Hebrew Catholic friends of mine in Canada, Mark and Sue, sent me a very interesting booklet by an Austrian Catholic deacon called Johannes Fichtenbauer. It is entitled: "The Mystery of the Olive Tree: Uniting Jews and Gentiles for Christ's Return". The deacon had a grandfather who was a very fervent Nazi and he himself before his conversion was a supporter of the Nazi anti-Jewish ideology. He later with Father Peter Hocken and Cardinal Ratzinger met with some Messianic Jewish leaders to begin an informal private dialogue on the question of the Messianic Jewish movement.
He relates an interesting account from the 17th century that occurred 80 years before the Frankists or Zoharists entered the Catholic Church in 1760. It would seem that after the traumatic events in Judaism associated with the false Messiah Shabtai Zvi some Jews turned secretly to accepting Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. Some of them as I have written elsewhere followed Nathan of Gaza in quietly converting by accepting Catholic baptism and some assimilating into the Catholic Church while maintaining secret study groups, however others remained in the Jewish Community secretly believing in Yeshua as the Mashiach. This also happened with the Zoharists of Frank where some with Jacob Frank publicly entered the Catholic Church and others remained in secret in the Jewish community. Fichtenbauer writes:
"The first event that we know about happened in a small town in southern Poland, Pinczow (near Krakow), around the year 1680. Four well-known Rabbis - Rabbi Krokeffer and Rabbi Sender, both from what is now the Czech Republic and Rabbi Chaija Chajon from Turkey met with the Chief Rabbi from Pinczow, interestingly called among his people, "Rabbi Megalleh Amukkoth" (the one who discovers secrets). As it was told in the documents later found in the archives of Herrenhut the three rabbis who lived outside Poland, were individually led by the Holy Spirit to come to this small town of Pinczow, to meet with their colleague. They did not meet on just any day, but on the particular day of "Tisha b'Av," the Jewish day of fasting and mourning over the destruction of the Temple."
Fichtenbauer rather fascinatingly goes onto describe how these four Rabbis led by the Holy Spirit came to accept Jesus as the Messiah and then they baptised each other in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He then states:
"...The four Rabbis shared two convictions. It was clear to them that they should not join any Gentile Christian Church...The other conviction: they wanted to be Jews and remain in their Jewish culture, still going to synagogue and still under the law...Each began to form little secret cells of Jews who believed in the Messiah..."
The well known Israeli scholar of Jewish mysticism Yehuda Liebes also discusses this account in 1988, as does Sid Z. Leiman in an article in an anthology entitled "New Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations"edited by Elisheva Carlebach and Jacob J. Schacter. Liebes believed this group were originally followers of Shabtai Zvi who then later re-evaluted their ideas and founded a Jewish Christian sect. It would seem to me that this account coming from Moravian Brethren circles in the 1770's has adjusted these events to suit a Protestant audience.
The Rabbi who met with the other three is called Rabbi Nathan and has been confused with Rabbi Nathan Spira, when in fact this Rabbi is most likely the secretly baptised Catholic Nathan of Gaza who then with the other three former secret Sabbatean Rabbis after much prayer and discussion were baptised by Rabbi Nathan with the intention of remaining among the Jewish people. Thus the story of the gathering of the Rabbis probably didn't occur in Pinczow at all but in Skopje (in modern day Macedonia). It was an old woman of Skopje who was a follower of this Jewish-Christian secret group that also influenced Jacob Frank. Liebes accepts that this Jewish-Christian group had followers in Holland, Bohemia, Moravia, Germany, Poland, Hungary and Turkey as claimed in these documents from the 18th century. When Liebes wrote his article he did not have access to the original documents and so got some identifications wrong which are cleared up with reading the fuller documents as studied by Leiman.
The Simon who presented the documents about this Jewish-Christian group to the Moravians was a grandson of Rabbi Hayyim b.Jacob Ashkenazi of Prossnitz who was a Rabbi of Deutschkreutz from 1710-1748 and a leader in the group according to these documents. Thus this Rabbi Hayyim was probably the grandson of Rabbi Nathan of Gaza himself whose full name was Nathan Benjamin ben Elisha Hayyim ha'Levi Ashkenazi. It would seem the Simon of Amsterdam (1745-1795) and his brothers Baruch and Meir were the leaders of a group of this Jewish-Christian group in Amsterdam who were more inclined to Protestantism than the wider group which was inclined to Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. The Catholic inclined group influenced and then joined Jacob Frank.
