THE HERESY OF JACOB FRANK: FROM JEWISH MESSIANISM TO ESOTERIC MYTH. By JayMichaelson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. 272. Cloth, $120; Paper, $34.99.

Jacob Frank (1726–91) is one of the more complex and controversial Jewish figures of the last several centuries. He has been variously described as a heretic, charlatan, trickster, degenerate, mystic, and redeemer of sorts. He emerged from Polish, Ottoman, and Sabbatean contexts, forging his own path as an iconoclastic and charismatic leader. At various points, his group identified as anti-Talmudist, faced accusations of performing ritualized orgies, and participated in a mass but insincere conversion to Catholicism. He spent twelve years in prison for this last offense before reinventing himself as an underground cult leader and esoteric master. Frankists and their descendants have been linked to the French Revolution, Freemasonry, the Haskalah, Polish intelligentsia (Adam Mickiewicz), and the US Supreme Court (Louis Brandeis). Jay Michaelson's long-awaited book on Frank is deep, thoughtful, and engaging. It is neither a biography nor a study of the Frankist movement but rather an exploration of “what this great Jewish heretic believed, at least at the time of ZSP.” The latter refers to Zbiór Słów Pańskich (Collection of the Words of the Lord), a unique and sometimes shocking compilation of texts dictated and assembled toward the end of Frank's life. Michaelson describes ZSP as “part autohagiography, part theology, part record of an abusive sect leader…in a form…of little editing or organizing,” and his ability to weave disparate texts together while simultaneously offering close readings of this complicated work is masterful. Michaelson explores Frankist notions of antinomianism and sexuality, detaches Frankism from Kabbalah and Sabbateanism, and links Frank to figures like Casanova and Western esoteric societies of the eighteenth century. He also points out numerous ways in which Frankist's libertine perspective foreshadowed ideas now largely mainstream, including among vast numbers of Jews in the United States. In so doing, Michaelson cuts through historical accusations and historiographical assumptions of Frank's “heresy,” pointing out that opposition to mainstream thought can later be flipped and viewed positively. Michaelson's use of queer theory and his philological and textual analysis advances scholarship on Frank, Sabbateanism, and Jewish mysticism more broadly. However, one walks away from this book with many more questions than answers. Was Frank a true believer, a charlatan, or a nihilist? How did he relate to his followers and vice versa? Is there a logic to ZSP, and if so, how did it reflect its author and, in turn, its audience? Michaelson's systematic appendix on ZSP and the state of relevant scholarship indicates there is a way to navigate these questions and so much more, but he seems to prefer to leave Frank as an idea reflecting the seismic shift in European Jewish thought and society between then and now. Of course, as the book's title indicates, Michaelson set out to elucidate the idea of Frank's heresy, not Frank himself or the totality and evolution of his thought. As such, when read in tandem with excellent scholarship by Pawel Maciejko, Jan Doktór, Ada Rapoport-Alpert, and many others, this book may offer researchers new ways to explore one of the most controversial and fascinating Jewish movements of the early modern period.