Organized attempts by various charismatic leaders to present themselves as the Messiah and to restore the Davidic kingdom and Jewish independence in Erets Israel. From the period of the Babylonian
In the Bible, Messianic roles are suggested for Hezekiah (Isa. 11) and later for Zerubbabel (Hag. 2:21-23; Zech. 4:6-10). Though not of Davidic ancestry, a quality attached to the Messiah, the Hasmoneans also appear to have aroused Messianic expectations in their time. A growing belief that God's salvation would be preceded by Ḥevlé Mashi'aḥ, "the birth pangs of the Messiah," fostered the notion that this might be synonymous with political turmoil. "When you see great empires at war with each other," said the rabbis, "look for the Messiah's advent" (Gen. R. 4:.7). Similarly, because of the belief that "the redeemer will come when men despair of the Redemption" (Sanh. 97a), outbursts of anti-Jewish persecution invariably gave rise to new Messianic movements.
Some of those pledged to end Roman domination claimed supernatural powers. A certain "prophet" named Theudas, for example, announced that he would part the waters of the Jordan (in 45 CE), but was arrested and beheaded before making the attempt. Judah the Galilean (d. 6 CE), a leader of the Sicarii Zealots, proved more troublesome to the Romans. Amidst the political and moral upheaval that characterized the period of the Roman government of Judea, various pseudo-Messianic leaders emerged, the most famous of whom was Jesus of Nazareth. The Dead Sea Scrolls also refer to powerful Messianic feelings that motivated the Dead Sea Sect. During the period of the first revolt, which led to the Temple's destruction, both Simeon bar Giora and Eleazar ben Jair (who held the fortress of Masada until 73 CE) evidently cast themselves in Messianic roles. Far more influential, however, was Simon Bar Kokhba ("Son of a Star"), who headed the second ill-faced revolt in 132-135 CE and died fighting the Roman legions at Bethar. R. Akiva, who had saluted him as "King Messiah," and whose pupils are said to have perished in the war, was later faced with the reproach that "grass will grow through your cheeks long before the Messiah's advent" (TJ, Ta'an. 4.8).
An isolated phenomenon in the early centuries of dispersion was the appearance of a Cretan "prophet" who (believing himself to be a new Moses) led Jews into suicidal madness or apostasy in 431.
The rise of Islam, and the atmosphere of armed struggle which it engendered, had a major impact on the Jewish yMessianic movements, which became increasingly militant throughout the Near East. Those headed by Abu Isa al-Isfahani and Yudghan in eighth-century Persia to combat the Muslims were both sectarian and revolutionary in nature. Another, founded by David Alroy in Kurdistan, derived its strength from the turbulence produced by the conflict between Islam and Christendom during the period of the Second Crusade (c. 1146-7). Through skillful propaganda, Alroy gained many followers, particularly among the warlike mountain Jews, with the object of defeating their Muslim oppressors and preparing for the Messianic kingdom in Jerusalem. After some initial successes, the campaign was foiled by David Alroy's murder. Loyal followers who continued to believe in this pseudo-Messiah were styled "Menahemites. "
At above the same time (1172), the Jews of Yemen also underwent severe persecution and many were therefore inclined to place their trust in a self-proclaimed redeemer who interpreted their hardships as the "birth pangs of the Messiah" heralding the Redemption. When asked for his advice, however, Maimonides responded with the famous "Epistle to Yemen" (Iggeret Téman), in which he urged his fellow Jews not to be deceived by revolutionary, pseudo-Messianic preachings.
Despite the horrors inflicted on them during the Crusades, Ashkenazim remained generally passive and did not involve themselves in Messianic activity. This was not the case among the Sephardi communities of Spain and Portugal, where kabbalistic doctrines made a strong impression from the 13ch century. Abraham Abulafia gained notoriety as the first of many Sephardi "prophets" bent on hastening the Redemption through mystical devices or appeals to Popes and Emperors. Two other factors, however, gave rise to an upsurge of Messianic speculation over the next 300 years: travelers' tales concerning the River Sambatyon and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel who were rumored to live beyond it; and the appearance of the Zohar (c.1300), the outstanding kabbalistic work, which had an especially powerful impact on the Jews of Christian Spain.
Thanks to the Messianic teachings of the Zohar, events such as the forced conversions in Spain of 1391, the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 were regarded in turn as signs pointing to the imminent arrival of the Messiah. In the 16th century, Ashkenazi Jews were also swept up by these currents. Among the Spanish exiles, the campaigns of persecution launched against Spanish and Portuguese Marranos, the kabbalistic doctrine of tikkun propagated by the mystics of Safed (see Isaac Luria), and the sudden appearance of David Reuveni in Europe (1524) heightened Messianic expectations.
Reuveni, a mysterious adventurer, claimed to be the son of a King Solomon and brother of a King Joseph who ruled the lost tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh in the Arabian province of Khaibar. Like David Alroy, he sought to wrest Jerusalem from the Muslims, but his mission was to gain Christian backing for this grand enterprise. Reuveni's princely appearance and story at first impressed Jew and non-Jew alike, including Pope Clement VII. Great enthusiasm was also aroused among the Portuguese Marranos, one of whom, a certain Diego Pines, reverted to Judaism under the name of Solomon Molkho, later escaping from Portugal to become a kabbalist and also a pseudo-Messiah. He and Reuveni joined forces in an unsuccessful appeal to the Holy Roman Emperor; Molkho was burned at the stake as a relapsed Catholic in 1532, while Reuveni died in prison. Before his death, Molkho had attracted many followers in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and even Poland, thus preparing the way for the most celebrated false Messiah, Shabbetai Tsevi.
Just as a cataclysm had sparked one Messianic movement after another in the past, so did the Thirty Years War (1618-48) and the Chmielnicki Massacres of 1648-9 create an atmosphere favorable to the spread of Shabbateanism. Kabbalists believed that 1648 was the ordained "Messianic year," whereas Christian mystics reckoned that it would be 1666. Shabbetai Tsevi first antagonized the Smyrna rabbinate with his Messianic claims in the early 1650s. He found a powerful advocate in Nathan of Gaza, the visionary who proclaimed that the Messiah had arrived and would overthrow the sultan of Turkey in 1666. With Nathan casting himself in the role of Elijah, "harbinger of the Messiah," Shabbetai Tsevi rapidly established himself as the most charismatic and revered Messianic pretender of all time. His antinomian revolution produced great numbers of "believers" everywhere, imperiling the skeptical minority and shaking the very foundations of normative Judaism. Even after the apostasy and obscure death of this false Messiah, vast numbers continued to believe in him. One Shabbatean sect, the Dönmeh, remained active and survived until recent times in Turkey and the Balkans; another, the Frankists, headed by a Podolian adventurer named Jacob Frank, exerted a nefarious influence in Central Europe until about 1830.
Most recently an outpouring of Messianic longings was seen in the ḥabad movement, attaching themselves to the figure of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menahem Mendel Schneersohn, whose death in 1994 did little to quell the feeling among his followers. Many of them - some say a majority - refused to accept his death as final and claimed that he was in fact the Messiah who will return in the flesh to hold sway over the world. These believers still refer to R. Schneersohn as being alive. Some of the most extreme go so far as to claim that R. Schneersohn was subsumed within God and that one may pray to him directly. Most non-Lubavich rabbis condemn this view utterly, many avowing that it is no less than heresy.
