Masons, Monarchs and Maskilim

Well, the Rav’s comments about ‘Josef II’, the Holy Roman Emperor of Austria and brother of Marie Antoinette, led to some more massive bits of the ‘Frankist-Freemason’ puzzle falling into place.

If you go to the ORDO AB CHAOS site HERE, you’ll find a whole big write up about Jacob Frank, the Asian Brotherhood – and their very tight links to this same ‘Josef II’.

There were a bunch of Jewish maskilim at Josef II’s court, most of whom subsequently converted to xtianity, and all of whom seem to have been deep, deep in the parsha of creating more ‘secret societies’, masonic lodges, and ‘brotherhoods’ based on Shabtai Tzvi’s teachings and Falk’s kabbalistic black magic.

It’s a huge subject, with so much evidence supporting it, it’s hard to know where to start.

That’s part of how they have kept his hidden in plain view for so long – there’s so much info, it’s literally overwhelming.

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So in this post, let’s keep it as simple as possible, and break it down.

The information here is mostly sourced from the ORDO AB CHAOS site, that has pages of references and footnotes.

I also have my own research to interweave with this, too. But I think we’ll keep most of that for a seperate post.

To keep it easy to digest and hopefully stop your head from exploding, I am going to do numbered paragraphs.

Ready? Let’s go!

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  1. In 1782, Josef II of Austria published his infamous EDICT OF TOLERANCE, that gave Jews more rights – but also expected them to radically assimiliate into the non-Jewish world.

  2. Josef II (1741-1790) was the son of Maria Teresa and FRANCIS I of Austria – and the brother of Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France. His dad becomes a FREEMASON of the GRAND LODGE of ENGLAND in 1731, with the ceremony taking place in….THE HAGUE.
  3. JOSEF II was also the GRAND MASTER of the ORDER of the GOLDEN FLEECE – yet another ‘secret society’ that had been going for centuries, and was headed up by whoever happened to be the ruler of the Hapsburg Dynasty at that time.
  4. After the war over the SPANISH SUCCESSION that occurred between two competing Habsburg candidates for King of Spain, the ORDER of the GOLDEN FLEECE (OGF) split into two secret organisations.
  5. One was headed up by the SPANISH HABSBURGS, while the other was headed up by the AUSTRIAN HABSBURGS.
  6. In 1804, JOSEF II establishes ‘the AUSTRIAN EMPIRE’ on Habsburg territory, and adopts the 2-headed REICHSADLER eagle as its symbol.
  7. That eagle shows up again in the WEIMAR REPUBLIC – and also, together with a swastika, becomes the national emblem of Nazi Germany in 1935.

==

  1. The false messiah JACOB FRANK (ESKELES?) converts to Catholicism in Poland in 1756 – along with thousands of his Jewish followers, including a bunch of really big rabbis, with really big yichus.

  2. JACOB FRANK’S ‘godfather’ for his baptism is KING AUGUSTUS III of POLAND. His wife is MARIA TERESA of AUSTRIA – the paternal first cousin of JOSEF II’s mum, EMPRESS MARIA TERESA of AUSTRIA.
  3. Meanwhile over in France, where JOSEF II’s sister MARIE ANTOINETTE  is married to KING LOUIS XVI, he has a royal ‘challenger’: LOUIS PHILIPPE, DUKE of ORLEANS.
  4. This DUKE of ORLEANS is the GRAND MASTER of the GRAND ORIENT LODGE of France, an ILLUMINATI – and a good friend of SAMUEL JACO FALK, aka, the ‘Bad Baal Shem’ of LONDON, and Jacob Frank’s first father-in-law.
  5. A famous personality from the FRENCH REVOLUTION called ABBE BARRUEL testifies that JOSEF II was personally sent a circular from the GRAND ORDER in France (who basically got the French Revolution going…..) that was signed by the DUKE OF ORLEANS – who was trying to overthrow the French monarchy.

