Book description
In 1756, Jacob Frank, an Ottoman Jew who had returned to the Poland
of his birth, was discovered leading a group of fellow travelers in a
suspect religious service. At the request of the local rabbis, Polish
authorities arrested the participants. Jewish authorities contacted
the bishop in whose diocese the service had taken place and argued
that since the rites of Frank's followers involved the practice of
magic and immoral conduct, both Jews and Christians should condemn
them and burn them at the stake. The scheme backfired, as the
Frankists took the opportunity to ally themselves with the Church,
presenting themselves as Contra-Talmudists who believed in a triune
God. As a Turkish subject, Frank was released and temporarily expelled
to the Ottoman territories, but the others were found guilty of
breaking numerous halakhic prohibitions and were subject to a Jewish
ban of excommunication. While they professed their adherence to
everything that was commanded by God in the Old Testament, they
asserted as well that the Rabbis of old had introduced innumerable
lies and misconstructions in their interpretations of that holy book.
Who were Jacob Frank and his followers? To most Christians, they
seemed to be members of a Jewish sect; to Jewish reformers, they
formed a group making a valiant if misguided attempt to bring an end
to the power of the rabbis; and to more traditional Jews, they were
heretics to be suppressed by the rabbinate. What is undeniable is that
by the late eighteenth century, the Frankists numbered in the tens of
thousands and had a significant political and ideological influence on
non-Jewish communities throughout eastern and central Europe.
Based on extensive archival research in Poland, the Czech
Republic, Israel, Germany, the United States, and the Vatican, The
Mixed Multitude is the first comprehensive study of Frank and
Frankism in more than a century and offers an important new
perspective on Jewish-Christian relations in the Age of Enlightenment.
""A major scholarly achievement . . . this is the single
best study written to date of Frank and Frankism in all their
complexity and will be required reading for any student or scholar of
early modern Jewish history and Christian-Jewish relations, kabbalah,
and Jewish messianism."-AJS Review
Pawel Maciejko is Lecturer in Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem.
