Hasidism

David Biale is the Emanuel Ringelblum Distinguished Professor of Jewish History at the University of California, Davis. David Assaf is professor of Jewish history at Tel Aviv University. Benjamin Brown is professor of Jewish thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Uriel Gellman is lecturer in Jewish history at Bar-Ilan University. Samuel Heilman is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Moshe Rosman is professor of Jewish history at Bar-Ilan University. Gadi Sagiv is senior lecturer in Jewish history at the Open University of Israel. Marcin Wodzi?ski is professor of Jewish studies at the University of Wroc?aw.

List of Illustrations and Maps vii

Preface and Acknowledgments ix

Note on Spelling, Transliteration, and Annotation xi

Introduction: Hasidism as a Modern Movement 1

Section 1-Origins: The Eighteenth Century

PART I BEGINNINGS

1 Hasidism's Birthplace 17

2 Ba'al Shem Tov: Founder of Hasidism? 43

3 From Circle to Court: The Maggid of Mezritsh and Hasidism's First Opponents 76

PART II FROM COURT TO MOVEMENT

4 Ukraine 103

5 Lithuania, White Russia, and the Land of Israel 118

6 Galicia and Central Poland 141

PART III BELIEFS AND PRACTICES

7 Ethos 159

8 Rituals 183

9 Institutions 222

Section 2-Golden Age: The Nineteenth Century Introduction: Toward the Nineteenth Century 257

10 A Golden Age within Two Empires 262

PART I VARIETIES OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY HASIDISM

11 In the Empire of the Tsars: Russia 291

12 In the Empire of the Tsars: Poland 332

13 Habsburg Hasidism: Galicia and Bukovina 359

14 Habsburg Hasidism: Hungary 387

PART II INSTITUTIONS

15 "A Little Townlet on Its Own": The Court and Its Inhabitants 403

16 Between Shtibl and Shtetl 429

17 Book Culture 457

PART III RELATIONS WITH THE OUTSIDE WORLD

18 Haskalah and Its Successors 477

19 The State and Public Opinion 502

20 The Crisis of Modernity 530

21 Neo-Hasidism 556

Section 3-Death and Resurrection: The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Introduction: The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries 575

PART I BETWEEN WORLD WAR I AND WORLD WAR II

22 War and Revolution 579

23 In a Sovereign Poland 597

24 Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Romania 623

25 America and the Land of Israel 637

26 Khurbn: Hasidism and the Holocaust 652

PART II POSTWAR PHOENIX: HASIDISM AFTER THE HOLOCAUST

27 America: Hasidism's Goldene Medinah 677

28 The State of Israel: Haven in Zion 707

29 Hasidic Society 740

30 Hasidic Culture 770

31 In the Eyes of Others: Hasidism in Contemporary Culture 793

Afterword by Arthur Green 807

Annotated Bibliography 813

About the Authors 847

Index 849