Shabtai Zvi

Woe and grief go to the defeated and wreaths of love songs are readied for the victor. Thus one can define in this history all the failures and successes of dreamers and fantasizers. The history of mankind in general and of the Jewish people in particular is full of their dreams and fantasies that were dreamt about bringing redemption to the world, for their people and for the world. Many of them struggled against windmills, and appeared comical even in the eyes of their contemporaries, whom they wanted to redeem and to make free. Many others were crowned with recognition as the redeemers of their people, and marble monuments are placed in the open squares of their capitals. Those who lost ended their careers mostly on a high gallows and their names were left in shame and disgrace. The winners had their names inscribed in golden letters in the history of their people and in mankind’s annals.

Human history is full of examples of such opposing forces, and our Jewish history can count tens and even hundreds of such cases, where on the one hand their names sparkle with gold and we are proud of them, and on the other hand there are names that were covered with shame, in the best circumstance evoking an ironic smile.

Amongst the latter are the names of the so-called false Messiahs of the Jews, who remained false after their downfall, but whose names would have been respected had they been successful in their undertakings.

Consider if the false Messiah, David Hareuveni had succeeded in convincing the Pope or the King of Portugal that they should give him weapons and ships in order to fight the Turkish Sultan, and to free the land of Israel, where he would put in place a Jewish entity! Then the name David Hareuveni, in that case, would be written in golden letters in the annals of the Jewish history and he would have been forever considered as the Jewish George Washington. Or, consider the opposite – if George Washington’s revolution against England would not have succeeded, then Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, our current American heroes, would be considered as simply bandits, but instead there is today a monument of Washington in granite, before the British Parliament in Westminster in London.

It turned out otherwise for David Hareuveni. He failed and he is labeled forever as a   false messiah. And a bitter aftertaste also remained for the Jew with the great soul, David Hareuveni’s follower, Shlomo Molko.

The same can be said about Shabtai Zvi, who in his era caused a storm amongst the entire Jewish people. Rich and poor, unlearned and scholars, attached themselves to the pathway of Shabtai Zvi and they were so confused in their thinking that it reached almost a religious insanity. The famous Jewish lady, Glikl of Hamel, wrote in her Rememberences,

“It is impossible to describe the joy which overcame all of us when the letters from Turkey arrived. We dressed in our holiday clothes and danced in the streets to the sounds of music and we were as happy as were the Jews at the time of the restoration of the Holy Temple.”

Even gentiles believed then, that the Jews were being redeemed from their long dispersion and Israel would be restored. A widespread concept held that the Jews would soon be building their country in the land of Israel, the Holy Land of their ancestors.

This Shabtai Zvi Messiah concept lived in the memory of the Jewish people for nearly 300 years. Even in our own recent past one might have encountered from time to time a follower of Shabtai Zvi who believed with perfect faith that despite his conversion, Shabta