Jacob Frank's Book of the Words of the Lord

Book excerpt: This book is concerned with the exceptional history and unprecedented thought of Jacob Frank (1726-1791), a Messianic antinomistic Jewish-Moslem-Christian leader, active in the second half of the 18th Century in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Othman empire, Moravia and Germany. Frank grew up in the Donme circles in Salonika (Donme was the Turkish name of the Moslem-Jews who were followers of the messianic leader Sabbatai Zevi (1626-1676), who was forced to become a Moslem. Is followers decided to convert to Islam in 1683 in order to live separate Jewish messianic life). Frank defined himself in his mythical autobiography, known as 'The Words of the Lord' as a chosen messianic Leader and as an anarchist visionary who decided to cross every border and to destroy every book, law and order. His anarchistic behavior as well as his broad social influence caused a persistent rabbinic persecution and excommunication that brought Jacob Frank and his thousands followers to undertake a mess conversion to Christianity in 1759-1760.