REVIEWS

Secularism and Sabbateans

BY DAVID BIALE

Funkenstein argued that thinkers in the 1"' and I S'h Shohet published a revolutionary book that argued,
THE ORIGINS OF JEWISH SECULARIZATION centuries reinterpreted key medieval scholastic con­ against the conventional wisdom, that it was not the
IN EIGHTEEN TH-CENTURY EUROPE cepts of God as being about the world hus divine Berin Haskalah (Enlightenment) in the last decades
by Shmuel Feiner, translated by Chaya Naor omnipresence became almost inistinguishable of the 18' century that paved the way toward secular
University of Pennsylvania Press, 384 pp., $65 rom the concept of space, and divine providence modenity among German Jews. Rather, changes on
came to mean the worings of history. In doing so, the ground sng in the first decades of the 1700s
THE MIXED MUTITUDE: JACOB FRANK he argued, these thinkers dug the grave of the old anticipated the movement ounded by Moses Men­
AND THE FRANKIST MOVEMENT, reigions with shovels uished by theology. delssohn and his lisciples many years later. Shohet
1755-1816 These explanations or the emergence of the showed that some German Jews began to ress like
seculr have one thing in common: they locate it in their neighbors, tach their daughters French and the
by Pawel Maciejko
the realm of ideas. But secularism was not-and is piano, enjoy material luxuries, violate rabbnic sexual
University of Pennsylvania Press, 376 pp., $65

WOMEN AND THE MESSIANIC HERESY OF The famous conversion of Mendelssohn's children to
SABBATAI ZEVI, 1666-1816
by Ada Rapoport-Albert, translated by Deborah Greniman Christianity cannot be laid at the door of Mendelssohn's
Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 402 pp., $64.50 philosophy but was rather a symptom of a much broader
social disintegration.

I
n 1789, an anonymous pamphlet was pub­ not today-only a movement of ideas. It is also the norms, and avail themselves of Genle courts. They
lished in London that bore witness to what its sum-total of behaviors and practices, as well as the were motivated, Shohet argued, less by the philoso­
traditionalist author ound most shocking in a belief systems that underlie them. Its adherents are phy of the Enlightenment, about which they knew
world ocked by revolution: not only the writers of books, but also those who, little, than by the pracices of the wider society they
without ormulating a coherent philosophy, stop felt ewer inhibitions in imitating.
hose rom the new world, the hereics and doing "the work of the Lord" and instead pursue the
agnostics, lie asleep in their beds unil the time of pleasures of this world Secularization means not hmuel Feiner, a leading historian of the Haska­
the moning prayes has passed And ater such
a man has risen rom his bed, he does not hasten
only absenting oneself rom church or synagogue
on Sunday or Saturday, but also ollowing a iestyle
S lah who teaches at Bar-llan University, has re­
turned to these questions. Building on Shohet, as
to do the work of the Lord, but only ater seeing not dictated by religion during the rest of the week. well as on more recent historians such as odd En­
to he needs of his home and prtaking of other If these trends proceeded at an uneven pace delman and Jonathan Israel, Feiner lays out a more
pleasures. Then he lays phylacteries in order to throughout Erope with notable peculirities or nuanced and persuasive case or locating the begin­
keep up appeaances with the other members of each naional group, the history of seculaation was ning of Jewish secularization in the second half of
the household And he takes care not to leave the ven more compliatedor the Jews. The Jewish com­ the 18th century, if not earlier. Although ocused
phylacteries on too long lest thy leave a mark on munity had consideable weapons at is lisposal to primarily on German-speaking lands, he draws his
his orehead Or hat someone rom his crowd discipline those who would ebel against Its auhor­ evidence rom Poland and Russia as well as Lon­
might see him wing phylacteies, which iy (or instance flogging and bans of excommunica­ don, Amsterdam, and even the colony of Virginia.
would cause him great shame. tion). But the community was not a soverein gov­ Feiner argues "a heterogeneous group of skeptical,
ement, and its powers were limited. In addiion, religiously lax Jews, scattered over many diferent
Although the "heretic" described here still prays, once a "neutral sociey" (to se Jacob Kaz's elici­ places, emerged, developed, and spread."
this paragraph compresses a catalog of the changes tos phre) emerged in esten Europe, a society Feiner suggests that Moses Mendelssohn, trai­
associated with the secularization of Europe's Jews: that one could enter without converting, it became tionally seen as the harbinger of modenity, actu­
heretical belief, violation of the commandments, possible or Jews like the French Sepharic Isaac de ally reacted against he new "hedonism:' In his 1755
behavior clictated by social convention in place of Pinto to remain Jews without rigion. Secularization essay "On Sentiments;' Mendelssohn argued that
rabbiic law, and abandonment of the "work of the became the avenue to rebel both against the rabbis "contemplation of the structure of the world" gives
Lord" in avor of material pleasures. (Who knew and against the Jews' minority stas. Such Jews held the plosopher "sublime pleasure" as opposed to
that sleeping in was a sign of modenity?) all reliion-Jewish and non-Jewish-to be responsi­ the hedonistic pleasures of the flesh. Feiner believes
How exactly does a traditional, religious soci­ ble or Jewish isability; a secular world-Jewish and that this argument or philosophy over material de­
ety secularize and why? The question continues to non-Jewish-promised equality. sire may well have been aimed at those Jews who
bedevil historians of Erope and other areas of the If the relationship between Enlightenment ideas had broken loose rom tradition and embraced lib­
world According to one theory associated with the and the social process of secularization is a vexed ertinism. He sees Mendelssohn, rightly I think, as
great German sociologist Max Weber and more re­ one or Europe in general, it is even more vexed or a conservative iure whose attempt to deend Or­
cently with Peter Berger, it was the Protestant Ref­ the Jews. Since the Jews were a minority, to what thodox Enlightenment anticipated Samson Raphael
ormation that banished the angels rom earth and extent did they have to develop their own Enlight­ Hirsch's 19'-century neo-Orthodoxy. The amous
sequestered them firmly in the heavens. Weber enment in order to secularize? Or was it suicient conversion of Mendelssohn's children to Christi­
amously held that the Protestant idea of grace, as to be open to the new philosophies swirling around anity cannot be laid at the door of Mendelssohn's
opposed to works, indrectly uleashed the engine them? And were their gestures of independence philosophy but ws rather a symptom of a much
of capitalism. The contemporary theorist Marcel rom the rabbis-avoiding synagogue, spurning broader social disintegration.
Gauche! has argued that the roots of secularism the commandments, and living halakhically pro­ Following the language of the time, Feiner calls
can be ound in monotheistic religion itsel. In van­ hibited liestyles-homegrown or imitations of this disintegration the "new Epicureanism:· a cul­
quishing polytheism, Judaism, Islam, and Christi­ their neighbors? tural phenomenon that included the ollowing be­
anity exiled God rom this world. My teacher Amos Over a halfcentury ago, the Israeli historian Azriel lies and behaviors:

