Untold Tales of the Hasidim: Crisis and Discontent in the History of Hasidism

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UPNE, Jan 1, 2012 - Religion - 360 pages
This fascinating volume reveals some of the dark, dramatic episodes concealed in the folds of the hasidic cloak--shocking events and anomalous figures in the history of Hasidism. Using tools of detection, Assaf extracts historical truth from a variety of sources by examining how the same events are treated in different memory traditions, whether hasidic, maskilic, or modern historical, and tells the stories of individuals from the hasidic elites who found themselves unable to walk the trodden path. By placing these episodes and individuals under his historical lens, Assaf offers a more nuanced historical portrayal of Hasidism in the nineteenth-century context.
 

Contents

Hasidic History as a Battlefield
1
In the Footsteps of Moshe the Sonof Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady
29
The Fall of the Seer of Lublin
97
The Opposition to Bratslav Hasidism
120
The World of Rabbi Akiva Shalom Chajes of Tulchin
154
The World of Rabbi Menahem Nahum Friedman of Itscan
175
The World of Rabbi Yitshak Nahum Twersky of Shpikov
206
Notes
237
Works Cited
311
Index
325
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About the author (2012)

David Assaf is Professor of Modern Jewish History at the Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University. His field of expertise is the history and culture of traditional Eastern European society, of Hasidism especially.

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