Introduction

Abstract

This chapter discusses the study of the Haskalah and the hasidic movement in the Kingdom of Poland, sometimes also known as “Congress Poland” because it was created by the Congress of Vienna in the nineteenth century. Hasidism was no doubt the largest and most important new movement to emerge within east European Jewry in those turbulent times. The chapter explains how Hasidism participated in abrupt social, economic, and cultural transformations in the Polish territories. It investigates the changes in social relations and perceptions that the transformations brought about or how the new social formations that arose in the Polish lands defined and redefined themselves in relation to each other. The chapter focuses on Haskalah and the traditional non-hasidic Jewish community by considering the political history of the Kingdom of Poland and its relationship with the hasidic movement.