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The Sabbatian Who Devoured His Son: Jacob Emden's Anti-Sabbatian Polemics of Cannibalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2019

Shai A. Alleson-Gerberg*
Affiliation:
Johns Hopkins University
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Abstract

In an era when cannibalism occupied the European imagination and became a political weapon that could be effectively aimed against the Other within or elsewhere, as well as a test case for the concept of humanity, it is hardly surprising to find similar rhetoric in internal Jewish discourse of the early modern era. This article shows Rabbi Jacob Emden's contribution to this discourse in the eighteenth century, and extends the boundaries of the scholarly discussion beyond establishing Jewish-Christian proximity. Emden's halakhic position on the question “Is it permissible to benefit from the cadaver of a dead gentile?” (She'elat Ya‘aveẓ) connects cannibalism and theological heresy springing from an overly literal reading of the rabbinical canon, as well as ties it to the concept of the seven Noahide laws. For Emden, the consumption of human flesh, literally and particularly metaphorically, distinguishes between the sons of Noah and heretics, as well as between humanity and savages. Emden advanced this concept in his polemical writings against the Sabbatian heresy in the 1750s, when he became embroiled in controversy with Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschütz and the Frankists.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 2019 

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Footnotes

For Matar, my firstborn

קְצָת דָּם

רַק קְצָת דָּם לְקִנּוּחַ הַדְּבַשׁ

A little blood

Just a little blood for honeyed dessert

—Yona Wallach, Yonatan1

To begin then, let us suppose that you were eating a Mohammedan; you were changing him into yourself! Is it not true that when digested that Mohammedan becomes a part of your flesh, a part of your body, a part of your sperm?

—Cyrano de Bergerac, Voyage to the Moon2

This research was made possible by the generous fellowships I received from the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the European Research Starting Grant TCCECJ headed by Paweł Maciejko.

References

1. Wallach, Yona, Devarim (Jerusalem: ‘Akhshav, 1966), 3Google Scholar.

2. From the unpublished translation of Leon Schwartz.

3. Emden, Jacob, Sefer hit'avkut (Altona, 1769)Google Scholar; references here to Sefer hit'avkut (Lwów, 1877), 5b–6a.

4. On the controversy and its significance, see for example Scholem, Gershom, “Bikkoret ‘al: M. J. Cohen, ‘Jacob Emden: A Man of Controversy,’ Philadelphia 1937,” Kiryat sefer 16 (1939): 320–38Google Scholar; Rosman, Moshe, “The Role of Non-Jewish Authorities in Resolving Conflicts within Jewish Communities in the Early Modern Period,” Jewish Political Studies Review 12 (2000): 5365Google Scholar; David Horowitz, “Fractures and Fissures in Jewish Communal Autonomy in Hamburg” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2010); Maciejko, Paweł, “The Jews’ Entry into the Public Sphere: The Emden-Eibeschütz Controversy Reconsidered,” Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts 6 (2007): 135–54Google Scholar; Leiman, Sid Z., “When a Rabbi Is Accused of Heresy: R. Ezekiel Landau's Attitude toward R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz in the Emden-Eibeschuetz Controversy,” in From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Intellect in Quest of Understanding, Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox, vol. 3, ed. Neusner, Jacob et al. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 177–94Google Scholar; Leiman, , “When a Rabbi Is Accused of Heresy: The Stance of the Gaon of Vilna in the Emden-Eibeschuetz Controversy,” in Me'ah She‘arim; Studies in Medieval Jewish Spiritual Life in Memory of Isadore Twersky, ed. Fleischer, Ezra et al. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2001), 251–63Google Scholar; Leiman, , “When a Rabbi Is Accused of Heresy: The Stance of Rabbi Jacob Joshua Falk in the Emden-Eibeschuetz Controversy,” in Rabbinic Culture and Its Critics: Jewish Authority, Dissent, and Heresy in Medieval and Early Modern Times, ed. Frank, Daniel and Goldish, Matt (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2008), 435–56Google Scholar; Leiman, , “Rabbi Ezekiel Landau: Letter of Reconciliation,” Tradition 43, no. 4 (2010): 8596Google Scholar; Leiman, Sid Z. and Swarzfuchs, Simon, “New Evidence on the Emden-Eibeschuetz Controversy: The Amulets from Metz,” Revue des études juives 165 (2006): 229–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ettinger, Shmuel (Barnai, Jacob, ed.), “The Emden-Eibeschuetz Controversy in the Light of Jewish Historiography” [in Hebrew], Kabbalah 9 (2003): 329–92Google Scholar.

