Sabbatai Sevi in England
Several years ago Gershom Scholem's authoritative work on the seventeenth century messianic figure Sabbatai Sevi, first published in Hebrew in 1957, appeared in a revised English translation. The importance of Scholem's work for an informed understanding of the Sabbatian movement and for t...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1977
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| In: |
AJS review
Year: 1977, Volume: 2, Pages: 131-169 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Several years ago Gershom Scholem's authoritative work on the seventeenth century messianic figure Sabbatai Sevi, first published in Hebrew in 1957, appeared in a revised English translation. The importance of Scholem's work for an informed understanding of the Sabbatian movement and for the general study of religious and political movements must be acknowledged by all readers. The relevance of Sabbatai's career in the Levant to the specific historical context of post-Restoration England may be less evident. If the English involvement with Sabbatai is compared with the excitement generated in other European countries by his appearance, the English connection cannot fail to appear questionable. The Jewish community in London was a relatively small one at the time of Sabbatai's ascendancy, and the mass of contemporary material on which Scholem has drawn to document this extraordinary episode in Jewish history includes little that was produced for or by “English Jews.” Moreover, Scholem takes pains to discredit the common notion that English Christian speculations on the year 1666 played a direct, causal role in determining Sabbatai's public emergence in the summer of the preceding year, without denying the historical interest of this conjunction of Christian expectations and Jewish developments. In the following discussion, I hope to establish the major significance of Sabbatai Sevi for England by examining several questions—limited in comparison with those entertained by Sabbatai's most profound and exhaustive historian—concerning the English awareness of him 300 years ago. How and in what form did the unparalleled developments in the Levant from 1665 to 1667 first become known to English-speaking people? What contribution was made by the Sabbatian movement to Christian eschatology and to the expectations aroused among its devotees by the approach of the “wonderful year” 1666? What was the range of response to the movement among English observers; what was its ideological or sectarian meaning to contemporaries? In confronting these questions I will, of course, rely heavily on Scholem's analysis and documentation of Sabbatai's career. |
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| ISSN: | 1475-4541 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Association for Jewish Studies, AJS review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0364009400000234 |