Sabbatai Ṣevi - by Gershom Gerhard Scholem (Paperback)

About the Book

"Offers a vividly detailed account of the only messianic movement ever to engulf the entire Jewish world. Sabbatai òSevi Sabbatai bevi was an obscure kabbalist rabbi of seventeenth-century Turkey who aroused a fervent following that spread over the Jewish world after he declared himself to be the Messiah. The movement suffered a severe blow when òSevi was forced to convert to Islam, but a clandestine sect survived."--

Book Synopsis

Gershom Scholem stands out among modern thinkers for the richness and power of his historical imagination. A work widely esteemed as his magnum opus, Sabbatai Ṣevi offers a vividly detailed account of the only messianic movement ever to engulf the entire Jewish world. Sabbatai Ṣevi was an obscure kabbalist rabbi of seventeenth-century Turkey who aroused a fervent following that spread over the Jewish world after he declared himself to be the Messiah. The movement suffered a severe blow when Ṣevi was forced to convert to Islam, but a clandestine sect survived. A monumental and revisionary work of Jewish historiography, Sabbatai Ṣevi details Ṣevi's rise to prominence and stands out for its combination of philological and empirical authority and passion. This edition contains a new introduction by Yaacob Dweck that explains the scholarly importance of Scholem's work to a new generation of readers.

Review Quotes

"A major contribution not only to the study of messianic movements but also a study enlightening to the history of the Jewish people."-- "Jewish Press"

"A masterful mix of traditional Jewish scholarship and. . . original insight into the psychology of Judaism."-- "Boston Globe"

"Comprehensive. . . the last word on an astonishing episode of Jewish history."-- "Times Literary Supplement"

"Immensely important and fascinating. . . . A monumental work of historical scholarship, which recounts in minute detail a moving tragedy of vast dimensions."-- "The New York Review of Books"

"Scholem's scholarship betrays an alert presentness. . . . No great textual scholar, no master of philology and historical criticism commands a technique at once more scrupulously attentive to its object and more instinct with the writer's voice. That voices reaches and grips. . . . [M]agisterial."-- "New Yorker"

"This monumental work is an in-depth study of the charming and now widely known - thanks to Scholem ‒ history of the messianic movement of Sabbatai Ṣevi."---George Koutzakiotis, Historical Review

"Undoubtedly one of the all-time masterpieces of scholarship and intellectual history."-- "Commonweal"

About the Author

Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) was one of the most important Jewish intellectuals of the twentieth century and the father of the academic study of Jewish mysticism. He was a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Yaacob Dweck is associate professor of history and Judaic studies at Princeton University. He is the author of The Scandal of Kabbalah (Princeton).