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Jacob Joseph Frank (; Yiddish: יעקבֿ פֿראַנק; ; born Jakub Lejbowicz; 1726 – 10 December 1791) was a Polish Jews religious leader who claimed to be the reincarnation of the self-proclaimed messiah Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676) and also of the biblical patriarch Jacob. The religious authorities of the Jewish community 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".Maciejko (2003) Frank’s teachings led his sect into scandalous practices, including Orgy, Incest—most notably between fathers and daughters—and the deliberate violation of Halakha, which he preached were necessary to hasten a messianic redemption through embracing the "abyss" of sin.
Frank arguably created a religious movement, now referred to as Frankism, which incorporated aspects of Christianity and Judaism. His followers, known as Frankists, engaged in sexually promiscuous rites, such as the infamous 1756 incident in Lanskroun where they were allegedly caught dancing around a half-naked woman symbolizing the Shekhinah. Later, Frankists were encouraged to convert in mass to Catholic Church. The development of Frankism was one of the consequences of the Jewish messiah movement of Sabbatai Zevi. This religious mysticism followed socioeconomic changes among the Jews of Poland, Lithuania and Ruthenia.
In expectation of the great Messianic revolution, the members of these societies violated Halakha. The mystical cult of the Sabbateans is believed to have included both asceticism and Sensation play: some did penance for their sins, subjected themselves to self-inflicted pain, and "mourned for Zion"; others disregarded the strict Tzniut required by Judaism, and at times were accused of being licentious, or even committing ritual incest. The Polish rabbis attempted to place the "Sabbatean heresy" in herem at the assembly at Lwów (now Lviv in Ukraine) in 1722. Still, they could not fully succeed, as it was widely popular among the nascent Jewish middle class.
As a travelling merchant in textile and precious stones Jacob Frank often visited Ottoman Empire territories, where he earned the nickname "Farangi", a name generally given in the East to Europeans, and lived in the centers of contemporary Sabbateanism, Salonica and Smyrna.
In the early 1750s, Frank became intimate with the leaders of the Sabbateans. Two followers of the Sabbatian leader Osman Baba (b. 1720) were witnesses at his wedding in 1752. In 1755, he reappeared in Podolia, gathered a group of local adherents, and began to preach the "revelations" which were communicated to him by the Dönmeh in Salonica. One of these gatherings in Lanckorona (Landskron) ended in a scandal, and the rabbis' attention was drawn to the new teachings. Frank was forced to leave Podolia, while his followers were hounded and denounced to the local authorities by the rabbis (1756). At the rabbinical court held in the village of Satanów (today Sataniv in Ukraine) the Sabbateans were accused of having broken fundamental Jewish laws of morality and modesty.
However, the Frankists continued to be viewed with suspicion due to their strange doctrines. Frank was arrested in Warsaw on 6 February 1760 and delivered to the Church's tribunal on the charge of heresy. He was convicted of teaching heresy, and imprisoned in the monastery of Częstochowa.
Frank lived in the town of Brno until 1786, surrounded by a retinue of adherents and pilgrims who came from Poland. His daughter Eve began to play an important role in the sect at this time. Frank kept a force of armed men at his "court". The future czar Paul I of Russia visited him together with Joseph II of Austria.Kraushar, Aleksander, Frank i frankiści polscy, 1726–1816, Krakow 1895, II, p. 36
Accompanied by his daughter, Frank repeatedly traveled to Vienna, and succeeded in gaining the favor of the court. Maria Theresa regarded him as a disseminator of Christianity among the Jews, and it is even said that Joseph II was favorably inclined to the young Eve Frank. Ultimately Frank was deemed unmanageable and he was obliged to leave Austria. He moved with his daughter and his retinue to Offenbach, in Germany, where he assumed the title of "Baron of Offenbach," and lived as a wealthy nobleman in Isenburg Castle, receiving financial support from his Polish and Moravian followers, who made frequent pilgrimages to Offenbach. On the death of Frank in 1790, Eve became the "holy mistress" and leader of the sect. Her fortunes dwindled in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, and she died in Offenbach in 1816.
Some Frankists were active during the French Revolution, such as Moses Dobruška, a son of Frank's Sabbatian cousin in Offenbach Shendl Dobruska. Many of the Frankists saw Napoleon Bonaparte as a potential Messiah. The Frankists scattered in Poland and Bohemia eventually intermarried into the gentry and middle class. Maria Szymanowska, a piano virtuoso, came from a Frankist family. Wanda Grabowska, the mother of Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, also descended from Frankists.(Polish) Między dwiema trumnami , Rzeczpospolita, 9 January 1999
In 1883, a Russian magazine Русская старина ( Russian Old Times) issued memoirs of an influential official of the Russian Ministry of the Interior, the and staunch antisemitism O. A. Pzhetslavsky. He promulgated the allegations that the mothers of "three of the greatest men of Poland" (Frédéric Chopin, Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki) were converted Jews from the Frankist sect. Similar assertions were put forth by Mieses and Meir Balaban. Adam Mickiewicz, Poet, Patriot and Prophet , Regina Grol, Info Poland classroomBalaban, Meir, The history of the Frank movement, 2 vols., 1934–1935, pp. 254-259.Majer Bałaban, "LinkLe-toldot ha-tenuʻah ha-Franḳit".Tel Aviv : Devir, 694-695 1934/1935Magdalena Opalski & Israel Bartal, Poles and Jews: A Failed Brotherhood p. 119–21 "Mickiewicz's mother, descended from a converted Frankist family": Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. Mickiewicz, Adam. "Mickiewicz's Frankist origins were well-known to the Warsaw Jewish community as early as 1838 (according to evidence in the AZDJ of that year, p. 362). The parents of the poet's wife also came from Frankist families." Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. "Frank, Jacob, and the Frankists".
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