Between Messiah and Monster: A Brief Biography of Jacob Frank Jacob Frank — born Jakub Lejbowicz in Podolia in 1726, then a province of Poland and now part of Ukraine — was the son of Leib Buchbinder and Rachel Hirschl. Through his father he inherited a link to the scandal‑ridden Sabbateans, the heterodox Jewish movement that continued to uphold the messianic claims of Sabbatai Zevi, the seventeenth‑century Ottoman rabbi, Kabbalist, and apostate whose doctrine of redemption

Under a Spinozan Lens: Israel, Zionism and Bob Dylan’s ‘Neighborhood Bully’ [Article originally published on academia.edu for Holocaust Memorial Day / Yom HaShoah on 27th January 2024.] Thus this prejudice became a superstition, and fixed its roots deeply in the mind — Spinoza, Ethics [1] A little forty years ago — October 1983 — singer-songwriter Bob Dylan unveiled his Infidels album, which featured the ironically-titled ‘Neighborhood Bully’, a song depicting the trials of t

Academia-edu - Under a Spinozan Lens: Israel, Zionism and Bob Dylan's 'Neighborhood Bully' Published on Academia.edu (DOC) Under a Spinozan Lens: Israel, Zionism and Bob Dylan's 'Neighborhood Bully'

"The temple curtain made of some heavy purple fabric, with its curious pleats ..."

When We Were There When we were there, alive, though hardly, in that badly-lit and crooked hall, which led us down the steps to death, did not the world seem a useless idol broken beyond repair? But now we are here, in the tabernacle of this bright and sweet asylum, which cradles us warm into life, the world seems a god who brings the sun into being every morning. The whereabouts of that old place, lie hidden behind a wall, no, a heavy veil, marking the boundary betwe

The Light in That Place: A Poem for Hanukkah “Our holiday has been turned into a day of mourning” -- Chaim A. Kaplan The Light in That Place: A Poem for Hanukkah By lamp and by oil, we hunger the hours as the dusk's frost settles in. There is still time: the freight cars are not ready yet, but we are, we are ready, on this night. Sit, sit down while I set down these makeshift wicks, these meager latkes, this hanukkiah of ours, gifted by my father the day he was beaten and ta

Lifting Up of the Hands By lamp and by oil, we hunger the hours as the dusk's frost sets in. There is time: The trucks to Treblinka are not ready yet and there's bread to be had. But the water and bowl are for the washing of hands. (It's what tradition commands.) Fingers make moves in the silence of thought like chess players at their difficult tables. A mouth is turned open and another is shut, and dusk in due course is steadily swallowed, with every crumb of affliction

Oliver Cromwell: Statesman, soldier, Puritan, Lord Protector and friend of the Jews Our English Zion: Jews and Puritans in Cromwell's Era Contemporary accounts show that European Jewish intellectuals in the 1650s saw Cromwell’s philosemitism and his efforts to readmit Jews in England as proof that the great man was on a godly mission to save Jews and establish Zion – both in England and in the ancient boundaries of Israel. ‘Our English Zion’: Jews and Puritans in Cromwell’s E