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  1. Meanwhile, another brother of both MARIE ANTOINETTE and JOSEF II is called ARCHDUKE MAXIMILIAN FRANCIS.

  2. As well as belonging to the Austrian ORDER of the GOLDEN FLEECE, Max is is also the Grand Master of the TEUTONIC KNIGHTS, the PRIORY of SION, and the ORDER of the FLEUR de LYS. (He’s a busy guy, and in 1774 he travels all over Europe to meet the other illustrious members of these secret societies, especially the TEUTONIC KNIGHTS….)
  3. He also goes to visit his sister MARIE ANTOINETTE, in 1775 (I think he’s the guy in the red, below):

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  1. It’s important to understand that in the 18th century, circumstances come about which means that the same little family of satanic secret-society ‘royals’ effectively come to the throne all over Europe.

(This next section is for genealogy nerds. You can skip it, if that’s not your thing.)

  1. For example, if you look at the family of GEORGE I of ENGLAND – his family basically take over a whole bunch of places.
  2. His son is GEORGE II of ENGLAND – his daughter Mary marries FREDERICK II LANDGRAVE of HESSE-KESSEL, and their son WILLIAM I is MAYER AMSCHEL ROTHSCHILD’s employer. Another son, CHARLES of HESSE-KASSEL is a member of the ILLUMINATI, and also the Grand Master of the ASIATIC BRETHREN secret society set up by MOSES DOBRUSHKA.
  3. Meanwhile GEORGE I’s daughter SOPHIA marries FREDERICK WILLIAM I of PRUSSIA
  4. Their son is: FREDERICK II ‘THE GREAT’ OF PRUSSIA i(1712-1786). This guy is gay, and when his father has his male lover executed, Frederick ‘the Great’ turns into even more of a psycho.
  5. Because he’s gay, he has no heir. So his nephew FREDERICK WILLIAM II takes the throne – and is a senior ROSICRUCIAN, member of the ‘GOLD and ROSY CROSS’ satanic secret society.
  6. Meanwhile, Sophia’s daughter is LOUISA ULRIKA (1710-1771) who marries the Swedish King and has two sons. CHARLES XIII of SWEDEN (1748-1818) is the Grand Master of the SWEDISH ORDER of FREEMASONS. His brother GUSTAVE III (1746-1792) is the Grand Master of the SWEDISH RITE of FREEMASONRY – and the patron of satanist EMMANUEL SWEDENBORG.

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I could go on and on with all these ‘monarchs’, and their many different memberships leading these satanic secret societies.

For now, you got the flavor from the above – and you shouldn’t be ‘shocked’ at all the strange reports of the late HM Elizabeth II apparently participating in lots of ‘black masses’ and satanic rites involving human sacrifice.

That’s what these satanic secret society’s do, at the very top of the hierarchy.

And while all the ‘controlled opposition’ and anti-semites like to blame everything on the joooooos – really, the people running the show are the Royals and the Jesuits, most of all.

Moving on.

Remember, all the numbered paragraphs is recounting ‘official history’, such as it is, not ‘conspiracy theories’.

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15) JACOB FRANK (ESKELES) travels repeatedly to Vienna after his baptism, together with his daughter EVA FRANK. He is given a warm welcome by MARIA TERESA, who sees him as a good ‘missionary’ for converting the Jews.

16) Meanwhile, her son JOSEF II begins an ongoing affair with JACOB FRANK’S daughter, EVA FRANK.

16) FRANK lives in Vienna for a year, and applies to JOSEF II – MARIE ANTOINETTE’s bro – to be awarded the title of ‘count’ of the Holy Roman Empire. He is apparently denied.

17) Meanwhile, JOSEF II starts working on his plans to assimilate and destroy the Jews in his realms, and his helped by a few maskilim that apparently include:

SALOMON DUBNO – who connects us directly to the Vilna Gaon’s family and VOLOZHIN.

JOSEPH VON SONNENFELS (1732-1870) – co-leader of the ILLUMINATI lodge called ‘ZUR WAHREN EINTRACHT’

SOLOMON MAIMON – whose picture looks very similar to NAFTALI HIRZ WESSELY.