5. The commentary given to Shalom Buzaglo was published and discussed in Gershom Scholem, “‘Al kami‘ ’eḥad shel Rabbi Yehonatan Eibeschütz ve-pirusho ‘alav,” in Me ḥkare shabeta'ut, ed. Yehuda Liebes (Tel Aviv: ‘Am ‘Oved, 1991), 707–33.

6. Jonathan Eibeschütz, Lu ḥot ‘edut (Altona, 1755), 63a–71a. See also [Jacob Emden?], Sefat ’emet ve-lashon zoharit (Altona, 1752), [6a, 15a]. A similar amulet was given in Hamburg to Moses son of Uri Feibisch. Ibid., [p. 3a].

7. Alleson-Gerberg, Shai, “The Way of a Man with a Maiden; The Way of a Serpent upon a Rock—R. Jonathan Eibeschütz's View of Christianity in And I Came This Day unto the Fountain” [in Hebrew], in And I Came This Day unto the Fountain, by R. Eibeschütz, Jonathan, ed. Maciejko, Paweł (Los Angeles, CA: Cherub Press, 2014), 278300Google Scholar.

8. Here Mitatron appears as the primordial messiah. On the mythical figure of Metatron in Sabbatianism, see ibid.; Halperin, David J., “Sabbatai Zevi, Metatron, and Mehmed: Myth and History in Seventeenth Century Judaism,” in The Seductiveness of Jewish Myth: Challenge or Response?, ed. Breslauer, S. Daniel (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 271308Google Scholar.

9. “[T]his Angel is known by two names: sometimes he is called Metatron [מטטרון], and sometimes Mitatron [מיטטרון] with a [letter] yod. And the meaning is that, when this Angel is the garment [levush] of the Shekhinah, and the Shekhinah conceals herself within him and demonstrates her actions through his agency, then his name becomes Mitatron with a yod [gematria: 10], to indicate the Shekhinah that is constituted of ten [sefirot].” Moses Cordovero, Pardes rimonim, sha ‘a r ’ABI‘A, chap. 4 (Kraków, 1592), 93b–94a.

10. See also Spira, Natan Note, Sefer megaleh ‘amukot (Kraków, 1637)Google Scholar, va-’et ḥanan, ’ofen 140; Jonathan Eibeschütz, Sefer ’ahavat Yehonatan (Hamburg, 1766), 18a.

11. Tikkune Zohar 108b.

12. Eibeschütz, Lu ḥot ‘edut, 65b.

13. On Wolf Eibeschütz, see Maciejko, Paweł, “A Portrait of a Kabbalist as a Young Man: Count Joseph Carl Emmanuel Waldstein and His Retinue,” Jewish Quarterly Review 106, no. 4 (2016): 521–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 561 ff.

14. In Biblical Hebrew yemini describes a member of the tribe of Benjamin. For example, see 1 Samuel 9:1, 21.

15. Emden, Sefer hit'avkut, 27b, 29a.

16. “The external wall of the house that faces the street … he [Wolf] rebuilt it high and very beautiful, covered with hewn stones above, and his name engraved on the image of a wolf and a lion; ‘the border of Benjamin [gevul Binyamin] at Ẓelẓaḥ’ [1 Samuel 10:2].” ibid., 19b.

17. “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed … for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

18. Emden, Sefer hit'avkut, 47a.

19. On Emden's credibility as a historical source, see Leiman, Sid Z., “Mrs. Jonathan Eibeschuetz's Epitaph: A Grave Matter Indeed,” in Scholars and Scholarship, ed. Landman, L. (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1990), 133–43Google Scholar.

20. Liebes, Yehuda, “Ḥibur bi-lashon ha-Zohar le-Rabbi Wolf ben Rabbi Yehonatan Eibeschütz, ‘al ḥavurato ve-‘al sod ha-ge'ulah,” in Sod ha-’emunah ha-shabeta'it (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1995), 77102Google Scholar. Also see the account of Issachar Beer in Toledot bene Yehonatan: “The youngest son of the Gaon R. Jonathan Eibeschütz was the noble R. Binyamin Ze'ev, known as Wolf. He was born in Prague in 1740 … and I heard that already in his childhood he composed a treatise on concealed matters and called it Gevul Binyamin [The border of Benjamin] or in some similar fashion. It was not printed. Being still very young he travelled to Vienna and there he joined wanton men and showed desire to rule. And he made himself the messiah and wore Turkish robes and went to Hungary. And many followed him.” Published in Bondi, Emmanuel, Mikhtave sefat kodesh (Prague, 1857)Google Scholar, 78. On this source, see Brilling, Dov, “Introduction to the History of the Sons of Jonathan, 1853–1854” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 24 (1954): 102–9Google Scholar.

