Frankism:The History of Jacob Frank Or of the Frankists

Frankism:The History of Jacob Frank or of the Frankists JAN DOKTÓR n the literature on the subject—even the most up to date—the history of IFrankism is presented as the story of a charismatic messianic pretender and his followers, and not as the history of the development of Jewish messianism, which in the mid-eighteenth century emerged—in the southeastern border- lands of the Polish Commonwealth—out of the Sabbatean underground.1 1 This was already well expressed by the title and contents of the very first historical piece on the subject of Frankism, written by Hipolit Skimborowicz, Żywot, skon i nauka Jakuba Józefa Franka [The life, death and teaching of Jakub Józef Frank] (Warsaw: J. Unger, 1866), who simply assumed that the history of Frank and Frankism are identical. The literature on the subject of Jacob Frank and Frankism is vast. The best and most fully documented volume is by Aleksander Kraushar, Frank i frankiści polscy 1726–1816. Monografia historyczna osnuta na źródłach archiwalnych i rękopiśmiennych [Frank and the Polish Frankists 1726– 1816. A monograph based on archival and manuscript sources] (Kraków: G. Gebethner i spółki, 1895). Another work which is still valuable today is Meir Balaban’s Letoldot hat- nu‘a hafrankit, 2 vols. (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1934–35). There is a very important collection by Gershom Scholem: Mechkarim umekorot letoldot ha-shabta’ut vegilguleha [Researches and documents on the history of Sabbateanism and its transformation] (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1974). The latest books on Frankism are by Ada Rapoport-Albert, Women and the Messianic Heresy of Sabbatai Zevi 1666–1816 (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2011), and by Paweł Maciejko, The Mixed Multitude: Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement, 1755–1816 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011; Polish translation: Wieloplemienny tłum. Jakub Frank i ruch frankistowski 1755–1816, [Warsaw: W podworku, 2015]). My own works about Frank and Frankism are mainly Jakub Frank i jego nauka na tle kryzysu religijnej tradycji osiemnastowiecznego żydostwa polskiego [Jakub Frank and his teaching against the background of the crisis of religious tradition of eighteenth-century Polish Jewry] (Warsaw: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii PAN, 1991) and Śladami mesjasza-apostaty. Żydowskie ruchy mesjańskie w XVII i XVIII wieku a problem kon- wersji [In the footsteps of the Messiah-Apostate. Jewish messianic movements in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries and the problem of conversion] (Wrocław: FNP, 1998). At 262 Part Two Historiographic Questions Thus it was supposed to have begun with Jacob Frank’s arrival in December 1755 in the commonwealth, when he was caught performing sectarian rites with some other Jewish messianists. It was to end with his death in 1791 or else (according to the modern literature on the subject) with the death of his daughter Eva in 1816. Such a take on Frankism can be partly explained by the state of the sources, which are focused or even fixated on the charismatic character of Frank. His sectarian comrades and rivals have virtually disappeared from the records of history. Instead, his daughter Eva emerged as his alleged messianic successor. But, to be fair, his contemporaries were not really interested in preserving the truth about the beginnings of the sect and its intricate fate. In this essay, I present the most significant moments in the history of Frankism, whose image in the historiography (including my own earlier works) requires revision. THE ARRIVAL OF JACOB FRANK IN THE COMMONWEALTH, AND THE INCIDENTS IN LANCKORON There is no doubt that the events of January 27, 1756, in Lanckoroń2 near Kamieniec Podolski, when a number of messianic sectarians, including Frank, ostentatiously manifested their Sabbatean faith, can be accepted as the founding act of the movement that later came to be called Frankism.3 After being revealed, the sectarians were assaulted by Jews gathered at the market, denounced to the local authorities, and arrested. This began a spiral of events, which culminated in two public debates with rabbis and in hundreds of sect members joining the Roman Catholic Church. We still do not know, however, why and with whom Jacob Frank traveled to the Polish Commonwealth. We also do not know whether the incidents in Lanckoroń were accidental events that brought about totally unexpected results, fraught with consequences—or if this was, rather, a planned demonstration, if not a provocation. These are the end of the twentieth century I published the most important Frankist sources: Rozmaite adnotacje, przypadki, czynności i anekdoty Pańskie [Various divine annotations, cases, actions and anecdotes] (Warsaw: Tikkun, 1996], quoted further as RA, and Księga słów Pańskich. Ezoteryczne wykłady Jakuba Franka [A book of divine words. Ezoteric lectures by Jakub Frank] (Warsaw: Semper, 1997), second complete edition: Słowa Pańskie [Divine Words] (Warsaw: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, 2016), quoted further as SP. 2 Today, Zariczanka in Ukraine. 