Moses Chagiz. Lema’an Da’ath

(SABBATIANA)

Amsterdam

1753

Hebrew and Yiddish

Vinogread Amsterdam 1672 Mehlman 1716

A decade earlier in 1714, R. Moses Chagiz (1672-?1751) and R. Tzvi Hirsch Aschkenazi (Chacham Tzvi) battled the crypto-Sabbatian (underground follower of Shabbetai Zevi) Nechemiah Chiya Chayon in Amsterdam, exposing him as a heretic and poseur. (see previous Lot). Now Chayon has resurfaced in Central Europe, Prague to be exact, as the guest of R. Jonathan Eybeschütz. Chagiz claims that R. Jonathan Eybeschütz interfaces with the infamous Sabbatian prophet Löbele Prossnitz and with R. Isaiah Mochiach of Mannheim, son-in-law of R Judah Chasid, another known Sabbatian follower. Other incriminating evidence against Eybeschütz was the anonymous Sabbatian tract discovered in Frankfort-am-Main on the person of one Moses Meir of Zolkiew (and Kaminka) which, correctly or incorrectly, was attributed to Eybeschütz. As R. Tzvi Hirsch Aschkenazi was no longer among the living, Chagiz turned to R. Aryeh Leib of Amsterdam, son-in-law of his old co-combatant to participate in the renewed battle againt the Sabbatians, particularly R. Jonathan Eybeschütz, believed to be the rising star of the messianic movement. One notes that Hagiz writes from Altona, home of R. Jacob Emden, son of Chacham Tzvi. After Chacham Tzvi and Hagiz were driven out of Amsterdam by order of the Spanish-Portuguese Ma’amad, Hagiz took up residence in the more sympathetic clime of Altona. To substantiate his claims, Hagiz attaches the text of the ban pronounced in Altona and also a deposition from the community of Mannheim. See Mozes Heiman Gans, Memorbook (1977), pp. 163-164; Elisheva Carlebach, The Pursuit of Heresy: Rabbi Moses Hagiz and the Sabbatian Controversies (1990), pp. 161-194; EJ, Vol. VI, cols. 1074-1076; Vol. VII, col. 1122