21. The exact dating of Wolf's journey is uncertain. For example, see Nathan of Altona's letter to Samuel Sobil, February 4, 1761 (5521): “It has been two or three years since Wolf son of R. Jonathan Eibeschütz travelled from here.” Emden, Sefer hit'avkut, 51a. See also 23b.

22. Ibid., 23b. Italics mine. See also 18a, 19b; Jacob Emden, Bet Yehonatan ha-sofer (Altona, 1762), 19b, no. 158.

23. There is a certain ambiguity about the date of Wolf's return. Compare ibid., nos. 121, 124, pp. 17b–18a; Emden, Sefer hit'avkut, 21b.

24. B. Kiddushin 38a.

25. Emden, Bet Yehonatan ha-sofer, 19a.

26. In this year the controversy broke out surrounding his book Va-’avo hayom ’el ha-‘ayin.

27. Emden, Sefer hit'avkut, 27b. Italics mine. See also 24a. Some of the sermons that Eibeschütz gave on the 7th of Adar were published in his collection of sermons, Ya‘arot devash (1798–99), although not the one to which Emden refers, which begins with the verse “Ha-ẓvi Yisra'el ‘al bamotekha ḥalal” (2 Samuel 1:19). It seems that both Eibeschütz and Emden were well familiar with the Sabbatian tradition according to which Sabbatai Ẓvi himself is known as Ben Yamin, the “ravenous wolf.” For this, one should look at the commentary on Psalms composed by Israel Ḥazan of Kastoria, the scribe of the Sabbatian prophet Nathan of Gaza, about the secret of Sabbatai's conversion to Islam. See Israel Ḥazan, Commentary on Psalms [in Hebrew], ed. Noam Lefler (Los Angeles, CA: Cherub Press, 2016), 250.

28. From Pesaḥ ben Joshua's letter to Ezekiel Landau, December 3, 1759. In Emden, Sefer hit'avkut, 28b–29a.

29. I am grateful to my colleague Zvi Kunshtat for drawing my attention to the actual date of publication. On the circumstances of its composition, see Jacob Emden, Megilat sefer, ed. David Kahana (Warsaw: ’Aḥi'asaf, 1896), 181–83. “I quickly grab an inkstand with my right-hand and answered him … [and] I did not leave even one of his letters without exposing his audacity and showing his shameful stupidity and ignorance … I called my answer to him: Shevirat luḥot ha-’aven, and I only worked for several weeks to finish it … and after four weeks some people saw it.” Ibid., 183.

30. “Mitloẓeẓ ‘al perush ha-kamea‘.”

31. [Emden?], Sefat ’emet ve-lashon z ehorit [6a, 15a]. In the amulet that was given to Aaron son of David and his wife Idel, “who had no sons,” and in the one that was given to Gabriel of Alsace, the verse refers to Sabbatai Ẓvi. See ibid. [8a, 9b].

32. “And this darling tender [ר״ך] child [gematria: קמי״ע, “amulet,” 220] amuses him daily.” Jacob Emden, Shevirat lu ḥot ha-’aven (Żółkiew [Altona], 1756 [1759?]), 53a.

33. Ibid.

34. “Now therefore, when I come to your servant my father, and the lad is not with us; seeing that his soul is bound up with the lad's soul [ve-nafsho keshurah be-nafsho].”

35. “[T]he soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David [ve-nefesh Yehonatan niksherah be-nefesh David], and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”

36. Idel, Moshe, “Saturn and Sabbatai Tzevi: A New Approach to Sabbateanism,” in Towards the Millennium: Messianic Expectations from the Bible to Waco, ed. Schäfer, Peter and Cohen, Mark R. (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 173202Google Scholar. Idel, Saturn's Jews: On the Witches’ Sabbat and Sabbateanism (London: Continuum, 2011), esp. 47–83.

37. ״לעשות מן ילד, דלי, דליו שוקים מפסח ומשל בפי כסילים״ Emphases in the original.

