For those interested in traditions of female mysticism in Judaism parallel to those found in Christianity and Islam, this is a fascinating book. Ada RapoportAlbert, Reader in Jewish history at University College, London, has been a strong proponent of the view that the Hasidic movement was not gender-egalitarian and neither promoted women’s spirituality nor lent support to the phenomenon of female tzaddikim (she considers the Maid of Ludmir as a total aberration) as scholars such as Horodetsky had claimed. In contrast, Rapoport-Albert shows with great scholarly detail that women were actively involved in the Sabbatian movement that preceded the rise of Hasidism. In fact, Sabbatai Tzvi proclaimed that he had come to make women as happy and fulfilled as men by releasing them from the pangs of childbirth and the subjugation to their husbands that resulted from the sin of Eve in Genesis.
Rapoport-Albert explores the phenomenon of the hundreds or even thousands of female prophetesses who took part in the Sabbatian eruption of mass prophecy; the inversion of conventional gender norms in Sabbatianism, and particularly in its successor, Frankism; and the promotion of female celibacy as conducive to women’s spiritual empowerment. Jacob Frank, who eventually converted to Christianity in 1759, maintained that the Messiah must be a woman.
Particularly fascinating are the descriptions of the roles of Sarah, wife of Sabbatai Tzvi, and Eva, daughter of Jacob Frank, who was venerated in Frankist circles as the female Messiah and the living incarnation of the divine sefirah of malkhut. Some of the details in this volume are startling, but the work opens up an intriguing and valuable window to the status of women in East European Jewish life.