My Dissertation's Journey (Part I)

As readers know, I am still in the process of writing my doctoral dissertation in history. It has taken me a few years and I am not yet done. As it stands now, while I possess a flesh and blood dissertation and more, that only needs to be edited, there is a strong possibility that I will have to make major changes, which can set me back months or even longer. Thus, I thought to take the opportunity to fill readers in on the situation and how I got there.

When I started my doctoral work at Ohio State, back in the fall of 2006, I wanted to write a dissertation on Isaac Abarbanel, focusing on either his messianic thought or his relationship to Maimonides. My advisor Dr. Goldish turned this idea down. He did not feel qualified to supervise something on Abarbanel. More importantly, he felt that my job prospects would fare better if I did not simply write something narrowly on Jewish thought, but instead addressed a larger narrative issue that would be of interest to people outside of Jewish Studies.

My next major idea was to write on the theme of vengeance against Christians in Jewish messianic thought. This was inspired by comments by Abarbanel, expressing his very un-politically correct hopes for the destruction of Christendom in the wake of the expulsion of 1492. I figured that writing about Jews thinking in ways that Christians often accused them of doing would be fun and controversial. This line of thinking led me to write an essay on the sixteenth-century adventurer David Reubeni, who claimed to come from the Ten Lost Tribes, and his interest in guns.

The next turn was influenced by a Koran class I took with the remarkable scholar Dr. Georges Tamer. On wrote a paper on Islamic Mahdism focusing particularly on the case of the Shi'i Fatimid dynasty, which seized power in North Africa in the early tenth century. What caught my attention was the fact that we are dealing with an apocalyptic movement that managed to evolve into a political one, once it seized power. I wondered if Maimonides', who took the apocalyptic element out of his messianism, was influenced by this line of thinking. Combined with my reading of Norman Cohn's Pursuit of the Millennium, which discusses medieval Christian apocalyptic movements in political terms, I became interested in messianism as a form of Jewish politics. This was to be in contrast to Gershom Scholem's categorizing of messianism as a retreat from politics.

I started to seriously work on the dissertation at the beginning of 2009 after completing my general exams. Using the essays on Reubeni and the Fatimids as well as a more extensive piece placing Abarbanel's messianism within the context of the Christian apocalyptic tradition as exemplified by Joachim of Fiore, I was planning on making my case that Jewish messianism was political largely by placing it within the context of various non-Jewish movements. The chapters would go as follows: Abu Isa's and David Alroy's use of armed force under charismatic leadership as influenced by early Shi'ism, Maimonides' rejection of apocalypticism as influenced by the Fatimids, Abarbanel's use of contemporary history as influenced by Joachim of Fiore, David Reubeni's use of guns as a symbol of state power, Sabbatai Sevi's use of early modern communication networks and Jacob Frank's use of brute force. This idea was grand, bold and completely impractical.

Are Messianic Movements Doomed to Failure?

The apocalyptic understanding of the Messiah would seem to guarantee that all messianic movements would, by definition, fail. If the point of a Messiah is to overturn the natural order of things and bring about the kingdom of God, any Messiah who comes and leaves the natural order of things intact is, by definition, a failed Messiah, if not a false Messiah. This argument is articulated by Harris Lenowitz in his book, The Jewish Messiahs: From the Galilee to Crown Heights. Lenowitz argues that messianic movements are by definition doomed because they cannot fulfill the supernatural claims upon which they are built:

Despite the variety of details in the messiah's lives and circumstances, one concludes, after reading all the accounts of them in succession, that they possess at least one feature in common: the messiah's failure to achieve his stated promises; from the beginning of every account, disaster is present and only awaiting its turn to appear. … No messiah succeeds in leading his followers and the world to a harmonious existence – not on the political level, where independence and autonomy inside or outside Israel is not regained by the Jews; and certainly not on the cosmic plain, where disease, violence, and death endure as principal features of the human universe. No messiah is able to soften these perdurable actualities. The messiahs, during their lives, and the followers, after their leader's death, must push the successful fulfillment of their programs forward into the future in order to maintain themselves as microsocieties in the present, but their efforts merely inflect the unavoidable death of the messiah and the eventual collapse of his movement, leaving rationalizations on the ruins of the unattainable hopes they have raised.

This view of Messianism has come under heavy fire. For example, Marc Saperstein, in his review of Jewish Messiahs, commented that:

Using the tools of the anthropologist, he [Lenowitz] presents the messianic movement as a Sisyphean ritual, in which all the protagonists know from the outset how the drama will end. … History, for the participants if not always for the historians, is very different from Greek tragedy. The analysis of behavior, knowledge, and motivation from the perspective of what occurs at a later date is (to use Michael Bernstein's felicitous term) illegitimate "backshadowing." It is hard to imagine that the protagonists of a messianic movement genuinely believe that they are following a script with a tragic ending. For them there is an alternative script in which the ending is luminous. 

