In the small town of Bolechow, located in a lovely setting at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, lived a Jewish brilliant intellectual, whose contribution to the study of the history of the Jewish community in Galicia (West Ukraine of today) was without equal. His name was Dov-Behr Birkenthal and in the 18th century he wrote a Hebrew-language autobiography, in which he left a vivid and detailed testimony of everyday life. It is called "The Memoirs of Reb Dov of Bolechow" and in 1912, when the original manuscript was first discovered in the library of the rabbinical seminary in London, researchers of Jewish history celebrated the occasion. In the late nineteen twenties, Birkenthal's manuscript was translated into English and Yiddish and published in London and Berlin.

Dov-Behr Birkenthal's memoirs are a rare historical document, because in the 18th century, Jews refrained from writing on secular matters. They confined themselves to exegetical writing and to composing works aimed at bolstering religious belief. His secular works enables us to glimpse something of the life of the Jewish community from which many of our families sprang.

His parents were businesspersons. In Lvov, Galician capital, they had a storehouse and in Bolechow they owned a hotel and a store, where they sold wine, salt fish, perfumes and wax. In 1723 they bore a son, given the first name of Behr - Bear in English and Dov in Hebrew. He was the only Jewish pupil in town that received a secular education and knew Latin. "And the Latin tongue I understood and most of the grammar of its words," he wrote in his memoirs in old-fashioned but clearly understandable Hebrew. Several of the Jewish neighbors took a dim view of the fact that Behr was taught the language of the Christians, although they took no real action.

Reaching maturity, Dov-Behr became an itinerant trader, who traveled by horse and wagon, crossing the Carpathian mountains several times a year. He sold leather and flax to the Hungarians, wine to the Ukrainians and Poles. His diary relates that the Bolechow traders set up a guild to which they gave the ceremonial title 'The Sacred Association of Traders'. Such names were given to the Catholic professional guilds and the Jews emulated them. Jews were forbidden to join Polish guilds.

Reb Dov (in Jewish traditional communities Reb is an esteem epithet given to a senior who is not entitled to carry the title rabbi although he is schooled and wise) was a man of outstanding intellectual abilities, who expressed himself in fluent Hebrew with few grammatical errors. This, in itself, was a rare achievement, because in those days Hebrew was a dead language. Jews in East Europe spoke Yiddish among themselves and Polish with natives. Moreover, Reb Dov combined orthodox Jewish beliefs with secular knowledge, and expressed himself in the terms of the Enlightenment many years before secularism reached Galician's Jewish communities. Notwithstanding, his Jewish fellow townsmen were generally tolerant of his views and did not stone him.

On his business trip, Reb Dov learned Hungarian, German and a little French. He read secular foreign-language books and translated from German into Hebrew a scientific book written by an English scholar. Exhorting his Jewish brethren to study languages, Reb Dov wrote in his diary: "And we, sons of Israel, are obliged to know all things and it is desirable for every son of Israel, who is wise and has understanding to know something of the deeds of other nations and in so doing may sometimes be able to answer properly their questions against the Jewish religion and faith, as has befallen me several times, when I speak with the great of the nations and with their priests."

In the course of a unique occurrence, in 1759, Dov-Behr himself was obliged to defend his faith. It happened when members of the Frankist messianic sect had planned to hold in Lvov a ceremony of mass conversion to Christianity.

The Frankists were the final offshoot of the messianic Shabbatean movement. Their leader was a Jewish merchant, Jacob Frank, who claimed to be the reincarnation of two personalities: King David, the 10th Century B.C.E. ruler of Israel and the 17th century self-proclaimed messiah Sabbatai Zevi. Frank assimilated from Christianity the New Testament and some controversial concepts, such as Purification through Transgression, and was excommunicated from Judaism.

At the end of February 1759, Frank sent a missive to Archbishop Lubinsky, head of the church in Lvov, informing the Archbishop that if the church would agree to accept the members of his sect into its ranks, and to organize a mass baptismal ceremony, his sect's members would be willing to take side with the Christians in their upcoming public debate with the rabbis. Frank promised the church that he would publicly denounce the tenets of the Jewish faith and proclaim that the Jews used Christian blood in their rituals.

