The Earliest Maskilic Treatise on Hasidism: Josef Rosensohn’s Tractatus de Kabała
The article presents an unknown treatise written by a Vilna-based maskil and medical doctor, Josef Rosensohn (ca. ...1774–1849). The newly discovered text, commissioned by a Polish aristocrat and Enlightenment activist Tadeusz Czacki (1765–1813), is the oldest maskilic treatise on Hasidism, written in either late 1804 or 1805, important not only for the history of the Haskalah, but also a significant source on the history of Hasidism and Jewish-Polish cultural relations. The article consists of two parts: (1) extensive introduction presenting the author, circumstances of the treatise creation, and significance of the source; (2) a thoroughly annotated treatise itself.
This article examines spatial aspects of Hasidism, arguably one of the most important socio-religious movements in modern Eastern Europe. More specifically, it focuses on the relationship between ...religious leaders in their courts and their followers in towns scattered across Eastern Europe. The article starts with the argument that in the wake of the exponential growth of Hasidism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it developed an innovative institution of shtiblekh, or Hasidic prayer halls. These prayer halls, often far from the court, became the basic structure for the influence of Hasidism. Their number and geographical distribution allow us to establish the internal boundaries of Hasidism and the Hasidic groups' internal hierarchy. Most importantly, the article argues that the size of the group and the spatial distribution of their shtiblekh were closely correlated with the type of religious leadership employed by this group: from distant charismatic leadership at the great dominant courts through many intermediate forms down to small ephemeral groupings with intense, intimate relations of close charismatic leadership.
•Examines meso-scale data on the spatial distribution of a religious movement.•Shows the persistence of nineteenth-century phantom borders in twentieth-century Judaism in Eastern Europe.•Analyzes the correlation between spatial distribution and the type of religious leadership.•Examines the types of charismatic leadership employed in Hasidism.
Analysing the political relations between the Kingdom of Poland and the hasidic movement, this book examines plans formulated by the government and by groups close to government circles regarding ...hasidim, and describes how a hasidic body politic developed in response. Marcin Wodzinski demonstrates that the rise of hasidism was an important factor in shaping the Jewish policy of both central and provincial authorities and shows how the creation of socio-political conditions that were advantageous to the hasidic movement accelerated its growth. While concentrating on the dynamic that developed in the Kingdom of Poland, the discussion is informed by a consideration of the relationship between the state and the hasidic movement from its inception in the Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that, whereas most analyses of political culture concentrate on states and societies with well-established electoral systems of representation, Wodzinski focuses on the under-researched area of political relations between a non-democratic state and a low-status community lacking authorized representation. Applying concepts more often associated with cultural history, his analysis draws a distinction between the terms of reference of high-level political debate and the actual implementation of policy middle- and low-level officials. Similarly, in analysing hasidic responses he differentiates between high-level hasidic representations in the state and the grassroots politics of the community. This combination enables a broad contextualization of the whole subject, integrating the social and cultural history of Polish Jewry with that of Polish society in general.
This article surveys the spectrum of Hasidic-gentile relations, from Hasidic perceptions of non-Jews to aspects of their everyday interactions as expressed in various Hasidic and non-Hasidic sources. ...We explore perspectives on non-Jews presented in Hasidic speculative teachings and consider the impact of these theories on the nature of Hasidic-gentile daily relations. We put particular emphasis on the level of egalitarian contacts among rank-and-file Hasidim and their neighbors. Additionally, we examine the cultural exchange between Hasidim and non-Jews as the least ideologized form of interaction between the two groups. By turning attention to Hasidic attitudes toward gentiles and their day-to-day relations, we aim to shed light on the understudied aspect of the Hasidic experience in Eastern Europe—an experience that took place among, and in complex interaction with, the Hasidim's non-Jewish neighbors.
This article revisits the once popular issue of the socio-occupational profile of Hasidism, arguably the most important socio-religious movement of modern Jewry. Well-known anecdotal materials are ...confronted with much broader archival sources, mainly from central Poland in the first half of the nineteenth century. These are both rich narrative sources (anti-Hasidic denunciations by the kahal elders, official reports on the Hasidic conflicts in the communities, etc.) and, most importantly, quantitative materials, which allow for the analysis of four Jewish communities in central Poland and one in Belarus. These materials provide a unique picture of the occupational and financial profile of the Hasidic groups in these localities (as confronted with the picture of the entire communities) and, by implication, of the whole Hasidic movement. Contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy, these new materials point to Hasidim’s relative affluence, as well as to their tendency to cluster in commercial professions and to avoid the crafts. More broadly, it points to the dynamic character of class–church interdependence and the ideological and cultural factors creating them. It also confirms the correlation between a religious group’s strictness and its strength and attractiveness.
Hasidism has often been defined and viewed as a sect. By implication, if Hasidism was indeed a sect, then membership would have encompassed all the social ties of the "sectarians," including their ...family ties, thus forcing us to consider their mothers, wives, and daughters as full-fledged female hasidim. In reality, however, women did not become hasidim in their own right, at least not in terms of the categories implied by the definition of Hasidism as a sect. Reconsideration of the logical implications of the identification of Hasidism as a sect leads to a radical re-evaluation of the relationship between the hasidic movement and its female constituency, and, by extension, of larger issues concerning the boundaries of Hasidism.
What were the effects of the Great War on religious life of East European Jews, as exemplified by its most visible, Hasidic section? What was unique in Hasidic experience of the Great War? This essay ...discusses the human and material losses suffered by the Hasidic movement, changes in the movement’s geography, ideological and political transformations surrounding and within Hasidism, and—most importantly—the specific changes in Hasidism caused by these transformations. It agues that Hasidism after 1918 found itself in a radically new situation, and despite the fact that many of its institutions were, on the face of it, working more or less as they had done before the war, the movement experienced a profound transformation of its geography, social roles, institutional bonds, and, often, identification with Hasidism. In this regard, the First World War was a key accelerator of the processes which transformed the Hasidic movement during the interwar period, and eventually to a significant extend shaped its resurrection and renaissance after the Holocaust.
The article presents an unknown treatise written by a Vilna-based maskil and medical doctor, Josef Rosensohn (ca. 1774–1849). The newly discovered text, commissioned by a Polish aristocrat and ...Enlightenment activist Tadeusz Czacki (1765–1813), is the oldest maskilic treatise on Hasidism, written in either late 1804 or 1805, important not only for the history of the Haskalah, but also a significant source on the history of Hasidism and Jewish-Polish cultural relations. The article consists of two parts: (1) extensive introduction presenting the author, circumstances of the treatise creation, and significance of the source; (2) a thoroughly annotated treatise itself.The article presents an unknown treatise written by a Vilna-based maskil and medical doctor, Josef Rosensohn (ca. 1774–1849). The newly discovered text, commissioned by a Polish aristocrat and Enlightenment activist Tadeusz Czacki (1765–1813), is the oldest maskilic treatise on Hasidism, written in either late 1804 or 1805, important not only for the history of the Haskalah, but also a significant source on the history of Hasidism and Jewish-Polish cultural relations. The article consists of two parts: (1) extensive introduction presenting the author, circumstances of the treatise creation, and significance of the source; (2) a thoroughly annotated treatise itself.
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