The Lost Messiah: In Search of the Mystical Rabbi Sabbatai Sevi Hardcover - 2003 - 1st Edition

by John Freely

Rabbi Sabbatai Sevi is one of the most controversial religious figures in all history. In The Lost Messiah, acclaimed author John Freely follows Sevi's trail and the traces of the Jewish cult that grew up around him-one that still inspires belief today. Brilliantly evoking the vanished world of the seventeenth-century Jewish diaspora in the Ottoman Empire, the narrative moves from Sevi's birthplace in Izmir on the Aegean coast of Turkey, to the ghettos of Venice and Rome, the bazaars of Cairo, and the rabbinical schools of Jerusalem and Safed, all the while placing the exotic story into magnificent context with details of the state of the current Jewish communities in these areas. As Damian Thompson wrote in The Mail on Sunday, "Everything in this book is astonishing."

The result of thirty years of research and travel, The Lost Messiah deftly interweaves the work of respected scholars-including the pioneering writings of Gershom Scholem-along with Freely's own firsthand knowledge of ancient and contemporary Turkey and its environs. From the theoretical and practical background of Sevi's messianic movement and its emergence from the mysticism of the Kabbalah, Freely describes the many early unorthodoxies that turned many in Sevi's community against him and then goes on to provide explanations for how and why Sevi nevertheless acquired an international following that continued to support and believe in him-even after his shocking apostasy and conversion to Islam in the year 1666.