European aristocrats adopted Hebrew names and fabricated Hebraic relics within an esoteric lodge

Evidence

One of the many fascinating episodes studied by Katz was that of the “Asiatic Brethren,” Die Brüder St. Johannes des Evangelisten aus Asien in Europa, an idiosyncratic Masonic lodge in Vienna. The great majority were Gentiles of the most respectable sort. “Ben-Jakhin,” also known as “Abraham” and “Israel,” for example, was the chosen Hebrew name of one of the more enthusiastic aristocrats among the Brethren, Count Hans Heinrich von Ecker und Eckhofen. Eventually, the order was to count quite a few of the high nobility among its ranks, including Prince Karl of Hesse, the landgrave (count) of Schleswig. The notorious adventurer, Moses Dobruška, alias Franz Thomas von Schönfeld, a baptized Court Jew, was a sort of spiritual leader to the Brethren. It was he, apparently, who supplied a gentile brother with a forgery in Hebrew and passed it off as a secret document found in the Holy Land. He seems, too, to have convinced the lodge members to adopt Hebrew names in place of the Arabic pseudonyms they had favored. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 113

Categorization

• CANDY: Viennese aristocrats renaming themselves ‘Ben-Jakhin’ and accepting forged Hebrew ‘holy land’ documents is a delightfully odd cocktail-party anecdote.
• SEED: The baptized Court Jew forging Hebrew documents to pass off as relics for gentile aristocrats is a ready-made essay or story about how invented authenticity circulates through elite subcultures.
• XREF: Forged ‘ancient’ documents winning elite converts echoes the Protocols of Zion fabrication literature and the general pattern of invented traditions Hobsbawm described.