HASKALAH AND HASSIDISM IN POLAND

Abstract

MARCIN WODZINSKI , Haskalah and Hasidism in the Kingdom of Poland. A History of Conflict (translated by Sarah Cozens with the assistance of Agnieszka Mirowska), xiv 335 pp., The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, Oxford and Portland, OR, 2005, £39.50. This learned volume, competently translated here, was first published in Polish in 2003. The subject had been researched by Raphael Mahler, who published his pioneering study first in Hebrew in 1961; in 1985 the book appeared in English in a slightly modified version as Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment: Their Confrontation in Galicia and Poland in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. A comparison of the two volumes would not be easy because the authors approached the conflict (or confrontation) between the Haskalah (the specifically Jewish movement of the eighteenth-century ‘Enlightenment’) and hassidism from different perspectives. Mahler saw it from a Marxist socio-economic standpoint and interpreted the historical data accordingly. He considered the peculiarities of hassidic behaviour and beliefs — such as the cult of the rebbe or charismatic leader; the position of the tsadik; and the various aspects of hassidic practices. Wodzinski, however, is mainly concerned with the various opponents of hassidism and reports (with many valuable details) on the history of that opposition, on the principal personalities involved, the publications, and the methods of dealing with the Polish authorities. Thus, the reader will gain an understanding of the reality of Polish hassidism through the prism of the various (and often prejudiced) standpoints of the opponents of the movement.