38. “All seven wandering stars [kokhve nevukhah] alternately rise and distance themselves from the globe or the centre of the Earth, and then draw near and descend to it.” David Gans, Sefer neḥmad ṿe-naʻim (Yessnitz, 1743), cap. 163, p. 50b. For the affinity between Saturn, melancholy, and confusion of mind (mevukhah), see Klibansky, Raymond, Panofsky, Erwin, and Saxl, Fritz, Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural Philosophy, Religion and Art (London: Nelson, 1964), 131, 225Google Scholar.

39. Compare to the description in Sefer ha-peli'ah, according to which Saturn/sefirat Binah “causes to ascend on high” (hu’ ha-gorem leha‘alot lema‘alah), above the six lower planets/sefirot. See Idel, Saturn's Jews, 112.

40. Possibly an acronym: morenu Yehonatan, “our teacher Jonathan.”

41. Emden, Shevirat luḥot ha-’aven, 53a.

42. In Renaissance iconography Saturn is often depicted as a six-pointed star. Klibansky et al., Saturn and Melancholy, plates 30, 37, 38, 40, 47.

43. “In this amulet, he had distributed the verse ‘For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given’ in five of the [Magen David's] corners.” [Emden?], Sefat ’emet ve-lashon zehorit [6a, 15a].

44. Zohar 1:199a; Tikkune Zohar 35b, 53a, 108b.

45. Eibeschütz, Lu ḥot ‘edut, 71a. When Eibeschütz's commentary on the Magen David is read in light of his Va-’avo hayom ’el ha-‘ayin, it appears to speak about the Shekhinah's anus or urinary meatus rather than her vagina. For more detail, see Alleson-Gerberg, “Way of a Man with a Maiden,” esp. 282–94.

46. Klibansky et al., Saturn and Melancholy, 195.

47. Compare to Ecclesiastes 4:5. “The fool [ha-kesil] folds his hands and eats his own flesh.”

48. Emden, Shevirat luḥot ha-’aven, 53a–b. It is interesting to compare Emden's commentary to the words of Jacob Sasportas, the great seventeenth-century adversary of Sabbatianism. In his polemical anti-Sabbatian book, Ẓiẓat novel Ẓvi (whose short second printed edition was published by Emden in Altona in 1756, in close proximity to the composition of Shevirat luḥot ha-’aven), Sasportas describes Sabbatai Ẓvi in the image of Kronos-Saturnus. However, as opposed to Emden's description, he preferred to downplay the cannibalistic aspect of the myth, contenting himself with the mention of infanticide, since Sabbatai-Saturn is “the planet which indicates blood and murder, and murders his sons.” Sasportas, Jacob, Sefer ẓiẓat novel Ẓvi, ed. Tishby, Isaiah (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1954), 100Google Scholar.

49. See Eibeschütz, Lu ḥot ‘edut, 64b.

50. An illusion to B. Berakhot 57a: “One who fornicates with his mother in a dream, may hope for wisdom [binah].”

51. Emden, Shevirat luḥot ha-’aven, 53a. Emphases are mine. Compare to Nathan of Gaza's treatise, Nevu'ah mi-sefinah de-Yonah: “Zeh ha-sha‘ar la-ha-Shem—this is our righteous Messiah; adikim yavo'u vo—this is Ẓvi.” Scholem, Gershom, Be‘ekvot meshiaḥ (Jerusalem: Sifre Tarshish, 1944), 68Google Scholar. According to Emden, the verse ẓadikim yavo’u vo was included in a Sabbatian prayer said in antinomian rituals led by Wolf Eibeschütz. See Emden, Sefer hit'avkut, 46b.

52. Vespucci, Amerigo, Mundus novus, Letter to Lorenzo Pietro di Medici, trans. Northup, George T. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1916), 6Google Scholar.

53. Martyr, Peter, De orbe novo, the Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera, trans. MacNutt, Francis A., vol. 1 (New York: Putnam, 1912), 63Google Scholar.

54. Lestringant, Frank, Cannibals, the Discovery and Representation of the Cannibal from Columbus to Jules Verne (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 2131Google Scholar, 115–24.

55. Limor Mintz-Manor, “The Discourse on the New World in Early Modern Jewish Culture” [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2011), 34–109.