Winter 2012 • JEWISH REVIEW OF BOOKS 13

 public displays of deiance in the street or the prosperity was accompied by religious laity.
synagogue against religious discipline and From these margins, the new values gradually inl­
belief in divine providence ... ; claims that the trated other Jewish communities.
Torah was an inve'ntion of Moses or that the he problem here is that desire or material goods
existing Jewish reigion was a distortion of the did not have to lead to abandonment of rabbinic
pure Mosaic principles of aith; .. , violations of law. While there are certainly ascetic tendencies in
Sabbath and kashrut prohibitions; ashionable Jewish thought and while communities in diferent
dress that breached religious restrictions; men's periods ried to restrict conspicuous consumption
shaven beards and sidelocks; married women's (oten to avoid Genile criticism), the rabbis never
uncovered heads; women in low-cut resses; condemned welth as such. In Renaissance Italy, or
leisure time spent in tavens, cofeehouses, or instance, many Jews coveted and collected luxuries,
the theater; sexual ofenses. and although some of these Jews were lx in their
performance of the commandments, wholesale sec­
And the ist goes on. One early indication of u]arization never ensue.
these new behaviors is in Joseph ben David Leipnik's he same may be said or sexual transgressions,
1738 Passover haggadah in which the wicked son is which were oten linked to dressing in provocative
portrayed dean-shaven, in an elegant 18'h-centuy Gentile fashion. Rabbi Jacob Emden, a key rabbinic
suit with a powdered wig. he wise son, by const, critic of the new behaviors, specically linked cut­
is bearded and dressed like a raditional Jew, ting one's beard "to make him look like a female''
What distinguishes Feiner's superb study rom with "irtation with beautul naked women ...
Shohet's is the way ideas and practices are woven [and] lovely buxom harlots:' But the evidence or Sliabbtai Zevi. (Illustatio11 by Val Boc/Jkov.)
together. While not all those who broke rom tra­ sexul promiscuity in 18' -century Germany does
dition did so based on the deistic conviction that not look signiicantly diferent rom 13 '-century
God does not act in the world or reveal himself in Spain or 16'"-century Italy. This is a comparative cultures, local traditions oten persist in the face of
the orm of divine laws; such Enlightenment ideas question that Feiner might have raised to shed light very diferent church-based norms. So, too, in Jew­
clearly expressed in philosophical terms the behav­ on what was truly new in the 18'h century. ish society, the authority of rabbinic law did not
iors of those rebelling against rabbinic authority. What, in act, was the role of devince in secu­ mean that other norms played no role. For example,
But if ideas were less the cause of these changes thn larization? At what point does individual rebeion a ascinating 18'h-century responsum relates that a
one expression of them, what was their cause? Fein­ against religious authoriy become a mass phe­ man cursed the rabbis or ruling that he had to re­
er ofers several explanations, some of them more nomenon? he problem is not a new one. When rain rom sexual relations with his wife not only or
convincing than others. Borrowing rom the work Shohet published his book in 1960, Jacob Katz criti­ the days of her menstrual bleeding, but or an ad­
of several European historians, he argues that the cized him or assuming that deviance means the ditional week as well. his rebel had his own ideas
of what the interpretation of biblical law should be,
ideas that may have been more widespread
It may thus be the case, as both Shohet and Fein­
er claim, that ordinary Jews in the 1 B' centy be­
gan to develop their own norms, partly by embrac­
ing new ideas rom their surrounding society and
partly as a result of internal developments. heir re­
bellion against the rabbis may have started without
a coherent ideology, but it came to develop a set of
ideas that we associate with secular modenity. Such
permissive ideas may also have circulated in Jewish
society or many cenuries, but they could only take
root against rabbinic norms when communal struc­
tures weakened in the 18' century. None of this
would have been possible without the European
Enlightenment nd the revolutionary transorma­
tions in European politics. Secularization may have
begun in the grassroots, but in order to lower, it
needed change rom the top.

