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(Redirected from Mordecai Eisenstadt)
Sabbatean prophet and Messiah claimant
The death of Sabbatai Zevi (1676) seems to have encouraged his followers, who claimed that he had returned to his heavenly abode and would come back in three years to finish his "Messianic" task. This doctrine was preached by Mordecai, who, through his ascetic life, his eloquence, and his commanding appearance, won many followers. Italian kabbalists, among them Behr Perlhefter, the first Maggid in the study hall of Abraham Rovigo, and Benjamin ben Eliezer ha-Kohen, rabbi of Reggio, called him to Italy about 1678, where he was very popular for a time. Something, perhaps fear of the Inquisition, forced him to leave Italy, where he had begun to announce himself as the Messiah. He traveled as a preacher through Austria, Germany, and Poland, and finally returned to Hungary, where he seems to have lived a quiet life, as nothing further is known of him. His son, Judah Löb Mokiach, an eminent Talmudist, died in Pressburg on December 7, 1742; the latter's sons were David Berlin (Mokiach) and Isaiah Berlin (Mokiach), known also as Isaiah Pick.
Avraham Elqayam|Elqayam, Avraham: The Rebirth of the Messiah: New Discovery of R. Issachar Baer Perlhefter", Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Text, 1 (1996), pp. 85-166 (Hebrew).
Michael Heyd, "The ‘Jewish Quaker’: Christian Perceptions of Shabbatai Zevi as an Enthusiast," in Allison Coudert and Jeffrey Shoulson (eds.), Hebraica Veritas? Christian Hebraists, Jews, and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004, pp. 234-265; p. 244, and p. 261, n. 54.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.