Frankism

Frankism was an 18th-century to 19th-century Jewish religious movement centered around the leadership of the Jewish Messiah claimant Jacob Frank, who lived from 1726 to 1791. At its height, it claimed perhaps 50,000 followers, primarily Jews living in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe. Unlike traditional Judaism, which provides a set of detailed guidelines called halakha that are scrupulously followed by observant Jews and regulate many aspects of life, Frank claimed that "all laws and teachings will fall" and asserted that one's most important personal obligation was the transgression of every boundary.

Frankism is commonly associated with Sabbateanism, a religious movement that formed around the claim that the 17th-century Jewish rabbi Sabbatai Zevi was the Jewish messiah. Like Frankism, the earlier forms of Sabbateanism believed that at least in some circumstances, antinomianism was the correct path. Zevi himself would perform actions that violated traditional Jewish taboos, such as eating fats that were forbidden by Jewish dietary laws and celebrating former fast days as feast days. Especially after Zevi's death, a number of branches of Sabbateanism evolved, which disagreed among themselves over which aspects of traditional Judaism should be preserved and which discarded. Some branches of Sabbateans actually converted to Islam, in emulation of Zevi—in 1666, the Ottoman Sultan had forced Zevi to become a Muslim. The more radical branches even engaged in orgies. In Frankism, orgies featured prominently in ritual.

Several authorities on Sabbateanism, including Heinrich Graetz and Aleksander Kraushar, were skeptical that there was such a thing as a distinctive "Frankist" doctrine. According to Gershom Scholem, another authority on Sabbateanism, Kraushar had described Frank's sayings as "grotesque, comical and incomprehensible." In his classic essay "Redemption Through Sin" Scholem argued a different position, that Frankism was a later and more radical outgrowth of Sabbateanism. In contrast, Jay Michaelson argues that Frankism was "an original theology that was innovative, if sinister" and was in many respects a departure from the earlier formulations of Sabbateanism. In traditional Sabbatean doctrine, Zevi and often his followers claimed to be able to liberate the sparks of holiness hidden within what seemed to be evil. According to Michaelson, Frank's theology asserted that the attempt to liberate the sparks of holiness were the problem, not the solution. Rather, Frank claimed that the mixing between holy and unholy was virtuous.

Eminent descendants of Frankists include former United States Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis. In 1883, a Russian magazine Русская старина (Russian Old Times) issued memoirs of an influential official of the Russian ministry of interior, a privy councillor and a staunch anti-Semite O.A. Phzetslavsky. He promulgated the allegations that the mothers of three of the greatest men of Poland (Frederic Chopin, Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki) were converted Jews from the Frankist sect. Similar assertions were put forth by Mieses and Balaban.

References

• Frank, Yakov (1978). Sayings of Yakov Frank. Harris Lenowitz (trans.). Oakland, CA: Tzaddikim. ISBN 0-917246-05-5. 
• Maciejko, Pawel (2011). The Mixed Multitude:Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-4315-4. 
• Maciejko, Pawel (2003). The Frankist Movement in Poland, the Czech Lands, and Germany (1755–1816). University of Oxford. 
• Maciejko, Pawel (2005). "Frankism". The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Yale University Press. http://www.yivo.org/downloads/frankism.pdf. Retrieved 2009-05-13. 
• Maciejko, Pawel (2005). "'Baruch Yavan and the Frankist movement : intercession in an age of upheaval", Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts 4 (2005) pp. 333–354.
• Maciejko, Pawel (2006). "'Christian elements in early Frankist doctrine", Gal-Ed 20 (2006) pp. 13–41.
• Mandel, Arthur (1979). The Militant Messiah: The Story of Jacob Frank and the Frankists. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. ISBN 0-391-00973-7. 
• Mieses, Mateusz (1938). Polacy–Chrześcijanie pochodzenia żydowskiego. Warsaw: Wydawn. 
• Scholem, Gershom. "‘Shabtai Zvi’ and ‘Jacob Frank and the Frankists’". Encyclopaedia Judaica (CD-ROM ed.). http://www.radicaltorahthought.com/Bio%20Zvi_Frank.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-13. 
• Emeliantseva, Ekaterina, "Zwischen jüdischer Tradition und frankistischer Mystik. Zur Geschichte der Prager Frankistenfamilie Wehle: 1760-1800," Jewish History Quarterly/Kwartalnik Historii Żydów 4 (2001), pp. 549-565.
• Emeliantseva Koller, Ekaterina, "Der fremde Nachbar: Warschauer Frankisten in der Pamphletliteratur des Vierjährigen Sejms: 1788-1792," in: A. Binnenkade, E. Emeliantseva, S. Pacholkiv (eds.), Vertraut und fremd zugleich. Jüdisch-christliche Nachbarschaften in Warschau – Lengnau – Lemberg (= Jüdische Moderne 8), Köln-Weimar: Böhlau 2009, pp. 21-94.
• Emeliantseva Koller, Ekaterina, "Situative Religiosität - situative Identität: Neue Zugänge zur Geschichte des Frankismus in Prag (1750-1860)," in: P. Ernst, G. Lamprecht (eds.), Konzeptionen des Jüdischen – Kollektive Entwürfe im Wandel (= Schriften des Centrums für Jüdische Studien 11), Innsbruck 2009, pp. 38-62.

External links

• The Collection of the Words of the Lord, by Jacob Frank. Edited, translated, annotated and with an introduction by Harris Lenowitz.