56. On melancholy and cannibalism, see Lestringant, Cannibals, 70, 86–93.

57. For example, see Emden, Sefer hit'avkut, 32b.

58. Jacob Emden, ‘Eẓ ’avot (Amsterdam, 1741), 2a.

59. Emden, Megilat sefer, 96–98.

60. See Emden's instruction on lavatory conduct: “And I heard that Naḥmanides was wont to read books in foreign languages by scholars of the nations in the latrine, so as not to ponder there on the holy words of the Torah … and this was also the custom of the Gaon, my honored father, may God rest his soul.” Emden, She'elat Ya‘aveẓ, vol. 1 (Altona, 1738 [1749]), responsum no. 10, p. 31b.

61. ״רומאן הנקרא דעהנשר ראבינסאן״ Emden, Mitpaḥat sefarim (Altona, 1768), 29b, (Lwów, 1870), 75. The first translation into Yiddish (either from French or German) was published in Metz in 1764, by the printer Joseph Antoine, under the title Beshreibung d'ash l‘ebnsh … fun Ribins'ahn Kriz'ah. Steinschneider, Moritz, “Hebräische Drucke in Deutschland,” Zeitschrift für die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland 2 (1892): 156Google Scholar; Gries, Zeev, The Book in the Jewish World, 1700–1900 (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2010), 99Google Scholar. It is possible that Emden was familiar with this edition, though he clearly refers to the original English title.

62. de Léry, Jean, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, trans. Whatley, Janet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992)Google Scholar, 41.

63. Ibid.

64. Lestringant, Cannibals, 64–65, 68–80; Juall, Scott D., “Of Cannibals, Credo, and Custom: Jean de Léry's Calvinist View of Civilization in Histoire d'un voyage faict en la terre du Bresil (1578),” French Literature Series 33 (2006): 5168Google Scholar.

65. Emden began printing the book in 1739 but only published it in 1749. The date on the title page is the first day of Kislev 5499 (November 13, 1738). See Emden, Megilat sefer, 161. I am grateful to Zvi Kunshtat for drawing my attention to this detail.

66. B. Sukkah 48b.

67. Emden, She'elat Ya‘aveẓ, vol. 1, responsum no. 41, p. 69a.

68. Ibid.

69. For general discussion on “literal” and “nonliteral” approaches to the legal text, see Grey, Thomas C., “The Constitution as Scripture,” Stanford Law Review 37, no. 1 (1984): 117CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70. “The min [heretic] by the name of Sason said to R. Abbahu: In the world to come you [the Jews] will draw water for me, as it written: ‘And with joy [be-sason] shall you draw water [out of the wells of salvation]’ [Isaiah 12:3]. He [R. Abbahu] said to him: If it was written le-Sason [for Sason], it would be as you said, but since it is written be-Sason [with Sason], a water-skin will be made of your skin, and water will be drawn with it.” B. Sukkah 48b.

71. Emden, She'elat Ya‘aveẓ, 69a. Italics mine.

72. da Costa, Uriel, Examination of Pharisaic Traditions, trans. Salomon, H. P. and Sassoon, I. S. D. (Leiden: Brill, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 309, 362. Italics mine. For da Silva's discussion, see pp. 447–50.

73. Jacob Emden, Sefer shimush (Amsterdam [Altona?], 1762), 54a.

74. The ban, named Ḥerev pifi yot, was spread through pamphlets and eventually reprinted in Joseph Cohen-Ẓedek (Kohn), ʾOẓar ḥokhmah (Lemberg, 1859), 22–29. A parallel version of the ḥerem was printed in Emden, Sefer shimush, 7b.

75. Emden, Sefer shimush, 78b–79a; Ma‘aseh nora’ be-Podolia’, in Jacob Emden, Sefer ha-pedut ve-ha-purkan (Altona, 1769), 27b–28a; Ms. Heb. 8°7507, the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem, Ber Birkental of Bolechów, Sefer divre binah (Bolechów, 1800), 190–91. For a Frankist depiction of the Lanckoronie affair, see MS BJ. 6969, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Kraków, Zbiór słów pańskich w Brünnie mówionych, vol. 3, no. 1311, p. 185. For Christian sources, see for example, Konstanty Awedyk, Kazanie po dysputach Contra Talmudystow w Lwowie, w Kościele Katedralnym Lwowskiem … (Lwów, 1760), 13–16.

76. Maciejko, Paweł, The Mixed Multitude: Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement, 1755–1816 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77. Testimony of Shmuel Segal. Emden, Sefer shimush, 5b.

78. Ibid., 5b–7a.

79. The “divine chariot,” a term that represents the mystery of the divinity.

80. Ḥerev pifiyot, 26. Emden's claim that the ban also applied to “he who wrote impure amulets” (Sefer shimush, 7b), finds no support in the copy of the ḥerem found in ʾ Oẓar ḥokhmah.