3 I write at length about the Lanckoroń incident in my article, “Lanckoroń in 1756 and the Beginnings of Polish Frankism: An Attempt at a New Outlook,” Jewish History Quarterly 3, no. 255 (September 2015): 396–411. Frankism:The History of Jacob Frank or of the Frankists 263 important questions, because the answers could help us determine Frank’s actual role in the movement, the extent to which Frank was its initiator and actual leader in the initial phase (his leadership in the final phase is unquestion- able), and the degree to which his image as founder was created and mythol- ogized. Jaakow Josef ben Leib, known as Frenk and later as Frank, was born in Podolia in 1726 but left with his parents for Wallachia when he was barely a year old. He saw himself as a Sephardic Jew, he did not know Yiddish (his mother tongue was Ladino), and—as he admitted himself—he had no affinity with Poland and the Polish Jews. Until the autumn of 1755, there was nothing to indicate his messianic mission in Poland, particularly nothing coming from him. The circumstances of his arrival in the commonwealth and his removal a few weeks later are among the most important and least explained facts in the history of Frankism. Frank did not come alone but with a large (more than ten) group of Balkan sectarians. It included only one Polish Jew—his matchmaker Nah. man ben Samuel from Busko, who had accompanied him during his cam- paign in the Balkans after Frank’s wedding in 1752. We do not know whether he came on his own initiative or was sent by someone. In the latter case, in my view more probably, he could only have been instructed to make such a jour- ney by the Koniosos of Thessalonica, the descendants of Sabbatean converts to Islam, whose authority was accepted at that time by the majority of the followers of Sabbatai Zevi, including those in Poland. The course of events that followed suggests that Frank arrived with his companions to take part in a demonstration, which had been planned over a period of time by the sectarians of Podolia in agreement with the area’s church hierarchy. Having gathered in Czernowitz in Bukowina,4 the sectarians from Wallachia (Frank was believed to be one of them) made their way first to Korolevka, where Frank’s uncle resided, and from there on to Lwów (Lviv) for talks with the clergy. Frank himself was not let into the curia. We do not know the subject matter, the participants, or the development of the talks, except for the fact that they were conducted on behalf of Frank by Nah. man 4 “In 1756, having collected the necessary funds, he went accompanied to Poland, to Czerniowce—a town in Wallachia, located a few miles from the Polish border. There he found another dozen Jews from his company”; Konstanty Awedyk, Opisanie wszystkich dworniejszych okoliczności nawrócenia do wiary świętej Contra-Talmudystów albo historia krótka, ich początki i dalsze sposoby przystępowania do wiary świętej wyrażająca [An account of the all the conditions of the conversion to the holy faith of the anti-Talmudist, or a short history describing their origin and reception of the holy faith] (Lwów, 1760), 10. 264 Part Two Historiographic Questions of Busko.5 The church sources pass over this episode in silence. It is easy to guess that the church simply did not agree to allow the foreigners led by Frank to take part in the forthcoming operations. There is still the open question of the Podolian sectarians’ attitude toward them and whether they shared any objectives with Frank’s group. Certainly, Frank decided to join in the game with his companions, probably expecting that the other participants would have to accept them. On January 27th, he arrived with a group of his supporters, mainly from Wallachia,6 in “Lanckoroń where about twenty sectarians from Podolia had already gathered.”7 According to church sources, this assembly was reported to have been singing mystical songs; according to Frank’s sources, they were singing and dancing; and according to Jewish sources they were caught performing an orgi- astic ceremony that involved a naked woman (who, however, was not present among the detainees). The multiplicity and diversity of the records concern- ing the incident are symptomatic for the historiography of Frankism, and they show how ideologically skewed and distorted is the documentation that was produced about the movement from almost its very beginnings. Everyone present at the inn was arrested by the town’s administrator, but three days later the foreigners with Frank at their head were released and expelled from the commonwealth.8 Most probably, they were simply transported across the border to Chocim, where a Turkish garrison was sta- tioned.

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