Education and Formation in an Interwar Hasidic Yeshiva: The Case of Tomkhe Temimim Warsaw

Abstract

Abstract Hasidic yeshivas rose to prominence in Eastern Europe in the interwar period (1918–1939), as a way of keeping orthodox youth in the fold and of shaping the new generations of Hasidim, enabling them to withstand the allures of non-Orthodox cultures. Using the Chabad–Lubavitch yeshiva Tomkhe Temimim as a case study, this article focuses on the educational and formative strategies employed in interwar Hasidic yeshivas. It examines previously unused internal yeshiva sources, such as student lists or teachers’ reports, to show the pedagogical practices of the yeshiva staff and faculty. Effectively, the article provides an egalitarian and down-to-earth perspective on the Hasidic transformation in the interwar years. This perspective goes beyond the theoretical Hasidic concepts preached by the leaders to show how, in practical terms, these concepts were understood by the movement’s secondary intelligentsia and passed on to the next generation in the movement’s formative institutions.