MOSES MENDELSSOHN

‘YEHOSHUA FALK’ (this could be the Bad Baal Shem of London, or even JACOB FRANK himself, who was his son-in-law – or some other guy really called ‘YEHOSHUA FALK’.)

AND THE SON-IN-LAW OF SAMUEL WERTHEIMER, COURT JEW AND FINANCIAL ADVISOR TO THE VIENNESE MONARCHS, ‘YISSACHAR BER ESKELES’.

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18) JOSEF II’s ‘reforming’ ideas are called ‘JOSEPHISM’, and are described as a form of ‘benevolent despotism’ – at least, benevolent to the monarchy.

19) The main maskil-Illuminati who helps him codify ‘JOSEPHISM’ is the JOSEPH VON SONNEFELS above. He comes from a SABBATEAN family in Moravia, and converts to xtianity, same as most of the Frankists.

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The sources are very coy about who his ‘illustrious’ family of Sabbateans actually is – but there are still some breadcrumbs to follow.

The Ordo Ab Chaos site says that his father is ‘R LIPMAN PERLIN (1705-1768) – who is a student of none other than JONATHAN EYBSHITZ in Prague.

Interestingly, Perlin converts some time between 1735-1741. And baptises his two sons – which is at least 15 years before the big wave of catholic conversions that accompanied the Frankists. To me, that suggests the whole ‘xtian conversion’ idea actually pre-dated Jacob Frank’s writing by at least two decades.

It also ties in with the idea brought down by Marvin Entelmann in ‘To Eliminate the Opium’ that EYBSHITZ himself was actually secretly baptised when he was a young baby…. Whatever this ‘problem’ is, it’s probably been going on a very long time.

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So…. The father of ‘LIPMAN PERLIN’ is called ‘R MICHAEL CHASID, who is meant to die in 1730.

It takes me quite a lot of tootling around to find that guy in ‘real history’ – because of course, it’s all been as scrubbed as they could get away with.

But I still find him, minimally, over HERE on the Jewish Encyclopaedia site.

His full name is: JEHIEL MICHAEL BEN JUDAH LÖB (known also as Michael Ḥasid)

He is the Chief Rabbi of Berlin, he dies in 1728.

And apparently, he’s a ‘big kabbalist’ who ends up not publishing his works, because he’s worried people might ‘mistakenly’ think some of his ideas are ‘sabbatean’ (always a tell-tale sign you should dig deeper).

No mention of his xtian son, or his xtian-maskil-masonic grandson, who helps out JOSEF II, in his quest to assimiliate and destroy the Jews in the Austrian Empire.

Funny that.

==

Let’s see if we can track down a little more of this ‘illustrious’ and scrubbed family of sabbatean-xtian-maskil-masons, shall we?

The Jewish Encyclopaedia gives us more clues:

  1. Yechiel Michel Hasid was first a rabbi in many Polish communities, before he moved to Berlin in 1701.
  2. His brother-in-law is a ‘Rabbi Aaron’, and seems to be the Rabbi of Berlin until 1713, when he moves to Frankfurt-on-the-Oder. Aaron dies in 1721.
  3. Yechiel Michel and Aaron are asked to head up the Berlin yeshiva of the famous Berlin Court Jew and royal purveyor of gemstones, JOST LIEBMANN.
  4. Yechiel Michel Hasid (and also his B-I-L Aaron) give their haskama to the book of the notorious sabbatean NECHAMIA HAYYUN – but it’s all just a big mistake, honest guvnor!
  5. As happens with most of the sabbteans, Yechiel Michel Hasid quickly backtracks and becomes a ‘public opponent’ of the Sabbateans.
  6. In 1726, the rabbis hold a big conference in Frankfort-on-the-Oder – in response to the actions and writings of Jonathan Eybshitz, and his sabbatean ‘kabbalah porn’ book.
  7. At this conference, Yechiel Michel Hasid demands that the Sabbateans should be put in cherem, and all their books banned.
  8. Yechiel Michel Hasid’s son-in-law is named on the Jewish Encyclopaedia as one: “JOEL BEN JEKUTHIEL SACHS.”

