Jacob Frank » (ANN)

Jacob Frank is the second and last major exponent of apostate messianism, the concept that lead to the Sabbatain heresy. His picaresque life is recounted by Alexandr Kraushar. The editor's 'A Note for the General Reader' and his annotations to Kraushar's text explore the sources, and the reasons for the disappearance, of the Sabbatain heresy. These observations are reflected against aspects of early 20th Century European history. Also explored are affinities to the tenets of Sabbatian theology found in lines of T.S.Eliot's "Four Quartets" and in the role of the Old Bolsheviks in Stalin's Purge Trials.

Author Biography: Herbert Levy is a workers' compensation law judge in New York State.

Booknews

It was in Crakow, then part of Austrian Poland, in 1895 that Kraushar (1843-1931) published . In it he describes the second and final advocate of a heresy based on the concept of apostate messianism that held the interest of a substantial portion of European Jews from the later 17th century to the beginnings of the 19th. He finds it to be the most recent manifestation of an impulse to materialize the concept of Divinity through messianism in Judaism, a religion that celebrates Divine incorporeality. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)