Subbotnik Jews

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Subbotnik Jews or Sabbatarian Jews or Shabbati Jews or Talmudist Subbotnik Gerei also known as Sabbatian Jews sometimes misspelled Sabbatean Jews (and also known as Di Royte Yidlekh in Yiddish) are an endangered East European Romaniote Pharisaical community who have historically identified themselves as religious Jews (Yudei) rather than simply as the Shabbati Hebrews (Yevrei) aka Shabbati Noahides they pastor. Shabbati Jews are a Shomeir Shabbat community who obey without imitating the Babylonian Talmud's Scribes and Pharisees. They practice the Palestinian Romaniote/Yerushalmi Minhag of HaQaraim but are not Karaite Jews. Unlike other Pharisaical communities and unlike Karaite Jews, Shabbati Jews believe most of the laws of Judaism only apply for Sabbaths and Yom Tovs. They mainly survive today only as Masorti Israelis who often have to go through an Orthodox Giyur Lechumra in order to be counted as Orthodox Jews. Ariel Sharon's Mother was a Shabbati Jew. The Tora-centered B'nei Moshe movement is tied with the Shabbatis and formed the majority of the Jaffa port population. In 1904, later famous Spiritual-Zionist rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook was invited by them to become their rabbi. Many lived outside of the 1967 borders and came o be known as settlers. However, in 2004 the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Amar ruled the Shabbatis were not defined as Jewish and would have to undergo an Orthodox conversion. Many like the Hilltop Youth settlers began to identify as Hardalim after that in order to try and assert their Jewish identity and to deny their Subbotnik origins rather than go through giyur Lechumra. Nevertheless some Shabbati Jews still exist as distinct from their fellow Talmudist Subbotnik Gerei who have rejected their Shabbati heritage in order to assimilate into one or another specific Hareidi movement. Shabbati Jews are the Ger Tzedek leaders of Hagerim/Erevrav. They traditionally served as a Petter Chamor Episcopate to oversee the Messianic Noahite Shabbati Hebrew aka "Edomean Ishmaelite" Tsabi community. The Interior Ministry classified the Shabbatis as a Christian sect and ineligible for aliyah to Israel, because no one knew if their ancestors had formally converted to Judaism (and there is much historic evidence that they did not) but the ruling was abolished in 2014, with an attempt by the Interior Ministry to allow remaining Shabbati families like Hakham Yose Khoen's to make Aliyah and immigrate to Israel.

The only recognized traditional Shabbati religious leader today is Hakham Yose Khoen who was granted a Giyur Lechumra under the auspices of Edah Haredit by Dov Meir Stein's Nascent Sanhedrin Project in 2010.

Tsevi ben Mordechai better known as Shabbati Tsevi was a Shabbati Jew who is attributed by Nathanists as the founder of the Dönmeh sect also known as Sabbateans.]