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OK, so after some serious digging around I actually did find a (corrupted….) Geni profile for ‘YECHIEL MICHEL HASID’, Chief Rabbi of Berlin.

And after literally two days of sitting and hand-writing his family tree, this is the ‘bottom line’ I can tell you so far:

JOST LEIBMANN and  MICHAEL HASID OF BERLIN seem to be the ‘missing links’ that finally connect the known Frankist-maskilim with the Sabbatean rebbes and rabbis who continued to stay ‘Jewish’ (at least externally).

Their family tree is literally crawling with every single ‘Frankist-freemason’ I’ve come across so far. I am unpicking the real history hiding out here, and it’s going to be very enlightening when it’s ready.

But that will take me a few more days still.

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So in the meantime, let’s start filling about more of the specific story around ‘MICHAEL CHASID’ and his F-I-L, the court Jew JOST LIEBMANN, aka JUDAH BERLIN.

On the Jewish Encyclopaedia site for BERLIN, we learn this nugget:

Liebmann also insisted on having a synagogue and a bet ha-midrash; and his nephew and son-in-law, Aaron Benjamin Wolf, wasappointed rabbi.

In 1684 Liebmann’s synagogue was declared to be the only official one.

(Go take a look at that very interesting piece on what was going on in the Berlin Jewish community. As usual, there was a terrible ‘war’ going on in the Jewish community between the two factors of competing Court Jews.

The hoi polloi got ground up in the middle, and the anti-semites took advantage of it all to cause yet more suffering to the simple Jews.)

Think ‘LAPID vs NETANYAHU’….There is nothing new under the sun.

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OK, so now it’s getting interesting.

Before MICHAEL HASID takes over as rabbi of Berlin, his BIL is the rabbi – AARON BENJAMIN WOLF.

I.E. THIS guy – his father is JOST LIEBMANN’s brother, the ‘Nahalat Binyamin’, aka Isaac Benjamin Wolf ben Eliezer Liebman.

Michael Chasid apparently marries Aaron’s sister, Hinde Wolff.

==

Here’s another snippet which raises more questions than it answers, about exactly what was going on in the Berlin Jewish community of this time, the early 18th century:

Aaron was made rabbi of the mark, and in 1709 was appointed by King Frederick I of Prussia to the office of chief rabbi of Berlin, with jurisdiction over all the Jews living in the mark. But with the death of King Frederick I conditions changed.

Esther, the widow of Jost Liebman, fell into disfavor with Frederick William I, her property was confiscated, and she died of a broken heart in 1714.

==

There is clearly much more going on here behind the scenes.

Remember we learned above that GEORGE I’s daughter SOPHIA marries this same FREDERICK WILLIAM I of PRUSSIA, in Berlin, who apparently ‘goes against’ Esther the widow of Jost LIEBMANN.

==

So now, here is an actual portrait of ‘Jost Liebmann’ – married to Esther Schulhof – who also went by the name of ‘JUDAH BERLIN’.

Notice he is totally clean shaven…. And this is meant to be at least 50 years before the maskilim appeared on the scene (if not more like a 100 years….)

In fact, Jews HAD to wear beards in many localities in Europe, as part of their ‘identifiying marks’, regardless of the halacha. That’s one of the rules that ‘enlightened’ JOSEPHISM was trying to overturn.

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When you try to research more about ‘YEHUDA BERLIN’ you just get articles about the NETZIV, Rosh Yeshiva of VOLOZHIN.

But there’s still a bit more info floating about in German.

The basic story seems to be that JUDAH BERLIN / JOST LIBMANN’s first wife is the niece of GLUCKEL of HAMELN, MALKE.