Frank's letter to the Archbishop was widely publicized throughout Europe and stunned the Jews. It was the major religious events in the mid-18th century and its impact was felt far beyond Eastern Europe. Both the Christian and the Jewish worlds, from Turkey in the east to Spain in the west, were in an uproar. Word of Frank's initiative even reached as far as Mexico.

Naturally, Galician Jews were shocked and the rabbi of Lvov, Chaim Hacohen Rapaport, summoned Reb Dov to his aid in his struggle against the Frankists and his efforts to refute the charges of the church in the debate. Rabbi Rapaport was not fluent in Polish.

The public disputation between the representatives of the two religions took place in Lvov over a period of two months, between July 17 and September 10, 1759. The Jews were represented by 30 rabbis, led by Rabbi Rapaport. The arguments were submitted in writing and were read out to the public. A large audience of Christians and Jews listened to both sides and heckled them.

The most important session took place on August 26 and was devoted to blood libels. The Frankist representatives, included Jacob Frank himself, presented seven arguments against Judaism, mostly concerning the advent of the Messiah. Although the Frankists made no specific mention of the name of Christ, it was clear to all that they were implying that they believed Jesus was the Messiah of God. They proclaimed that all the prophesies in the Old Testament, concerning the coming of the Messiah had been fulfilled and therefore, Jews must acknowledge the advent of the Messiah. That acknowledgement of the Messiah by the Jews - argued the Frankists - will invalidate Judaism and set Christianity in its place. If it is agreed that Judaism is void - concluded the Frankists their argument - then the rabbis should proclaim publicly that they were annulling all the precepts specified by the Torah, recognize the crucifix as the seal of the Messiah and command all Jews to undergo baptism.

Beyond the basic debate on the advent of the Messiah and the demand for the abolition of the Jewish religion, the priests enjoined the rabbis to concede that the Talmud advocated the use of Christian blood for ritual purposes. The rabbis feared this demand above all the others. If the masses believed Frank, a pogrom might ensue.

Reb Dov spent a sleepless night between August 26 and 27 composing the Jewish response, and in the morning he stood beside the Chief Rabbi facing Jacob Frank and the priests.

The Frankists were undoubtedly skilled demagogues. To prove their point that the Jews needed the Christian religion for ritual purposes, they quoted the Talmud and the commentators who mentioned the color red or used the Hebrew word 'damim' (meaning both 'blood' and 'money'). Reb Dov refuted their interpretations, basing his arguments on the Torah and the Talmud, citing the Book of Zohar (the main commentary of Kabbalah) and quoting Christian literature. "Whenever they quoted our sacred books, we replied that this was a lie and that it was not written thus in the book."

The debate was stormy, but before it could reach its climax, the priest Mikulski, church administrator in Lvov, hastened to calm the ruffled spirits. He feared bloodshed and gave orders to end the meeting. Instead of oral replies, Mikulski demanded that the Jews supply written responses. The storm died down at once and the Jews of Galicia breathed a sigh of relief. Reb Dov described the victory as the most important experience of his life. "Then I acknowledged the great miracle which the Lord had wrought in his mercy for the remnants of Israel and I blessed God." The minutes of the disputation were printed and published in Lvov in 1760 and Reb Dov published his own summary in a book entitled "Wisdom Sayings" (Divrei Bina in Hebrew).

But the Frankists did not abandon their scheme. Less than one month after it had been interrupted, many of them underwent baptism. Five hundred Jews, led by Frank himself, converted in Lvov on September 17, 1759. In Warsaw a similar ceremony took place under the auspices of the King of Poland. Then the Frankists extended their activities to St. Petersburg, Vienna and Offenbach in Germany. Descendants of Frankist converts were active in various places in Europe as late as the nineteen twenties.

(Originally published at GoArticles and reprinted with permission from the author, Michael Karpin).