150 ANTEMURALE
In the course of the eighteenth century, however, Jewish sectarianism was
proliferating of its own accord. First came the Sabbateists; next the Hassidim;
and lastly, the Frankists.
The Sabbateists were followers of the 'pseudo-Messiah', Sabbataj Cebi or
Zevi, who had died in Albania in 1676. In the Republic, they won over a num-
ber of adherents in the towns of the south-east, on the Turkish frontier.
The Hassidim, in contrast, launched a mass movement which was destined to
capture the allegiance of almost half of Europe's Jews. Their founder, Israel ben
Eliezer, 'Baal Shem Tob' (1700-60), commonly known as 'BeShT', started his
career as a faith-healer at Miedzyboz in Podolia in the 1740s. Having gained
widespread celebrity, he then proceeded to denounce not just the doctrines, but
in particular the spirit and formalism of orthodox Rabbinism. Like Luther in the
Christian world, he stressed the 'omnipresence of God' and showed how ordin-
ary people could commune directly with their maker, bypassing both the medi-
ation of the rabbinate and the necessity for abstruse Talmudic learning. His
revivalist fervour struck a note of hope amongst the growing despair of the
poverty-stricken and illiterate masses of the Jewish proletariat, and made the
pedantry and elitism of the rabbis look ridiculous. In this sense, he may also be
compared to his contemporary in England, John Wesley, the founder of
Methodism. In due course, his followers broke with orthodox Judaism alto-
gether, and formed their separate congregations, each with its own zaddik or
'prayer-leader'. BeShT himself wrote little of importance; but his teachings were
preserved and propagated by his two chief apostles, Dob Baer (1710-72), the
Maggid or 'Great Preacher' of Miedzyrzecz (Mezeritz), and Jacob Joseph
ha-Cohen (d. 1769) of Polonnoe. Towards the end of the century, when the
ecstatic and spiritualist aspects of Hassidism seemed to some to be running out
of control, a rational wing of the movement came into being. Known as
'HaBaD' - from the Hebrew acrostic for Wisdom - Understanding - Knowledge
- it was launched by Shneor Zalman ben Baruch (1747-1812), who sought to
give the Hassidim a stronger intellectual basis. By this step, the fury and resent-
ment of the orthodox rabbinical authorities were raised to new heights. Ever
since the suspension of Jewish autonomy in 1764, they had been unable to co-
ordinate any policy of defence against the tidal wave of Hassidism. Their arrest
and excommunication of Hassidic leaders in Wilno in 1772 had only served to
discredit themselves. In 1797, when they denounced Zalman to the Tsarist
police, they widened existing divisions still further. Zalman, like many a revo-
lutionary before and after, was cast into the Petropavlovsky Fortress in St.
Petersburg, and transformed into a martyr. The stage was set for the long strug-
gle between the Hassidim and their orthodox 'Opponents', the Mitnaggedim,
which raged in Polish Jewry throughout the nineteenth century.^28
To modern eyes, the Frankists appear the most exotic of all. Jankiel
Lejbowicz (1727-91), later known as Jakub Frank, ran one of the most success-
ful religious frauds in modern history. He was born at Korolowka in Podolia,
and spent most of his early life in Turkey, at Salonika and Smyrna, as a travel-