K atz also argued against Shohet's reliance on

preachers or moralists like Emden or evi­
dence of a deviant culture. It is always in the in­
terest of such preachers to exaggerate deviations
rom the norm. Feiner, too, relies heavily on such
preachers, especially or the period beore 1770
when direct evidence of secularization is meager.
Emden, who provides so much of the evidence or
the early period, is a singularly dubious sociolo­
he Four Sons rom t/Je 138 Leipnik haggadah. Courtesy of t/Je Bibliotl1eca Rosentlialiana, gist of his community. His autobiography reveals a
Amsterdam Universiy Libay, Net/Jerlands.) man of great psychological complexity, illed with
inner conflicts and even pathologies. Emden was
increasing demand or material luxuries in the 18'h emergence of new noms. For Katz, those who particularly obsessed with sexual transgressions.
century let its mark on the Jews, especialy those broke rabbinic law knew that they were guilty of sin, he autobiography, an extraordinary document of
in the expanding mercantile class. It was thereore and sought atonement when caught. heir values the time, reveals that when the rabbi was a youth
especially in cities open to intenational trade, such were still the same as those of the rabbis, even when he was "hot-blooded" and "very hungry or a wom­
as Hmburg, Amsterdam, London, and Bordeaux, they transgressed Katz no doubt went too ar in this an." Seduced by a young widow, he almost gave in
and especially among the Sephardim, that economic argument. As we now rom the study of peasant to his passion, which he describes in lurid detail.

14 JEWISH REVIEW OF BOOKS Winter 2012

 Emden's "discovery" of sexual peccadilloes was
part of his witch-hunt aginst Sabbateans, olowers
of the 17' h-century Turkish ailed Messiah, Shabbtai
Zevi. For Emden, as or many heresy hunters, here­
tics are compelled to indulge in sexual orgies s part
of their heresy. Here, or instance, is his account of
Wolf Eybeschit, the younger son of the Sabbatean
rabbi, Jonathan Eybeschitz:

When he would pass through and spend the

night in Hotzenplotz, he slept with the Gentile
woman who owned the inn there, and she took
rom his trouser pocket a gold watch and a
purse with gold dinars ... hey also said that on
is travels, he had wih him a whore ... wearing
a man's clothing as if she were his mle servant

