Queer Theory and the Jewish Question by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Gay & Lesbian, Literature & Fiction, Literary Criticism, Nonfiction, History & Criticism, Criticism & Theory, Regional & Cultural, Jewish, Politics & Social Sciences, Social Sciences, Specific Demographics, Religion & Spirituality, Judaism, Lesbian; Gay; Bisexual & Transgender eBooks, LGBT Studies, Gay Studies, Lesbian Studies, World Literature
Amazon: B008CP1BY4
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2012-06-18T16:00:00+00:00

Cardoso, Sabbatai Zevi, and Messianic Pretension

The messianism of Abraham Miguel Cardoso reveals in an extreme form some of the consequences of the lived experience of the converso. Sedgwick’s analysis of the response of some homosexuals to the closet provides an insight into Cardoso’s case. Sedgwick (1990:68) describes the “utopian” impulse in some writing by homosexuals. In utopian writing, the author offers a histor- ical narrative that has “as a fulcrum a saving vision—whether located in past or future—of its [i.e., history’s] apocalyptic rupture.” In the case of the crypto- Jews, and of many Christian-identified conversos as well, the utopian re- sponse was linked with a hope for messianic redemption, often sensed as im- manent.21 It is first of all within the context of the utopian response to the converso situation that we must place Abraham Cardoso’s messianism. When in 1665 Sabbatai Zevi declared himself to be the Messiah and most of the Jewish world was swept up in eschatological fervor, Cardoso, like many other former crypto-Jews,22 believed that their utopian dreams were being realized. What happened on September 15, 1666, at the court of Ottoman sultan in Adrianople radically altered the nature of those dreams. The hope was that Sabbatai Zevi would persuade the sultan to accept his messianic claims. How- ever, as I have already mentioned, when Sabbatai Zevi emerged from his meeting with the sultan’s officials, he had converted to Islam, although he continued to proclaim himself the now “occulted” Messiah of Israel.

Some of those who wished to remain true to their belief that the messianic age had been inaugurated with Sabbatai Zevi decided to follow the lead of their messiah and join him in apostasy. Others took a more moderate course, considering Sabbatai Zevi’s apostasy to be a unique act that was not intended to be a model for others. The most prominent spokesperson for this position was Abraham Miguel Cardoso. Scholem saw in Cardoso’s continued alle- giance to Sabbatai Zevi an example of the attraction that a “hidden” messiah had on former crypto-Jews who themselves may have spent a considerable part of their own lives in hiding their real identities (see especially Scholem 1971b:95). For Cardoso, at least, the messiah’s apostasy was not an act he sought to emulate.

Cardoso set out to define the theory and practice of the Sabbatian faith by downplaying the apostasy and the image of a debased messiah. Cardoso’s Jewish triumphalist messianism—he believed that Israel’s redemption would mean the acknowledgment by both Christianity and Islam that their “revela- tions” were utterly without merit—could not countenance the centrality of a debased messiah, nor the practice of self-debasement through apostasy that some Sabbatians adopted in imitation of Sabbatai Zevi. Cardoso was fully

aware of how closely the image of the debased messiah resembled that of the Christian messiah.23 Although he was not afraid to use the “suffering servant” passage in Isaiah 53 as a proof text for the messianic status of the debased Sab- batai Zevi, he sought to distinguish Sabbatai Zevi’s debasement from that

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