Lesson 2: "Hasidism and Traditional Jewish Society"
Summary: Our lecture concludes with the conquest of Hasidism of most East European Jewish communities by the middle of the 19th century, and even earlier in Galicia. By that time, Hasidism was divided between dozens of competing courts, each based on its own family dynasty. Tensions with traditional Jews opposed to Hasidism, known as “mitnagdim”, flared briefly but by the 1820s had subsided as both Hasidim and Mitnagdim increasingly united against the growing threat of Enlightenment and modernization. Importantly, the right of Hasidim to practice according to their new rites and to organize as Hasidim was guaranteed by the state.
Recommended reading:
Rafael Mahler, Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment: Their confrontation in Galicia and Poland in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century” (1985), 3-29, 69-103
Rachel Manekin, “Hasidism and the Habsburg Empire, 1788-1867,” Jewish History 27 (2013), 271-97
