secret practice of Judaism while outwardly adopting another religion, typically Christianity or Islam, due to persecution. It emerged during the medieval Iberian Peninsula under Byzantine rule and continued through the Spanish Inquisition. Many Jews, known as conversos, outwardly converted to Catholicism but maintained Jewish traditions privately. Over time, crypto-Jewish communities also developed in Portugal, the Ottoman Empire, and beyond. These groups, including the Salonican Dönme, shaped both Jewish and non-Jewish societies through their religious, social, and economic activities, often maintaining strong internal cohesion despite external pressures.