Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschuetz and the Alleged Jewish-Christian Sect in Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam

Abstract

Before this chapter treats the present state of the Church of Israel, the chapter tells how Rabbi Jonathan was appointed and inducted as a teacher and preacher in Israel. In 1988, Yehuda Liebes published a groundbreaking study of the documents published by Dalman. Well aware of the mythic character of the history of the sect, Liebes correctly identified the Sabbatian origin and character of the alleged sect. Essentially, he argued that when the sect became disillusioned with Sabbatianism, especially with the death of its hero - R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz - in 1764, it adopted Christianity. Whereas previously the sect had been outwardly Jewish and secretly Sabbatian, now it was outwardly Jewish and secretly Christian. For Liebes, these documents prove the existence of the sect, not merely as a local society in Amsterdam but as a sect that existed throughout much of the eighteenth century in Holland, Bohemia, Moravia, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Turkey. Keywords:alleged Jewish-Christian sect; Church; Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam; Israel; Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschuetz