The Mixed Multitude
JEWISH CULTURE AND CONTEXTS
Published in association with
the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
of the University of Pennsylvania
David B. Ruderman, Series Editor
Advisory Board Richard I. Cohen Moshe Idel Alan Mintz Deborah Dash Moore Ada Rapoport-Albert Michael D. Swartz
A complete list of books in the series
is available from the publisher.
The Mixed Multitude
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Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement, 1755 –1816
PAWEŁ MACIEJKO
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant
from the Herbert D. Katz Publications Fund
of the Center for Avanced Judaic Studies.
Copyright © 2011 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for
purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book
may be reproduced in any form by any means without
written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Maciejko, Paweł, 1971–
The mixed multitude : Jacob Frank and the Frankist movement, 1755– 1816 / Paweł Maciejko. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Jewish culture and contexts)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8122-4315-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Frank, Jacob, ca. 1726–1791. 2. Jewish Messianic movements—Europe, Eastern—History. 3. Judaism—Europe, Eastern—History—18th century. 4. Judaism—Europe, Eastern—History—19th century. I. Title. II. Series: Jewish culture and contexts.
BM755.F68M33 2011
| 296.8’3—dc22 | 2010036520 |
To my mother and thememory of my father
And the People of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot, who were men, beside children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, and very many cattle.
—Exod. 12:37-38
It is them [the mixed multitude] who cause the world to revert to the state of waste and void. The mystery of this matter is that because of them the Temple was destroyed, “and the earth was waste and void” [Gen. 1:2], for [the Temple] is the center and foundation of the world. Yet as soon as the light, which is the Holy One, blessed be He, comes, they will be wiped off the face of the earth and will perish.
—Zohar 1:25b
Contents
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Chapter 1. In the Shadow of the Herem
Chapter 2. The Peril of Heresy, the Birth of a New Faith
Chapter 3. Where Does Frankism Fit In?
Chapter 4. The Politics of the Blood Libel
Chapter 5. How Rabbis and Priests Created the Frankist Movement
Chapter 6. Ghosts of the Past, Heralds of the Future
Chapter 8. The Vagaries of the Charlatans
Chapter 9. The Ever-Changing Masquerade
List of Current and Historical Place Names
Preface
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The linguistic and political complexity of the region where Frankism developed means that several variants of place and personal names exist. Where there is an accepted English spelling, I have used it (therefore Warsaw, Prague, Vienna). Otherwise, I have preferred the official forms as they were during the time that the events described in this book took place (thus the Lwów—not Lemberg, Lviv, or Lvov—disputation of 1759). For the names of people, I have employed either the existing English equivalents (thus Jacob Frank, not Ya’akov or Jakub Frank or Frenk) or the forms most frequently used in the documents discussed in the body of the present work (Elyakim ben Asher Zelig and not Jankiel Selek).
An attempt has been made to achieve consistency in the transliteration of words written in scripts other than Latin. For Hebrew and Aramaic, I have employed the slightly modified system of Encyclopaedia Judaica. Tsadi is written ts; khaf is written kh; no distinction is made between he and het and between alef and ayin; dagesh hazak is represented by doubling the consonant; sheva nah—by e. In very few instances, in which eighteenth-century sources written in Latin characters contain transliterated Hebrew words or expressions, I have retained the original spelling reflecting either local (usually Ashkenazic) pronunciation of Hebrew or idiosyncrasies of the scribes. For Yiddish, the transliteration adopted follows the YIVO system; for Cyrillic, the British Standard scheme is followed.
Quotations from the Hebrew Bible follow the Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh: A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text (Philadelphia, 1988);