Sabbatai Zevi - The False Messiah

Sabbatai Zevi was born in 1626 to a wealthy merchant family in Smyrna, a town on the west coast of Turkey known as Izmir today. He rose to be a charismatic Rabbi and Kabbalist who, in 1666, declared himself to be the Messiah. This eccentric mystic managed to attract over a million devotees during his lifetime. A remarkable achievement given this was about half of the Jewish population in the 17th century.