81. From his answer to Pesaḥ ben Joshua, in Emden, Sefer hit'avkut, 29b.

82. On the ḥerem of Brody and Landau's approach towards the study of Kabbalah, see Kahana, Maoz, “The Allure of Forbidden Knowledge: The Temptation of Sabbatean Literature for Mainstream Rabbis in the Frankist Movement, 1756–1761,” Jewish Quarterly Review 102, no. 4 (2012): 589616CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kahana, , From the Noda BeYehuda to the Chatam Sofer: Halakhah and Thought in Their Historical Moment [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2015), 3560Google Scholar. See also Idel, Moshe, “On the History of the Interdiction against the Study of Kabbalah before the Age of Forty” [in Hebrew], AJS Review 5 (1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: xiii–xvi. On the Sabbatian context of Emden's literary criticism of the Zohar, see Oded Yisraeli, “Ha-pulmus be-she'elat kademuto shel Sefer ha-Zohar be-heksherav ha-Shabeta'iyim: Le-magamotav shel Sefer Mitpaḥat Sefarim le-R. Ya‘akov Emden,” El Prezente: Journal for Sephardic Studies 10 (2016): Hebrew section, 61–71.

83. B. Ḥullin 92a–b.

84. Emden, She'elat Ya‘aveẓ, no. 41, pp. 68b, 70b. Emphases are mine.

85. In this regard, see “goy,” in Talmudic Encyclopedia: A Digest of Halakhic Literature from the Tannaitic Period to the Present Time [in Hebrew], ed. Shlomo Y. Zevin, vol. 5 (Jerusalem: Talmudic Encyclopedia Institute, 1953), 358–59; Toaff, Ariel, Pasque di sangue. Ebrei d'Europa e omicidi rituali (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007), 105Google Scholar.

86. See Sugg, Richard, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians (London: Routledge, 2011)Google Scholar. For Jewish use of and positive attitudes towards corpse and blood medicine, see Zimmels, H. J., Magicians, Theologians and Doctors: Studies in Folk-Medicine and Folk-lore as Reflected in the Rabbinical Responsa (12th–19th Centuries) (London: E. Goldston, 1952), 126–28Google Scholar; Patai, Raphael, “Indulco and Mumia,” The Journal of American Folklore 77, no. 303 (1964): 710CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Abraham O. Shemesh, “Tissues of Human Body as a Source of Ancient Materia Medica: Medicine and Halakhah” [in Hebrew], ‘Assia: A Journal of Jewish Ethics and Halakhah 69–70 (2002): 140–55; Shemesh, Medical Materials in Medieval and Modern Jewish Literature: Pharmacology, History and Halakhah [in Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2013), 52–66; Toaff, Pasque di sangue, 93–109; Hagit Matras, “Hebrew Charm Books: Contents and Origins (based on books printed in Europe during the 18th century)” [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1997), 166.

87. de Montaigne, Michel, “Of Cannibals,” in The Essays … translated into English [by Charles Cotton], the seventh edition…, vol. 1 (London, 1759), 241Google Scholar.

88. Featley, Daniel, The Grand Sacrilege of the Church of Rome … (London, 1630), 293Google Scholar. Italics mine.

89. David Tebl, Sefer bet David (Wolmersdorf, 1734), 39a.

90. Emden, She'elat Ya‘aveẓ, no. 41, p. 66a.

91. Kahana, Maoz, “An Esoteric Path to Modernity: Rabbi Jacob Emden's Alchemical Quest,” Modern Jewish Studies 12, no. 2 (2013)Google Scholar: 7; See also Kahana, , “The Scientific Revolution and the Encoding of Sources of Knowledge: Medicine, Halakhah, and Alchemy in Hamburg-Altona, 1736,” Tarbiz 82, no. 1 (2013): 165212Google Scholar. Compare Efron, Noah J., “Nature, Human Nature, and Jewish Nature in Early Modern Europe,” Science in Context 15, no. 1 (2002): 2949CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the attitude of Emden and his contemporaries about rationalistic philosophy and the new science, see for example Ruderman, David B., Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), 256–72Google Scholar, 210–331; Feiner, Shmuel, The Origins of Jewish Secularization in 18th-Century Europe, trans. Naor, Chaya (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 85101Google Scholar.

