In his review for Allmusic, Thom Jurek notes that "Black Shabbis is not for everybody, not even some Saft fans necessarily, but it is a powerful, excellent work that uses the metal genre well – expertly even – and will convince headbangers of its essential importance as one of the voices out there that stands tall and defiant in the face of much of the anti-Semitism that is promoted by some black and death metal bands.

For everyone else, it is an angry howl of both pain and resistance whose anger is carried beautifully as the artist's ultimate weapon: his imagination and creativity to provoke, to give pause and reflection".

Saft clearly has talent, but he's effectively crippled by a weird, overly dry production and a steadfast refusal to stick to any one idea.

Still, there's hope here, and if Jamie Saft ever raises his game and makes a Black Shabbis II he might be on to a good thing.

Saft shows no loyalty to any one style and the tracks skip radically between influences and sub-genres ... Black Shabbis will provide unnerving delights for anyone like me who is as obsessed with the possibilities of distorted guitar as they are with Jewish identity".