Occupying a place of particular infamy in Jewish collective memory is an 18th-century serial apostate, sexual deviant, messianic pretender, and chameleonic charlatan. His name was Jacob Frank. Throughout Poland, particularly in his native territory of Podolia, he and his adherents succeeded in fomenting widespread chaos as well as persecutions of his fellow Jews. They are the subject of The Mixed Multitude, a magisterial and ground-breaking new study by Pawel Maciejko.
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