ABSTRACT
Recently the international media and academia have paid significant attention to the remains of a three-storey structure in Izmir, Turkey. The cause of all this interest is that the derelict building, located in the city’s former Jewish quarter in the Kemeraltı neighbourhood, was thought by many to be the birthplace of Sabbatai Sevi (1626–1676). This building has been one of the central “memory” sites for the “open secret” Donme beliefs and practices. The discussion has, by and large, revolved around three major questions: (a) whether or not the house was indeed Sevi’s family residence; (b) whether or not the site has served as an actual place of residence or pilgrimage in the intervening centuries; and (c) assuming that the building is indeed proven to have belonged to Sevi, how should it be understood and valued? This article claims that the building was indeed one of the houses in which Sabbatai Sevi lived, and that it has been subsequently used by his followers and sympathizers, who transformed it into a lieu de mémoire, a site of memory, as Pierre Nora would put it.