When she dies, he marries the widow ESTHER HAMERSCHLAG (nee SCHULHOF), who has managed to become a female ‘protected Jew’ and court purveyor in Berlin.

In fact, it’s Esther who brings her second husband into her business in Berlin.

But, things go sour when she lends 30,000 thalers to the new king FREDERICK WILLIAM I for his coronation crown – and he only pays her 8,000.

And then, persecutes her and her family until she finally agrees to go bankrupt to save the crown the trouble of having to repay her.

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There is way, way more going on, and this story is also probably by no means the real truth. But that will have to wait for another day.

Let’s get back to our very own Berlin chief rabbi and Sabbatean, MICHAEL CHASSID, whose son Eliezer Perlin converts, and baptises his two sons, one of whom then helps Josef II, the Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece and lover of Eva Frank, to write the infamous TOLERANZ PATENT that begins the process of destroying European Jewry.

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Here’s another weird snippet from the Jewish Encyclopaedia on Berlin:

In 1721 a curious occurrence roused the especial anger of the king against the Jews. In that year the purveyor for the royal mint, Levin Veit, who had been considered a very rich man, died, leaving not only no property whatever, but a debt of 100,000 thalers to the royal mint.

The king held the whole Jewish community of Berlin responsible for the disappearance of the money, and revenged himself in a very peculiar way.

On Aug. 15 all the Jews of Berlin were summoned to the synagogue, which was surrounded by soldiers, and were placed under the ban by the officiating rabbi, Michael Ḥasid, in presence of the court preacher Jablonsky.

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Yes, Michael Hasid ‘excommunicated’ the whole of the Berlin Jewish community on the King’s say-so, because one bent court Jew apparently embezzled a ton of money….

And “LEVIN VEIT” is probably not the real name of the embezzling court Jew. At least, if that’s the real name, then we actually know him by a totally different fake name.

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Back on the Ordo ab Chaos site, we learn that ‘Michael Hasid’s’ newly xtian son Eliezer Perlin, moves to Vienna and become the court interpreter for EMPRESS MARIA TERESA.

He also changes his name to: ALOIS WIENER, then becomes ennobled as BARON von SONNENFELS in 1746.

His son Joseph is the first one to introduce the concept of the ‘FATHERLAND’ in the German-speaking states, writing something called ‘UBER DIE LIEBE DES VATERLANDES’ in 1771.

And then become the ILLUMINATI Prefect for Vienna in 1782.

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The question is: where are the other two ‘ennobled’ Jewish Barons that our ‘fake’ Jewish history talks about as being at Maria Teresa’s court at this time – while totally scrubbing out any mention of this ALOIS WIENER, BARON VON SONNENFELS, and his Illuminati son Joseph?

Those two Jewish Barons are:

  1. YISSACHAR BER ESKELES – son in law of the Sabbatean Court Jew SAMSON WERTHEIMER
  2. BARON D’AGUILAR – who ends up in London.

I am now wondering if one of these guys is the alter ego of the xtian illuminati maskil ALOIS WIENER.

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And I’m also wondering how Jacob Frank (fake name….) fits into this picture, too.

As I already mentioned, MICHAEL HASID’s family tree is the richest vein of the real names of the Freemason-Frankists I’ve yet come across.

But figuring that bit out is going to take a LONGGGG time

And the point for this post, really, is more this:

All the monarchs in Europe were heading up secret societies.

These secret societies had a ‘satanic’ underpinning, and included ‘kabbalistic black magic’ and occult rituals.

The court Jews who had access to the monarchy seem to have been uniformly Sabbateans.

These court Jews and their circles then started converting to xtianity, joining and forming more ‘secret societies’ like the ILLUMINATI, and the ASIATIC BRETHREN, to rival those set up by the Jesuits and the Habsburg monarchs.

But not all the Frankist-Freemasons openly converted out.

Some of these corrupted Court Jew family members stayed within the Jewish community – and became chassidic rebbes and the leading ‘mitnagdim’ rabbis and Rosh Yeshivas.

