Jews, Muslims, Both, or Neither?

Abstract This chapter deals with the history of the Sabbateans of Salonica, or Dönme, in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. The Dönme are the descendants of the followers of Sabbatai Tsevi, who proclaimed himself Messiah in the seventeenth century. They constitute a unique community on the fringe of Jewish identity. The chapter focuses on the formation of Dönme identity during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and its transformation throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It explores how this identity was shaped by a set of complex and traumatic experiences in different cities under different political regimes, and how these geographical and political characteristics left a profound mark on the belief system and identity of the Dönme.