Rabbi Yaakov Mordechai ben Naftali Ha-Cohen, the Missionaries of Institutum Judaicum in Halle and the Messianic Campaign of 5500
Rabbi Yaakov Mordechai ben Naftali Ha-Cohen, the Missionaries of Institutum Judaicum in Halle and the Messianic Campaign of 5500

Summary/Abstract: The expedition of two envoys from Institutum Judaicum et Muhammedicum w Halle, Georg Widmann and Johann Andreas Manitius, to Płock took place at a time of Messianic agitation in the Jewish community connected with the prophecies of salvation in the year 5500 (1740). In Poland the main prophet of the Messianic campaign connected with 5500 was Yaakov Mordechai ben Naftali Ha-Cohen, the rabbi of Płock and at the same time the land rabbi of Wielkopolska, whom the envoys of Institutum Judaicum of Halle set out to meet on their first mission. In the spring of 1728 Yaakov Mordechai had an illumination, which concerned his forthcoming salvation. His supporters communicated in in letters mailed from Płock to all the major Jewish communities of Poland and Europe. The rabbi predicted the messianic breakthrough in the year 5500 (1740). When in May 1728 Widmann learned about the messianic prophecies of the Płock rabbi, he immediately travelled to Płock to meet him. Widmann managed to persuade Callenberg, the founder of Institutum Judaicum, to organize a missionary expedition to Płock, but the expedition and the debate with the rabbi, described at length in the diaries, ended in a fiasco. According to Widmann’s testimony, the Płock rabbi died in 1735, depressed by the excommunication placed on him for liaising with Christian missionaries, among other sins.The missionary diaries have not been published so far. Now we are starting to publish in four instalments the full text of the missionaries’ diaries from their first peregrinations over Poland in the years 1730-1731. The first step is the diary, kept alternatively by the two men, from 1730 from the journey across Wielkopolska to Gdańsk. The text appears without any omissions, also indicating the author’s corrections and deletions, and at a few locations also segments that are illegible or incomprehensible. The footnotes are in German as they are meant for the readers of the diaries, who would be persons having command of the language.

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