“A Balada do Falso Messias” de Moacyr Scliar: Um Passeio pelos Porões do Judaísmo

Abstract

Some of Moacyr Scliar’s works could properly be grouped under the title "walks through the basements of Judaism". These are texts in which the author revisits episodes of Jewish history that are not sources of pride for the Jewish people, bringing them to the present time in the form of parody.               This is the case of the short story "The Ballad of the False Messiah". Its inspiration dates back to the historical fact occurred in seventeenth-century Palestine starring Shabtai Zvi, who was proclaimed Messiah by his "prophet" Nathan of Gaza. After arousing Jewish communities around the world (including in Poland and the Netherlands), Shabtai Zvi, placed by the sultan of the Ottoman Empire in face of the alternative of decapitation, converted to Islam, much to the disappointment of his followers. In fact, a small group of them remained faithful, believing that Zvi’s conversion was part of the implementation plan for the Messianic age.               In Scliar’s version, Zvi and Nathan, still alive after more than two centuries, accompany, in 1906, Russian Jews on their way to the agricultural settlements created by Baron Hirsch (that in the short story happens to be Baron Franck). The trajectory of the "false Messiah" is recounted in the midst of several references to so many other episodes of Jewish history and the life of Jesus.