The most famous school of Jewish mysticism became the Kabbalah (the spiritual-mystical-philosophical school of Judaism), with its book Zohar (a mystical commentary on the Torah, the Song of Songs, and the Book of Ruth) - a work published in Spain in the 13th century.

Jewish mystics include Isaac Luria, who lived in the 16th century, and the founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, in the 18th century. Messianic hopes were reflected in the Sabbatarian and Frankist movements, derived from the names of the "messiahs" Sabbatai Zevi and Jacob Frank (about whom Olga Tokarczuk wrote "The Books of Jacob").

These "messiahs", however, made religious conversions, the former to Islam, the latter to Christianity.