92. Emden, She'elat Ya‘aveẓ, no. 41, p. 74a.

93. Borodianski, Haim, Moses Mendelssohn: Hebräische Schriften, vol. 3 [Moses Mendelssohn: Gesammelte Schriften, 16] (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1929), no. 155, p. 180Google Scholar. Emphasis is mine.

94. Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiastical and Civil [Hobbes's Leviathan reprinted from the edition of 1651] (Oxford: Clarendon, 1909)Google Scholar, esp. chaps. 14, 15, 31.

95. Rousseau, Jean Jacques, “Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality among Men,” in Rousseau, The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed. and trans. Gourevitch, Victor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 114–88Google Scholar. See also Idelson-Shein, Irit, Difference of a Different Kind: Jewish Constructions of Race during the Long Eighteenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

96. In European literature, Tatars were depicted as cannibalistic. For example, see the description in Chronica Majora (1243) by the Benedictine monk Matthew Paris: “The Tartar chiefs, with the houndish cannibals, their followers, fed upon the flesh of their carcasses, as if they had been bread, and left nothing but bones for the vultures.” Cited in Coudert, Allison P., “The Ultimate Crime: Cannibalism in Early Modern Minds and Imagination,” in Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age: Mental-Historical Investigations of Basic Human Problems and Social Responses, ed. Classen, Albrecht and Scarborough, Connie (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 527Google Scholar. See also Pseudo-Vespucci's description of the inhabitants of the New World: “Their appearances may be that of the Tartar.” Vespucci, Amerigo, Letter to Piero Soderini. Gonfaloniere. The year 1504, trans. Northup, George T. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1916)Google Scholar, first voyage, 5.

97. Emden, Jacob, Birat migdal ‘oz (Altona, 1748)Google Scholar, 104a, (Berdyczów, 1836), 102b.

98. On Ḥayon's controversy, see Carlebach, Elisheva, The Pursuit of Heresy: Rabbi Moses Ḥagiz and the Sabbatian Controversies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 75159Google Scholar.

99. “Christians’ opinion is closer to ours than his [Ḥayon's], since like us, they believe that God is the ‘first cause’ and infinite [’en sof ve-sibah rish'onah]’ … but in his opinion, God is a ‘secondary cause’ … and if they would know that this is his opinion, they would burn him undoubtedly, because this is absolutely against the principles of their religion.” Nieto, David, ’Esh dat … be-sifre Neḥemiah Ḥiya’ Ḥayon … (London, 1715)Google Scholar, 17a.

100. Ibid., 33a–b. For additional parallels between Ḥayon and the savages of West Indies, Africa, and [New] Guinea, see ibid., 9a, 15b.

101. On the correspondence between the two on this subject and their attitude towards gentiles, see in detail Jacob J. Schachter, “Rabbi Jacob Emden: Life and Major Works” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1988), 696–717; Schachter, , “Rabbi Jacob Emden, Sabbateanism, and Frankism: Attitudes toward Christianity in the Eighteenth Century,” in New Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations, ed. Carlebach, Elisheva and Schachter, Jacob J. (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 359–96Google Scholar; Jacob Katz, “Sheloshah mishpatim ’apologetiyim be-gilgulehem,” Zion 23–24 (1958–59): 174–93.

102. Borodianski, Moses Mendelssohn, no. 154, p. 178.

103. Mendelssohn, Moses, Jerusalem: A Treatise on Ecclesiastical Authority and Judaism, trans. Samuels, Moses, vol. 2 (London: Longman, Orme Brown and Longmans, 1838), 97Google Scholar.

104. Ibid., 95–96.

105. See the discussion in Novak, David, The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism: An Historical and Constructive Study of the Noahide Laws (New York: E. Mellen, 1983), 369–83Google Scholar.

106. Avramescu, Cătălin, An Intellectual History of Cannibalism, trans. Blyth, Alistair Ian (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 20Google Scholar.

107. For such an attitude, see Uriel da Costa's argument: “Natural law teaches that one person's blood is not proper food for another person and, consequently, its consumption is forbidden. The divine Law neither legislated against nor abrogated natural law. Therefore anything forbidden by natural law remains forbidden by the divine Law … The divine Law … forbids … both the flesh and the blood of another human being.” Da Costa, Examination of Pharisaic Traditions, 366.

