The Burden of Silence

The Burden of Silence is the first comprehensive history of an early modern Ottoman-Jewish messianic movement, Sabbateanism. Using Ottoman, Jewish, and European sources, Sisman shows how proponents of Sabbateanism, members of a crypto-Judeo-Islamic sect known as the Donme, were able to survive despite persecution from Ottoman authorities by internalizing the Kabbalistic principle of a "burden of silence" according to which believers keep their secret on pain of spiritual and material punishment.