Many of them were also leading ‘maskilim’ within the Jewish community.

==

As usual, this could go on forever.

But we’ll stop there for today.

If God gives me more koach, I will continue to pin down the specifics, because as well as Berlin and Amsterdam, places like PRESSBURG also figure very large in this story of (secret, externally orthodox) Frankist-Freemasons….

And we still didn’t set out what WOLF EYBSHITZ, the son of the arch-Sabbatean Jonathan Eybshitz, was meant to be up to at exactly this time.

His movements sound so similar to the false messiah JACOB FRANK, it’s tempting to consider they were one and the same person….

But that bit of the birur will have to wait until next time.

====

PS: It looks like that son in law of MICHAEL HASID, R Joel ben Yekutiel Sachs, has also been totally scrubbed from history.

I can find one tantalising hint of him HERE – in a strange story revolving around the ‘sun-centric’ astronomers DAVID GANS and JOSEPH DEL MEDIGO.

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UPDATE 2:

It looks like ‘Michael Hassid’ was replaced in Berlin by the PNEI YEHOSHUA, JOSHUA FALK.

But just to make things even stranger, this description on the LWOW Jewish Gen site sounds like the PNEI YEHOSHUA could have been the Chacham Tzvi’s son…. and Jacob Emden’s brother…. and that he was also busily fighting the  Sabbateans with all his might:

Snippet:

In 1720 – once the tenure of Rabbi Jozue [Joshua] ben Cwi [Tzvi]–Hirsz had come to an end – the community did not renew his tenure, replacing him instead with Rabbi Chaim ben Reb….

Rabbi Jozue was forced to leave Lwów in 1720 and he settled temporarily at Buczacz. He turned to the communities of the Lwów region, who determined in his favour and did not acknowledge Rabbi Chaim as the regional Rabbi, declaring that they would not comply with the Lwów community….

The Lwów community members were declared “transgressors” and Rabbi Jozue was granted the “authority” to boycott and banish the “sabotaging” Rabbi from all the communities of the region.[17] The Lwów community was sentenced to pay a 30,000 Zloty fine to Rabbi Jozue, a verdict which established him officially as the Rabbi of Lwów and the region. Despite this he did not return to Lwów but settled at Buczacz [Buchach] since Kinowski, the Starosta of Buczacz was in dispute with Voivode Jablonowski, and so Rabbi Jozue was certain that there no harm would befall him….

Rabbi Jozue continued to live at Buczacz under those circumstances till 1730, when he was invited to succeed Rabbi Michael Chassid as head of the Rabbinate at Berlin…..

The number of Shabbatai Cwi [Tzvi]’s followers in Podolia and Reissen rose, and their influence increased particularly throughout the Reissen towns: Zloczow [Zolochiv], Rohatyn, Podhajce [Podhajze], Horodenka as well as Lwów. Many of his followers came from Podolia, which lay close to Turkey. They settled in towns and attracted the interest also of those from scholarly circles.

When the rabbis, who greatly objected to their actions, noted the undermining of the Torah and of the commandments, they gathered, by order of the Council of Four Lands, in the great synagogue outside Lwów on the 2nd July 1722.

The regional and town rabbi, Rabbi Jakob Jozue [Joshua] author of Pneh Josua, together with seven of his religious court–judges, declared the excommunication of the sinners by blowing the Shofar [Jewish ritual ram’s horn] and extinguishing candles.

The entire community stood trembling as they listened to the wording of the curse “and babes learning the Torah repeated after them, Amen… And several transgressing sinners of that accursed cult stood with us on the stage [Bimah] and while sobbing and wailing to heaven even they admitted their misdemeanours and recounted their actions, in accordance with the prayer book which they had put together.

After leaving the synagogue on the 2nd July, they had to undertake a self inflicted mourning and ostracism for seven and thirty days, as laid down by the law; every precept pertaining to the outcast and the mourner, besides other penalties and reprimands set by us seven Rabbis, and that was just the beginning.”[18] And afterwards they confessed their sins and publicly received their due.