108. On the antique origins of these contrary images, see Pocock, J. G. A., Barbarism and Religion: Barbarism, Savages and Empires, vol. 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 159–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

109. In a Hebrew description indirectly based on Mundus novus, it is said: “They have no governor nor ruler, nor law or deity, but only behave according to nature.” Abraham Farissol, ’Iggeret ’orḥot ‘olam (Venice, 1586), 33a.

110. Vespucci, Mundus novus, 6–7. For the first Latin edition, see Alberic vespucci laurētio petri francisci de medicis Salutem plurimā dicit [(Paris, 1503), 6–7].

111. Maciejko, Mixed Multitude, 56.

112. See Birkental, Sefer divre binah, 304–5; Pikulski, Gaudenty, Złość żydowska przeciwko Bogu i bliźniemu prawdzie i sumieniu (Lwów, 1760), 296–97Google Scholar.

113. Emden, Sefer shimush, 18a–b. On the other hand, see the words of the Bernardine priest Gaudenty Pikulski, who was personally involved in the dispute and composed the most comprehensive Christian account on early Frankism: “There is no other nation in Asia, Africa, even not in America, who would blaspheme the name of the incarnate God as the Jewish nation.” Pikulski, Złość żydowska, 115.

114. Emden, Sefer shimush, 24a.

115. For example, see ibid., 5b–7a; Birkental, Sefer divre binah, 186.

116. “And it was also said that they were permitted to exchange their wives. And if one of them comes to his friend's house and does not finds the husband at home, he tells the wife that he is one of their company. Then she gives him a piece of ḥelev-fat from a suet candle, and if he eats it and fears not the most severe prohibition [karet] against consumption of ḥelev, then she is ready for all his wants, whoring herself.” Birkental, Sefer divre binah, 186.

117. Vespucci, Letter to Piero Soderini, first voyage, 10.

118. Emden, Jacob, ‘Edut be-Ya‘akov (Altona, 1756), 20bGoogle Scholar.

119. “A freckled whelp hag-born—not honour'd with / A human shape … / Abhorred slave, / Which any print of goodness wilt not take, / Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee, / Took pains to make thee speak … when thou didst / not, savage, / Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like / A thing most brutish.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest, act 1. sc. 2, ll. 283, 353–59. As literary critics have observed, “Caliban” is Shakespeare's anagram for “cannibal.”

120. Emden, Sefer shimush, 82b–83a.

121. Ibid., 47a, 51a.

122. Mintz-Manor, “Discourse on the New World”; Idelson-Shein, Difference of a Different Kind.

123. Idelson-Shein, Difference of a Different Kind, 43.

124. On this issue, see Maciejko, “Jews’ Entry into the Public Sphere,” 135–54.

125. Schachter, “Rabbi Jacob Emden, Sabbateanism, and Frankism,” esp. p. 388; See also Maciejko, Mixed Multitude, 51–62; Maciejko, , “The Peril of Heresy, the Birth of a New Faith: The Quest for a Common Jewish-Christian Front against Frankism,” in Holy Dissent: Jewish and Christian Mystics in Eastern Europe, ed. Dynner, Glenn (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2011), 223–49Google Scholar.

126. Carlebach, Pursuit of Heresy, 1–16, 193–94; Ruderman, David B., Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 146–55Google Scholar.

127. Maciejko, Paweł, “The Dangers (and Pleasures) of Religious Syncretism” [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 22 (2012): 249–78Google Scholar.

128. Compare to the words of Gerhoh of Reichersberg: “The entire Christ is eaten in the mystery of the altar. The eater does not change him into himself, that is, into food for his flesh; but he himself will be changed into him, so as to become a member of his body which is the one Church, redeemed and fed by the one body of Christ.” Cited in de Lubac, Henri Cardinal, Corpus Mysticum: The Eucharist and the Church in the Middle Ages, Historical Survey, trans. Simmonds, Gemma (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 180Google Scholar.

129. Similar cases were raised by Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and others. See respectively City of God against the Pagans, trans. Green, William M., vol. 7 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), bk. 22, chap. 12, p. 271Google Scholar; Summa contra Gentiles, book 4, Salvation, trans. O'Neil, Charles J. (London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975)Google Scholar, chap. 80, par. 5; chap. 81, par. 13.

130. de Bergerac, Cyrano, Voyages to the Moon and the Sun, trans. Aldington, Richard (London: Routledge, 1923), 159–61Google Scholar.

131. Sugg, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires, 113. See also Kilgour, Maggie, From Communion to Cannibalism: An Anatomy of Metaphors of Incorporation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 319Google Scholar.

132. Emden, Sefer shimush, last page.