12 Facts About Jacob Frank

Jacob Joseph Frank was a Polish-Jewish religious leader who claimed to be the reincarnation of the self-proclaimed messiah Sabbatai Zevi and of the biblical patriarch Jacob.

Jacob Frank's father was a Sabbatean, and moved to Czernowitz, in the Carpathian region of Bukovina, in 1730, where the Sabbatean influence at the time was strong.

Jacob Frank was forced to leave Podolia, while his followers were hounded and denounced to the local authorities by the rabbis.

At this critical moment Jacob Frank came to Iwania, proclaimed himself as a direct successor to Sabbatai Zevi and Otman Baba, and assured his adherents that he had received revelations from Heaven.

Jacob Frank was convicted of teaching heresy, and imprisoned in the monastery of Czestochowa.

Jacob Frank's imprisonment lasted thirteen years, yet it only increased his influence with the sect by surrounding him with the aura of martyrdom.

Jacob Frank inspired his followers through mystical speeches and epistles, in which he stated that salvation could be gained only by first adopting the "religion of Edom" and later adopting a future religion which Jacob Frank called daas.

Jacob Frank lived in the Moravian town of Brno until 1786, surrounded by a retinue of adherents and pilgrims who came from Poland.

Ultimately Jacob Frank was deemed unmanageable and he was obliged to leave Austria.

Jacob Frank 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, receiving financial support from his Polish and Moravian followers, who made frequent pilgrimages to Offenbach.

Jacob Frank's fortunes dwindled in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, and she died in Offenbach in 1816.

Jacob Frank promulgated the allegations that the mothers of "three of the greatest men of Poland" were converted Jews from the Frankist sect.