It would seem that Simon of Amsterdam may have created an origin story which reflected the origins of his group in the wider post-Sabbatean diaspora. Rabbi Nathan and Rabbi Sender represented those who were crypto-Catholics remaining in the Jewish communities. Reb Sender was a title for the leader of these crypto-Catholic Jews in the Jewish community. They used the name Alexander Brodie or Brody among the Gentiles and were known as Reb Sender among their followers as well as other names. They were masters of disguise similar to the Jesuits who went to England as priests. The first Reb Sender was also known as Rabbi Abraham Brodie (Broida/ Broide) and was the one mentioned in the story of the four Rabbis. The second Reb Sender was his son Rabbi Ephraim of Brody the father-in-law of the Baal Shem Tov. His niece (the daughter of his sister) married Aharon Leibele (son of Rabbi Isaac II Zolkiev whose son Nachman of Hordenker was the grandfather of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov) who took the surname of Broida or Brody when he became the third Reb Sender. His grandson was the fourth Reb Sender who was also known as Reb Sender of Sheklov a father-in-law of Reb Moshe ben Zalman the Catholic son of the Alter Rebbe of Chabad. The surname Broida means a bread maker and thus alludes to the Bread of the Eucharist and those who adore it and the name Sender (from Alexander) means those who are Guardian Protectors of the Eucharistic Bread or Manna.
Rabbi Chayon was said to be a leader of an antinomian group of former Sabbateans and known as Rabbi Nehemiah Chiya Chayon, that embraced a kind of Judeo-Christian antinomian Trinitarian belief, according to some Jewish writers such as Henry Graetz and David Nieto. After the failure of the mission of Shabtai Zvi his group may have accepted an antinomian version of Jesus as the Messiah who was embodied in Rav Chayon. However, the hostile accounts of him as antinomian and false Messiah or Prophet may have been due to his Kabbalistic and Zoharistic teaching that spoke of the Trinity and the Incarnation of the God-Man. Thus, the account of Simon of Amsterdam of Rabbi Chayon as a sincere crypto-Christian may be more correct than past writers have proposed. Rabbi Chayon seems to have been able to cause a stir in Jewish communities where many Torah-observant Jews accepted him including many Rabbis but others equally opposed to him and his kabbalistic teachings. Graetz's vehement and passionate ranting against Chayon seems to be based on Graetz's fanatical dislike of Kabbalah or Jewish Mysticism based on the Zohar in general. Jonathan Eybenschitz was originally a follower of Chayon and Jonathan was also a descendant of Nathan of Gaza and the Ashkenazi family and a relative of Simon of Amsterdam. According to Leiman, Simon of Amsterdam was the Simon described who was present at the death bed of Jonathan.
Rabbi Krokeffer may have been the leader of a group of Prague Sabbateans who later became followers of Eva Frank, the daughter of Jacob Frank the Jewish Catholic Tzadik or Rebbe. However, this Rabbi Krokeffer may have instead been Rabbi Yosef of Pistyn (1665-1743) and the use of the surname of Korff by his descendants may be a contraction of Krokeffer. Thus krokeffer and korff alludes to Korb vever (basket weaver) which does not refer to a literal basket weaver but to one who weaves mystical or kabbalistic meanings from Scripture and Talmud and gives new life to them. The surname Korff and its variants is found in Westphalia in Germany which must have been the origin of this family before moving further east. His wife was known as Yente the Prophetess. The name Yente also alludes to the Hebrew word tene (first fruit basket) as well as the Worthy Woman of Proverbs 31:13 who weaves with her hands. This basket weaving is described in Hasidic circles as the bringing down of the Divine Light or Will by adoration, prayer, meditation and contemplative study and placing it in stable spiritual vessels or acts symbolised by the tene (first fruit basket).
Some of the followers of these groups did not remain Jewish and like the ancestors of Blessed Katarina Anna Emmerich they assimilated totally into the Catholic Church and by the time of Jacob Frank's movement had already been devout Catholics for 2-4 generations. Nathan of Gaza was also known as Rabi to his followers and one branch of his family took the surname of Rabers. Emmerich's paternal grandmother Margareta was a descendant of the Rabers family. Anna Emmerich's father Bernard Emmerich's paternal grandmother was Anna or Chana Korff an aunt of Rabbi Isaac of Drohobich (b.1695) and a sister of Rabbi Yosef of Pistyn the Krokeffer. Rabbi Isaac had Hasidic descendants using both the surnames of Korff and Ashkenazi. Chana Korff was the wife of Nathan Emmerich of Westphalia (married 1697) who took the names of Bernard and Anna on their baptism into the Catholic Church. The Emmerich or Emmerick family originally a Jewish family of Gompel who were from the town of Emmerich in Westphalia of which their Coesfeld branch converted to Catholic around 1670-80. It would seem this is connected to this re-evaluation of the Jewish mysticism in a Christian and Catholic direction discussed by Simon of Amsterdam.
Thus this gathering of the four Rabbis told by Simon of Amsterdam is said to be around 1680 and that Rabbi Nathan died soon after. Thus I would date this event to Tisha B'Av (18 July) in 1679 (5439) as Rabbi Nathan Ashkenazi of Gaza died on Jan 11 1680. In a future blog post I will share some of Fichtenbauer's ideas in regard to Catholics and the Messianic Jewish movement.