I propose here that this is another example where political messianism becomes useful. As long as messianism is tied to the supernatural then, yes, the success or failure of the movement can be judged solely on the basis of whether the natural order in both politics and the physical order have been overthrown. This, of course, means that every messianic movement in history, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, has failed. Thus messianism becomes a study in failure. The study of Islamic Mahdism, in this sense, is useful in that it gives us a model of successful messianic movements that were apocalyptic. These movements simply shed their apocalyptic elements as they gained political power. If this process could work within Islam then in theory at least it could have worked for Judaism. Ultimately while messianic movements may be born out of Apocalypticism, they are not bound by them. They can transcend their apocalyptic origins and enter the political realm.

This allows us to look back at Jewish messianism as something other than a set up for failure. We may know the end of the story, that things will end in failure, but as long as there could have been a rationally plausible for any messianic movement to succeed then, as historians, we are required to put our knowledge of the end to one side and see the movement as those living in the moment would have seen it, with the possibility of success. Could Abu Isa and David Alroy have successfully led revolts and gained at least semi-autonomous Jewish States in northern Persia? Could David Reubeni, with the help of Shlomo Molcho, have continued the pretense of negotiating on behalf of a Jewish kingdom in the East long enough for Reubeni to have established himself as ruler of the Jews, making himself a force that no European power, not even Charles V, could simply ignore? Might the Ottoman Sultan have chosen to appoint Sabbatai Sevi as king of the Jews in a subject kingdom of Palestine, setting off a mass emigration of Western European Jews, bringing their technical skills to the new Sabbatian State? Would Jacob Frank have been able to carve at his niche in the political chaos of Poland and the religious chaos of the Jewish community to form his own power base? In many respects, barring more than a decade in prison, Frank actually did this and must, therefore, be viewed as a success.  

War and Peace: My First Conference Presentation and My Weekend at Purdue (Part IV)

(Part I, II, III)

I was supposed to be the second of two people speaking at the third session. The other person, whom I have never met and shall remain nameless, did not show up to the conference. So I got a full session all to myself to speak about David Reubeni. This presentation was based on a paper I did for Dr. Robert Davis and I intend to use it in some form for my dissertation. My presentation was on the political thought of David Reubeni, an early sixteenth century Jew who claimed to be an ambassador from several of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Reubeni wandered around Europe for several years attempting to form alliances with various Christian powers to fight the Muslims and was taken seriously by a number of important people, including Pope Clement VII. I argue that Reubeni managed to create a power structure around himself and claimed the sort of authority usually reserved for states. His initial success in this endeavor was due to his claim that he was a representative of a political state and a man of noble birth.

Throughout his diary Reubeni continuously strives to portray himself as a man capable of using violence. Like a political state he and his followers use “legitimate” violence against those who do not have “legitimate” power and, by doing so, bring “peace,” “justice” and “order” to all. The fact that Reubeni represented a state and acting against individuals who did not represent states, by definition, meant that his acts of violence were legitimate and that they were just and that the actions of his opponents were, by definition, illegitimate. In keeping with his interest in violence, Reubeni took a great interest in the instruments of violence such as swords, armor and particularly guns and his ability to possess and use them. I offered an analysis of several episodes found in Reubeni’s diary, where we see him playing the role of a statesman, engaging in acts of violence and thereby attempting to bring about justice, order and peace.

My intention was to move beyond the traditional issues regarding Reubeni - Reubeni the messianic claimant and Reubeni the con-man. He may have been a fraud, but he was also a brilliant political thinker, with a plan of action built around issues pertaining to this world and not just apocalyptic expectations. Ultimately, and this is the main point of my dissertation, I wish to, following in the footsteps of Norman Cohn and Richard Popkin, challenge the distinction between apocalyptic Messianism and earthly politics.

If readers of this blog are interested I might post a fuller version of the paper As I was the sole presenter at this session I spoke for a little longer than my allotted twenty minutes and we had a longer than usual question and answer session afterwards. The people in attendance were simply a fantastic audience so this session ended up going on for close to the allotted hour.

After attending a conference full of post modern liberal sophistry, I was looking forward to driving back to Columbus with Cory Driver. We were driving through rural Indiana (Sarah Palin’s real America) when we stopped at a gas station. In what can only be described as something out of a comedy sketch, the gas station was named Gas America.

I went inside and did not find Achmed the Dead Terrorist behind the counter. Instead I found what looked to be a perfectly normal American girl.