A shocking story about the son of a distin-

guished rabbi, except that Emden relates a similar
story rom an inn in which another male guest sus­
pected of Sabbateanism was also said to sleep with
his "male" servant who, when spied on through a
keyhole, uned out to be a girl. Emde's repeated
se of this theme of sex with a male servant dis­
guised as a girl arouses the suspiion that he manu­
actured such cases to suit his image of heresy if not
his own sexual fantasies.
Feiner atributes to Sabbateanism a role, al­
beit not the only role, in undermining German
Jeish society in the 18" century. his is the sub­
ject of Pawel Maciejko's magniicent new study of
Frankism, the main epression of Sabbateanism in
the world of the 18 th-century Ashkenaz. Frank was
bon in Podolia in easten raine in 1726 to a Sab­
batean family and taken as an inant to the Ottoman
Empire where he became a convert to the Donmeh,
the sect of Jews who converted to Islam in imita­
tion of Shabbtai Zevfs conversion in 1666. In 1755,
he retuned to Podolia, which already had mny
cpto-Sabbateans, and developed a ollowing.
A scandalous itual, allegely including dancing
around a naked woman ( our main sorce here is
once again Emden), landed him in rouble ith the
local Jewish authorities, who denounced him and
is ollowers to the Catholic Church. He ned
the tables on the rabbis by claiming to represent the
true Judaism, which he called "counter-Talmud­
ism:' his version of Juism rejected rabbinic law
and embraced the Christian triune God.
Frank's coict with the Jewish establishment
reached a climax with a sputation in Lwow
in 1759 that included the notorious blood libel,
namely that Jews se the blood of Christins or
ritual purposes. Frank then led his flock-which
numbered, it seems, in the thousands-to convert
to Catholicism. He went to Warsaw where, at first,
he was treated like nobility, but soon ran aoul of
the authorities on charges of continuing to practice
some orm of Judaism in secret He was then im­
prisoned over the next thirteen yers in the ecclesi­
astical ortress of Czestochowa_ Ater being reed by
Russian troops, he went to Bno in Moravia where
he established ties ,ith wealthy Sabbatean fmilies
and also with the Austrian Emperor Joseph IL But,
once again, he out-stayed his welcome and had to
decamp or Ofenbach, Germany, where he styled
himself a baron and conducted secret rituals with
his ollowers until his death in 1791. His daughter
Eve took over leadership of the movement until her
death in 1816.

Winter 2012 • JEWISH REVIEW OF BOOKS 15

 acijko's study has many virtues. He has Rapoport-Albert takes a reater interest in Frank's the wealthy Sabbateans in Bohemia and Moravia
M seemingly mined every available text on
Frank and the Frankists; unlike earlier scholars,
writings than does Maciejko, reading her book to­
gether with his gives the ullest account of both the
may be said to have been moved by their hereical be­
lies toward modeity, but these believers were con­
such as Gershom'Scholem, he commands the Pol­ history and thought of Frankism. cenrated in a handul of families, hardly enough to
ish sources as well. He tells the story in riveting One aspect of Frankism on which Rapoport­ spark a mass movement Rapoport-Albert's lengthy
syle. He also demonstrates how the movement Albert is especially good is the peculiar tension conclusion points in a diferent direcion: The impact
evolved. While the Sabbateans initially saw them­ between sexual libertinism and asceticism. Sexual of Sabbateanism was primarily on the new Hasidic
selves ully as Jews, albeit with the belief that the abstinence had a long pedigree in Jewish mysticism, movement and its mpact was largely negative. he
Messiah had come in the orm of Shabbtai Zevi, even though al mystics were expected to marry. almost complete exclusion of women rom erly
Both Shabbtai Zevi and Jacob Frank incorporated Hasidism was, she believes, a reacion gainst the
Was the Sabbatean "liberation" such asceticism into ther rituals. Shabbtai Zevi inclusion of women in the Frankist movement If
was said to have been largely celibate or much of anything, then, Sabbateanism provoked a conserva­
of women, if that's what it his married lie, while Frank prescribed celibacy tive response, even in Hasidism, a movement oten, if
or those who attended his Ofenbach couL At the
was, a forerunner of modern
wrongly, seen as revolutionry.
same time, it appears that the inner circle at Of­ But if Sabbateanism n its various 18h -century
egalitarianism? fenbach-primarily Frank's on amily (though
probably not his daughter)-engaged in some kind
orms was not that central a cause of modernity,
Feiner is still conincing, particularly or the 1770s,