Similar ostracism was declared in all other communities. Despite the ostracism however, the followers of Sabbataj Cwi [Shabbatai Cwi [Tzvi]] could not be completely wiped out.

On the contrary, the number of the cult followers increased, and some years later they joined Jakub Frank’s faction.

6 replies
  1. lisa
    lisa says:

    did you ever hear of leo zagami? he has some some books out, and some interviews on youtube and rumble…he is very interesting and his info. accurate. he did a lot of research and explains a lot. thank you for your website, from the shomron border….

    Reply
  2. R
    R says:

    i’ve been following the posts on this topic but still remain a bit confused as to where this is headed. Perhaps too much is left in cryptic phrases.. Are you trying to say that much of the rabbis that seemed to have preserve Torah are actually against Hashem and Torah?
    It is hard to conceptualize that commentaries learned on the daily by our men alongside gemarah can be questionable in nature? Isn’t there a concept of mesorah of who the Torah abiders are ?

    Reply
    • Rivka Levy
      Rivka Levy says:

      It’s similar to the ‘false prophets’ in the times of people like Yirmiyahu.

      Those ‘false prophets’ started off sincere prophets, who were serving Hashem.

      But then, veered of the rails.

      We all saw the same phenomenon with kings who ‘started off sincere’ and serving God, but then the power, ego, went to their head and they ended up doing awful things (like, Jehu, for one example.)

      And, we also saw that with Kohen Gadols, as the Gemara recounts about Yochanan, who the last day of his life we’re told became a heretic Sadduccee.

      There is nothing new under the sun, and the same situation, the same test, comes round again and again, until it’s finally passed.

      ==

      UPDATE:

      I was pondering this more, and I think a few more ‘nuances’ would be useful.

      1) Everyone has free choice. These souls can take their tremendous spiritual ‘koach’ to serve God, or do the opposite, God forbid.

      We know that the bigger the soul, the bigger the yetzer hara, the bigger the tests that soul has.

      That’s why Esav, in theory, could have done way more ‘good’ in the world than Yaakov, if he had chosen that route.

      But he didn’t.

      So the ‘yichus’ doesn’t automatically mean someone is corrupted and ‘bad’.

      But also, we need to stop being naive that ‘having yichus’ means someone is automatically more holy, ‘good’, or on a loftier level, and to stop scrutinising what is really going on here.

      Most of our leaders today are scum, regardless of the yichus.

      And one key way of spotting that is to check how many pedos they cover up for and tolerate and ‘protect’ in their communities.

      (Both in the secular and the ‘frum’ community).

      ==

      Another nuance to state is that the people who had their books printed and ‘studied’ widely and promoted were all the wealthiest court Jews.

      No-one else could afford to do that.

      For a modern analogy, look at what happened with ‘Lord Jonathan Sacks’.

      If you came back in 200 years you’d think he was the tzaddik hador or something.

      Really….. he was just a super-promoted scion of the these same families, and most of his ‘Torah’ is superficial, at best, when it’s not down right heretical.

      Extrapolate backwards, because there is nothing new under the sun, even though the Torah taught and the insights were undoubtedly still on a way higher level than we have today.

      Reply
      • R
        R says:

        thanks for the response- yes, I agree yichus does not necessarily mean that the descendant is a tzaddik. I’m specifically trying to understand if you are saying that individuals who learned torah, taught torah, who wrote works on Torah, and are studied today, are not who they were purported to be. If that is the case, how do we ever know who is a tzadik and who is a false prophet and promoting false ideas. I also understand that within one family just because one person is a tzadik, a close relative can be corrupt; but does that destroy all the goodness of the tzadik?

        Reply
        • Rivka Levy
          Rivka Levy says:

          The answer is, that this scenario is *at least* possible.

          Look at Acher in the Gemara.

          There is sadly a lot of precedent.

          Even the original ‘Tzaddukim’ were high-level students of Antigonus, who went off the derech….

          Reply

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