War and Peace: My First Conference Presentation and My Weekend at Purdue University (Part I)

For the weekend of April 3-4 I was in Lafayette IN for a conference at Purdue University, titled War and Peace: Discourse, Poetics, and Other Representations. This was my first conference presentation and I presented my paper on David Reubeni. The conference was for graduate students so this was certainly a minor league affair, but I am glad that I was able to attend as this summer I will be presenting at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds England, a major league affair. As one might expect from the title, this conference was pretty top heavy in terms of post modernism. Of the presentations I attended Cory Driver’s and mine were the only ones that were not open exercises in post modernism. There was also the issue of liberal politics; as one might expect there was a fair amount not so subtle Bush bashing with some shots at Israel thrown into the mix. All in all it was a wonderful conference, though, and I really would like to thank the people who helped put it together particularly John White and also Jessica Raffelson, who chaired my session.

I was in a bit of quandary in trying to find accommodations for Shabbos. I was in luck and was put in contact with the Aldrich family and was able to spend Shabbos with them. Dr. Daniel Aldrich is a professor in the political science department at Purdue. He and his wife are now on my list (somewhere near the Klappers) of things that are right with Orthodox Judaism. They are one of the few Orthodox people in Lafayette and Dr. Aldrich’s wife home schools their three adorable children. They have also lived in Japan for a number of years, during which time Dr. Aldrich wrote articles, on the side, for the Haredi newspaper Hamodia about living as a Jew in the Far East. I presented on Friday but was thinking of walking back to Purdue on Shabbos to sit in on at least some of the day’s presentations. In the end I did not; I was having too much fun at the Aldrich’s. I had a great discussion with Dr. Aldrich about my favorite polemical topic, Haredim. I was on the offensive, he was on the defensive. This ended up branching out into post modernism; it turns out that he is even more hostile to post modernism than I am. I had to defend my willingness to use such terms as “Imperial Haredism” or “Haredi creation of the Other.” I do recognize the value of certain post modern terms, questions, and concepts as long as they do not become ends in of themselves.

As to the conference itself. The first panel was on Theorizing War and was chaired by Sol Neely. Ethan Sproat of Purdue University spoke on “War and Its Purification.” It was an examination of Kenneth Burke’s views on war within the context of Friederich Nietzsche. According to Burke, war is an object of communication and as a means of communications. This is Burke’s attempt to look at the symbolism of war as a means of getting around the act of war itself. Burke was influenced by Nietzsche. Nietzsche viewed war as the actions of people who already lived condemned lives. Actual war is a disease; it is built around a cult of empire and relies on dissipation and fanaticism. This is a type of reasoning that desires to eliminate all forms of opposition; Nietzsche refers to this as a “diseased form of reasoning.” Burke notes that all organisms live by killing. Move from the hand to the fist. Nietzsche also recognized this need for violence.

Nietzsche felt comfortable only with Heraclitus who said that “things become through war.” Strife is required for cooperation; there is a value in having enemies. Nietzsche self consciously used “war” instead of “strife.” War is a onetime event instead of something continuous. He believed in attacking ideas that have been victorious where one stands alone in opposition. One attacks ideas and not people. To attack is proof of good will. One can only wage war against equals. Nietzsche believed that it was important in preserving the enemy even the Church so in a sense Nietzsche’s attack on Christianity was, from his perspective, a true act of love.

Burke employs Nietzsche’s use of war as a way of establishing community. There is an element of competition; we engage in communion through competition. A pure act is always symbolic. As applied to war this would mean war without actual war, just the symbols of war. Pure war preempts actual war and reverses the relationship between symbols and actions.

Sproat ended his presentation with a nod to those in attendance. This conference is an act of pure war. We engage and challenge others. Despite our differences we still see engagement as something of inherent value. The questions becomes how do we bring these values of pure war to those already engaged in actual war.

Despite the underlying liberal polemic and post modern discourse of this presentation I did enjoy this one. Particularly since I love Nietzsche and it was wonderful to see someone embrace Nietzsche whole heartedly without any concern for being labeled a racist a Nazi or, even worse, a sexist.

(To be continued …)

AJS Conference Day Two Session Two (Early Modern Messianism(s): Context, Confluence, and Discourse

Rebekka Voss (Harvard University)
"Topsy-Turvy World's End: The Lost Tribes in Apocalyptic Scenarios from Sixteenth-Century Germany"

Jews saw the Ten Lost Tribes as redeemers who would save them from the Christians. This is in keeping with the theme of revenge which so permeates Ashkenazic thought. Christians saw the Ten Lost Tribes as serving the Anti Christ. (See Andrew Gow's the Red Jews) In the early modern period the Ten Lost Tribes were a major political and military force, to be reckoned with, in the minds of both Jews and Christians in Europe. In 1523 we have pamphlets in Germany talking about the tribes being on the march with 600,000 soldiers. It was at this moment in time that Reubeni appeared and offered Christians a solution to their problem. The Ten Lost Tribes would help them take the Holy Land. What is interesting to note is that, despite the differences between Jews and Christians, the Ten Lost Tribes plays a role in their common culture. Jews and Christians exchange information between each other relating to sightings of the tribes and are used as sources by the other. Jews took on the legend of the Red Jews, that there was this vast army of Jews from the Ten Lost Tribes ready to descend upon Europe, as a counter counter story. Each side claimed the Jacob side in the Jacob/Esau narrative. For Christians red refers to Edom (in reference to Esau selling his birthright for a bowl of lentiles) For Jews red referred to King David who had red hair. The Yiddish version of the legend talks about the Ten Lost Tribes as David taking on the Christian Goliath.


