A Brief History of Ba’Alei Shem

This chapter focuses on ba'alei shem, the primary representatives of Jewish magic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It considers the ba'alei shem as the wonder-workers who employed the names of God or his angels through certain techniques, for various theurgic purposes. It also cites rabbinic literature that teaches of the existence and spread of the phenomenon among the sages in the Land of Israel and Babylonia despite biblical opposition to magic or sorcery and their practitioners. The chapter looks at the mystical heikhalot literature, which includes magical texts and descriptions of the qualities and aptitudes of the mystical elect that resemble and later characterize the ba'alei shem. It describes the mystics that possess knowledge of incantations and divine names that enable them to undergo mystical experiences and be in contact with the supernal spheres.

The Diary of Zevi Hirsch of Kalisz

|fo. 1a| London, Tuesday, 23 Elul 5507 [18 August 1747]. *He had intended to practise [his mystical devotions] but instead he went in the coach with *R. Mordecai Franzmann to *the house in Pas, *and he took books from there with him, that is, the best ones, also pictures, and also the staff that was with him, ...

Samuel Falk and the Freemasons

This chapter refers to the historian Nesta Webster, who lived in England around the turn of the nineteenth century and was the first to indicate the ties between Samuel Falk and the Freemasons. It describes Webster as a prominent antisemite who took an active part in the distribution of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and published a long list of inflammatory articles that charged the Jews with responsibility for the Russian Revolution. It also discusses the antisemitic orientation evident in Webster's book on secret societies that attempts to link the Jews with various cultic sects that were political in nature. The chapter looks at an entire chapter in Webster's book that is devoted to Falk, whom she depicts as a 'high initiate' of the Freemasons. It serves as a bibliographical source for references to Falk in non-Jewish works.

Falk’s Activities According to the Diary of Zevi Hirsch

This chapter talks about Zevi Hirsch, the son of Isaac Eisik Segal of Kalisz, a shtadlan and a native of Poland who emigrated to London and became Samuel Falk's factotum for about four years. It looks at the diary that Hirsch kept, which recorded his daily life in Falk's household. It was written in faulty Hebrew interspersed with Yiddish and English words, and occasionally with terms that seem to derive from French and German. It also mentions how Hirsch referred to Falk as hehakham, meaning 'the Sage', and 'Admo', an acronym that means 'my master and teacher'. The chapter recounts Falk's life in London from 1747 to 1751, which was marked by poverty and deprivation as Hirsch wrote in his diary that he repeatedly visited pawnbrokers to pawn various household effects and clothes. It points out how Hirsch became an eyewitness to the curses that Falk rained on his wife for her inferior cooking.

The Diaries and Their Research

This chapter discusses the description of Samuel Falk's diary that is in an article by the scholar Adolf Neubauer published in the Jewish Chronicle. It mentions Solomon Schechter, a tutor in rabbinics at the University of Cambridge who published an article, 'The Baalshem — Dr Falk'. It also cites Schechter's details of Falk's will and how he translated what Jacob Emden wrote concerning the ba'al shem, including how Schechter questioned Emden's charges regarding Falk's presumed crypto-Sabbatianism. The chapter talks about Rabbi Dr Herman Adler, chief rabbi of the British Empire, who delivered a lecture on 'The Baal Shem of London', which was published in Berlin and in London, in which he collected details and testimonies about Falk from various sources. It elaborates how Adler disregarded the kabbalistic material in the diary, which opened a window onto Falk's world.

A Biography Of Samuel Falk

This chapter centers on Dr Samuel Falk, the Ba'al Shem of London, who was born in Podhajce at the beginning of the eighteenth century and named Samuel Jacob di Falk Tradiola Laniado. It explains that 'Falk' is the name of a family of distinguished lineage that included Rabbi Joshua ben Alexander Falk and Rabbi Jacob Joshua ben Zevi Hirsch. It also recounts how Falk made the acquaintance of Moses David of Podhajce, of whom he jointly studied with and engaged in practical kabbalah. The chapter talks about Falk's family move from Podhajce to Fürth in Germany, which had become a major centre of Jewish life after the authorities permitted Jews to reside in the city in 1528. It cites crypto-Sabbatians and hidden Frankists that were known to live in Fürth that influenced Falk's personality and the course of his life.

Introduction to the English Edition

This chapter mentions Michal Oron's account of Samuel Falk, the Ba'al Shem of London, which complicates the conventional characterization of eighteenth-century Britain as the cradle of toleration, reason, liberty, science, and enlightenment. It discusses rational religion and Enlightenment science that discredited magic, superstition, prophecy, and wonders, along with ghosts, spirits, demons, and the like. It also describes well-born Christians and wealthy Jews who turned to Falk to answer questions and solve problems that resisted conventional approaches. The chapter talks about Falk as a charismatic religious figure, a ba'al shem, whose authority flowed from his virtuosity in employing divine names for magical ends rather than expounding Jewish law. It highlights London as the westernmost outpost of European Jewry in the eighteenth century.

Samuel Falk as Seen by Jacob Emden

This chapter focuses on the 1760s, wherein Samuel Falk was besmirched, cursed, and persecuted by Jacob Emden while frequently celebrated by various members of Christian society. It reviews extant testimonies that portray Falk as a controversial figure, such as being a fraud, a swindler, and a complete ignoramus, while others thought he was a teacher, guide, and spiritual leader for several prominent Freemasons. It also discusses Jacob Emden's campaign against Jonathan Eybeschuetz and his son Wolf and his crusade against Sabbatianism, which he regarded as a plague that had come to corrupt and destroy Judaism. The chapter highlights Emden's attack on Falk that links him with Moses David of Podhajce and with Jonathan Eybeschuetz. It analyses Emden's book that is full of his hatred of Falk, whom he derisively calls a ba'al shed, which meant possessed by a demon, instead of the term ba'al shem.

The Diary of Samuel Falk

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