Haskala; 1684-1827

The massacres and impoverishment of Polish Jewry after 1648 casts a pall over the growing eastern European centers of Jewish life.

Dogmatic Kabbalism spreads progressively and finally comes to social expression in 1666 with the widespread acceptance of the views of the pseudo-messiah Shabbetai Tzevi.

Most of European and Ottoman Jewry are swept into a hysterical pitch in the belief that the end is now finally at hand.

When the pseudo-messiah converts to Islam after being apprehended by the Ottoman government, mass despondency takes the form of crypto-Shabbetaianism in which the apostasy of the messiah is explained as a form of voluntary crucifixion for the sake of the Jews.

A witch-hunt on the part of traditionalists to uncover the cells of heresy unsettles Jewish communities everywhere by an emphasis on greater rigidity than before.

The following century (to c. 1750) is the darkest in the history of rabbinic Judaism.

Scholarship reaches an ebb of quality and popular religion a mechanical state such as Jews had never before experienced.With varying fortunes often accompanied by revolts, massacres, and wars, the first three centuries of Ottoman rule have isolated Palestine from and insulated it against most outside influences.

Ottoman control in the 18th century is indirect.Jews play an important role in various German states and in the Austrian Empire.

The Court Jews (Hofjuden) become a sort of institution, although they have no rights, since they depend upon the good will of the ruler.

Antinomian eruptions of extreme Shabbetaians under the leadership of the self-proclaimed messiah and later Catholic convert Jacob Frank alarm Gentile authorities almost as much as they do Jews.

Yet beneath the surface, many are restlessly searching for new avenues of faith, and the 18th century sees fresh responses that set the history of the Jews and of Judaism on new directions and herald the beginnings of a new age.

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