Frank developed the idea that he and his ollowers

were the true Israel, while everyone else descended
rom the "mxed multitude," which, according to
the Book of Exodus, had tagged along ith the
Children of Israel when they let Egypt. Strikingly,
Frank's rabbinic opponents used the exact same
language against him. This charge and counter­
charge set up a much more raught conflict than
that between, say, the Rabbinites and the Karaites
in the early Middle Ages, even though the latter,
like the Frankists, rejected belief in the Talmud.
Now the division became almost racial: the her­
etics were not only heretics because of their belies,
but also because of their descent.
When Frank was imprisoned in Czstochowa,
he became ascinated with the: ult of the Yrrgin
Mary, mbolized here by the Black Madonna,
While Fk himself had at mes posed as the Mes:
siah, rom this time on, he shited messianic expec­
tations rom himself to his daughte. e developed
an extraordinary theology in which his daughter Jonathan Eybeschuz. Jacob Fank. (IUsraios by Val Bochkov:)
Eve was the bodily realization of the Divine Virgin,
identied with the kabbalistic emanation Makhut of sexual orgies. Since the antinomian doctrine of 80s, and 90s (the material that takes up the second
(or Shekhina). In his syncretistic religion, the Virgn Sabbateanism taught that the prohibited was now half of his book) in arguing or an intenal flower­
was not only an intercessor with God (also the role permitted, the sexual prohibitions and especially ing of Jewish secularism, revealing in the process a
of the Shekhinah in 13 h-century Kabbalah) but she the incest laws no longer applied. Frank referred rich gallery of Jewish deists, agnostics, and heretics.
became God herself to his company as "brothers and sisters" so that the What is most striking is how many of these fi u res
Frank also developed a host ofbe rituals, some liting of the incest laws encouraged them to mate. re virtually unknown or known only to special­
ofthem overtly sxual, in which women were equal to The point Rapoport-Albert makes here is that this ists. Our view of the 18h -century Haskalah can no
men. (Some of thse involved seprate-but equal!­ was hardly mere libernism; instead, it was part of longer be limited to Moses Mendelsson and Salo­
male and female rites while in others, the two sexs a careully ordered and controlled set of rituals that mon Maimon. Some of the characters in this drama
were combined.) Macijko only mentions thse rituls oscillated between sex and abstinence. wrote books and others simply acted on their new
in passing, but his study is now complemented by the But how, to retun to Feiner's subject, do thse fine belies. Whether those who broke with tradition
path breaking new work-published almost simula­ studis shed light on the process of modenizaion embraced a deistic view of God or whether they
neously-of Ada Rapoport-Albert on women in the and seculrizaion? Was the Sabbatean "liberatio'' simply wanted to rid themselves of ancient practic­
Sabbatean movement of women, if that's what it was, a oerunner of mod­ es, a revolution was brewing equally in salons and
Rapoport-lbert's exhausively srched and em eglitaianism? A amous ament by he great saloons, among ntellectuals and ordinary people.
brilliantly written book shows how at the very outset historian Gershom Scholem had it that Sabbateanism o be sure, the secularization of the Jews tuned
ofthe Sabbatean movement in the mid-160s, women shook the authoiy of the rabbis and prepared the out to be a longer and much more complex process
took at lest an equal role ith men in falling into fits ground or Enlightement and Reorm. A movement than simply a one-way street rom religion to disbe­
ofecstaic pophsying or the Messiah. While we have within Jewish history and not the extenal Europan lief, rom synagogue to the public square. But if its
only scanty reports ofwomen prophesying in the Bible Enlightenment was responsible or Jewish modeity. course has been more a winding river than a pre­
nd none later, the bacround to this sudden explo­ Feiner's gument shrs something with Scholem's in cipitous waterall, there can no longer be any doubt
sion of prophy may have been rooted in prophy­ his search or an inner dilecic of seculaiaion. that the origins of secular modernity were incubat­
ing by female conversos in Spain, as well as similar de­ It is sng that Maiejko never mentions Scho­ ing in the 18'h century, while the Jews still lived­
velopments in Sism. le's thesis and Rapoport-Albert discusses it only in iuratively and actually-in the ghetto.
Shabbtai Zevi also gave honored roles to women an appenx in connecion with a fascinating Frankist
in his mmediate circle, calling them to the Torah in text calling or the emancipation ofwomen. Maciejko David Biale chais the history department at UC Davis,
violation of common Jewish practice. His first wie, shows that insoar as 1'h-century Sabbateanism was where he is the Emanuel Ringelblum Pofessor ofJewish
Sarah, also seems to have taken an active role in the a mass movement, it ws only so among the lower History. His most recent book is Not in the Havens:
movement. hus, Jacob Frank's egalitarian impulses classes in Poland; there, Frankism led to the Catholic The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought Princeton
had their roots in the origins of Sabbateanism. Since Church, not exactly a motor of modenizaion. Only Uni11esity Press).

16 JEWISH REVIEW OF BOOKS • Winter 2012

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