Anne Oravetz Albert (University of Pennsylvania)
"The Religio-Political Jew: Post-Sabbatian Political Thought in Daniel Levi de Barrios and Abraham Pereyra"

The Sabbatean movement meant a lot of different things to different people. We see an example of two Amsterdam Jews who engage in a shift towards a Jewish politics, to see Jews as political beings. Both of these Jews were ex conversos familiar with Catholic political thought. Abraham Pereyra talks about the need to govern with more piety. His Mirror of the World talks about the value of prudence in classical and Jewish sources. He attacks secularizers who follow Machiavelli and try to take religion out of politics. (For a discussion of the role of Machiavelli in early modern Catholic political thought see Robert Bireley's the Counter-Reformation Prince.) Daniel Levi Barrios, a converso poet, talks about how Jewish exile lead to better Jewish forms of government with the ultimate example being the Jewish community of Amsterdam. (Ruth Wisse's Jews and Power is an interesting example of a modern scholar who seems to follow a very similar line of thinking. Wisse talks about Jewish exilic political thought as being centered on creating and maintaining a community without recourse to physical force.) Barrios wavers back and forth on the merits of a monarchy versus that of a democracy. (A line of political discourse founded in Aristotle's Politics.) The mamad is the ideal type of government. Barrios uses various symbols to put the mamad within the context of creation.

(This presentation, as with the first, are closely related to the research I am doing now. I wrote a paper on Reubeni and his use of his status as an ambassador from the Ten Lost Tribes to create a mobile state around himself. This going to be part of my larger dissertation on the politics of Jewish Messianism, an issue this second paper so nicely confronted.)

Pawel Maciejko (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

(The original title of Maciejko's presenation was going to be "Messinaism and Exile in the Works of Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschutz." Maciejko, though, decided to speak on Eibeschutz's Sabbatean son, Wolf Eibeschutz.)

On Christmas eve in 1758 Wolf Eibeschutz told the people in the synagogue that he was in that instead of following the traditional Jewish Christmas eve practice of playing cards. (There is a custom amongst certain Jews not to study Torah on Christmas eve because on this night the klipot, the dark powers, reign supreme and anything good done would just go to serve the forces of evil.) Instead Eibeschutz declared that he would destroy the power of the klipot by playing his harp. The people saw a flame in the sky, which Eibeschutz declared was the sechina descending. Like Eibeschutz, Jacob Frank, in Poland, was trying to unite the Sabbatean community behind him. The Frankists had just lost their protector. Frank was pushing for conversion to Christianity which he would do in 1759. Like Eibeschutz, Frank also used this "flame" in the sky, which was in fact Halley's comet.

The eighteenth century was a golden age of charlatanism, which Eibeschutz and Frank are examples of. The eighteenth century was a time in which there developed a major knowledge gap; those who were on the more knowledgeable side could easily use their knowledge to dupe those who were not. Both Eibeschutz and Frank knew about the expected appearance of Halley's comet from reading European newspapers.

The concept of a false messiah is a contradiction in terms. Frank should not be viewed as a messiah at all. He was simply part of a wide circle of charlatans active in Europe at the time and formed an actual community. There is little messianism in Frank. He does not offer redemption. Instead there is this world and eternal life.

(Even if you are involved in Jewish studies you have probably not yet heard of Pawel Maciejko. I first met him last May when he came to Ohio state for a conference. Just remember that you heard about him here first. This guy is brilliant and a talented speaker and he will be a dominant figure in the field in the decades to come.

One could challenge Maciejko over the eighteenth century being the age of charlatanism. The sixteenth century had David Reubeni and Natalie Zemon Davis' Martin Guerre case. Maciejko responded to this that the eighteenth century was different in that you have an actual community of charlatans who are in contact with each other.

Elisheva Carlebach was chairing the session and challenged him over his refusal to use the terms false and failed messiahs. So they got into an interesting back and forth on this matter. I asked him point blank if in creating the narrative of Jewish Messianism, such as Harris Lenowitz's Jewish Messiahs: From the Galilee to Crown Heights, if he would take Frank out. He said yes. Since I am planning on including a chapter on Frank in my dissertation on political messianism, I am going to have to be responding to Maciejko; this should be interesting.)