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This history of the Dönme, followers of seventeenth-century messianic leader Shabbatai Tzevi (an Ottoman convert from Judaism to Islam), offers a timely contribution to a cross-disciplinary trend: the study of ontology, that is, questions about which groups exist, what they have in common, and how they should be grouped or divided. As Baer writes, "What are the limits to being a Jew, a Muslim, a Turk, or a Greek?" Using genealogies, tomb inscriptions, memoirs, interviews, and archival sources, Baer argues that for three hundred centuries the Dönme were neither Crypto-Jews nor heretical Muslims, as many have argued, but something else entirely, namely a mythologized group known for secrecy and syncretism.
Because the Dönme "counted" in records and official documents as Muslims for a large swath of Ottoman history, and due to their near-invisibility today, it is nearly impossible to estimate their demographic contours. However, Baer nicely shows how Dönme identity maps onto other ontologies, specifically how public and private spheres are reclassified over...