Jacob Joseph Frank (; ; born Jakub Lejbowicz; 1726 – 10 December 1791) was a Polish-Jewish religious leader who claimed to be the reincarnation of the self-proclaimed messiah Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676) and also of the biblical patriarch Jacob. The Jewish authorities in Poland excommunicated Frank and his followers due to his heretical doctrines that included deification of himself as a part of a trinity and other controversial concepts such as neo-Carpocratian "purification through transgression".
Frank arguably created a new denomination of Judaism, now referred to as Frankism, which incorporated some aspects of Christianity into Judaism. The development of Frankism was one of the consequences of the messianic movement of Sabbatai Zevi. This religious mysticism followed socioeconomic changes among the Jews of Poland, Lithuania and Ruthenia.
Historical background
There were numerous Jewish secret societies of Sabbateans (followers of Sabbatai Zevi), known as Dönmeh, in Eastern Poland (now Ukraine), particularly in Podolia and Galicia, at the end of the seventeenth century.
In expectation of the great Messianic revolution, the members of these societies violated Jewish laws and customs. The mystical cult of the Sabbateans is believed to have included both asceticism and sensuality: some did penance for their sins, subjected themselves to self-inflicted pain, and "mourned for Zion"; others disregarded the strict rules of modesty required by Judaism, and at times were accused of being licentious. The Polish rabbis attempted to ban the "Sabbatean heresy" at the assembly at Lwów (now Lviv in Ukraine) in 1722. Still, they could not fully succeed, as it was widely popular among the nascent Jewish middle class.
Early life
Jacob Frank is believed to have been born as Jakub Lejbowicz to a Polish-Jewish family in Korołówka, in Podolia of Eastern Poland (now in Ukraine), in about 1726. The Polish historian Gaudenty Pikulski affirmed that Frank was born in Buchach and Agnon even showed the house where he was born was located on Korołówka street in Buchach. His father was a Sabbatean, and moved to Czernowitz, in the Carpathian region of Bukovina, in 1730, where the Sabbatean influence at the time was strong.
As a travelling merchant in textile and precious stones he often visited Ottoman territories, where he earned the nickname "Frank", a name generally given in the East to Europeans, and lived in the centers of contemporary Sabbateanism, Salonica and Smyrna.
In the early 1750s, Frank became intimate with the leaders of the Sabbateans. Two followers of the Sabbatian leader Osman Baba (b. 1720) were witnesses at his wedding in 1752. In 1755, he reappeared in Podolia, gathered a group of local adherents, and began to preach the "revelations" which were communicated to him by the Dönmeh in Salonica. One of these gatherings in Landskron ended in a scandal, and the rabbis' attention was drawn to the new teachings. Frank was forced to leave Podolia, while his followers were hounded and denounced to the local authorities by the rabbis (1756). At the rabbinical court held in the village of Satanów (today Sataniv in Ukraine) the Sabbateans were accused of having broken fundamental Jewish laws of morality and modesty.
The anti-Talmudists
Consequent to these disclosures the congress of rabbis in Brody proclaimed a universal herem (excommunication) against all "impenitent heretics", and made it obligatory upon every pious Jew to seek them out and expose them. The Sabbateans informed Mikołaj Dembowski, the Catholic Bishop of Kamieniec Podolski, Poland, that they rejected the Talmud and recognized only the sacred book of Kabbalah, the Zohar, which did not contradict the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. They stated that they regarded the Messiah-Deliverer as one of the embodiments of the three divinities.
The bishop took Frank and his followers (the "Anti-Talmudists", or "Zoharistic Jews") under his protection and in 1757 arranged a religious disputation between them and the rabbis of the traditionalist community. The Anti-Talmudists presented their theses, which began the intense dispute. The bishop sided in favour of the Frankists and also ordered the burning of all copies of the Talmud in Poland. 10,000 volumes were destroyed, which was a tremendous loss for the Jewish libraries of that era.
After the death of the bishop, the Sabbateans were subjected to severe persecution by the rabbis, although they succeeded in obtaining an edict from Augustus III of Poland guaranteeing them safety.