Jacob Frank
| Jacob Frank | |
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Jacob Frank
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| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Jakub Lejbowicz |
| Born | 1726 Korołówka, Poland |
| Died | December 10, 1791 (aged 64–65) Offenbach am Main, County of Isenburg |
Jacob Frank (Hebrew: יעקב פרנק, Polish: Jakub Frank, born Jakub Lejbowicz; 1726 – December 10, 1791) was an 18th-century Polish-Jewish religious leader who claimed to be the reincarnation of the self-proclaimed messiah Sabbatai Zevi 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 religion, 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, the religious mysticism that followed violent persecution and socioeconomic upheavals among the Jews of Poland and Ruthenia.
There were numerous secret societies of Sabbateans (followers of Sabbatai Zevi) 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 custom. 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 Lviv (Lwów) in 1722, but could not fully succeed, as it was widely popular among the nascent Jewish middle class.
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