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From the ardently religious young woman who longs for the life of a male scholar to the young rebel who visits a strip club, smokes pot, and agonizes over her loss of faith to the proud Lubavitcher with a desire for a high-powered career, Stephanie Wellen Levine provides a rare glimpse into the inner worlds and daily lives of these Hasidic girls. Lubavitcher Hasidim are famous for their efforts to inspire secular Jews to become more observant and for their messianic fervor. Strict followers of Orthodox Judaism, they maintain sharp gender-role distinctions. Levine spent a year living in the Lub

"Hasidism, a movement many believed had passed its golden age, has had an extraordinary revival since its near decimation in the Holocaust and Soviet communism. These Hasidim, now settled primarily in North America and Israel have reversed the losses they suffered and rebuilt their communities. The once unimaginable is today routine. Hasidism is alive and growing. How? "Who Will Lead Us?" is the story of five contemporary Hasidic dynasties and how they have handled the delicate issue of leadership and succession. It explores two groups with too few successors, two with too many successors, and one that claims there is no need for a successor, as they claim their leader never died"--Provided by publisher

Since the 1970s, Buber has often been suspected of being a Volkish thinker. This essay reconsiders the affinity of Buber&rsquo ; s late writings with Volkish ideology. It examines the allegations against Buber&rsquo ; s Volkish thought in light of his later biblical and Hasidic writings. By illuminating the ideological affinity between these two modes of thought, the essay explains how Buber aims to depart from the dangers of myth without rejecting myth as such. I argue that Buber&rsquo ; s relationship to myth can help us to explain his critique of nationalism. My basic argument is that in his struggle with hyper-nationalism, Buber follows the Baal Shem Tov and his struggle against Sabbateanism. Like the Besht, Buber does not reject myth, but seeks instead to repair it from within. Whereas hyper-nationalism uses myth to advance its political goals, Buber seeks to reposition ethics within a mythic framework. I view Buber&rsquo ; s exegesis and commentaries on biblical and Hasidic myths as myth-activism.

While Chaim Potok's novel The Chosen remains one of the most popular works of Jewish fiction, it has not generally been regarded as a critical success. In contrast with authors such as Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, Potok is often charged with presenting a romanticized (rather than realistic) view of traditional American Jews in the mid-twentieth century. The article challenges this assessment, arguing that Potok's work is undervalued in part because he does not present the version of Judaism preferred by critics of his time. Traditional Jews, particularly Hasidic Jews, were viewed as a throwback to the past, not a significant modern American Jewish community. This assessment reveals a biased perspective on traditional Judaism, and it assumes that the key issue confronting mid-century Jews was assimilation. The Chosen presents an alternative to this common characterization of American Judaism, highlighting instead the variety of Jewish traditions in mid-century America, and how the conflicts between them contributed to the development of American Jewish identity.

1. Two types of religious man -- 2. Two stages in kibbutz evolution -- 3. The positivist temper of Torah-im-Derekh Eretz -- 4. The Hasidic ethos of HaPo'el HaMizrahi -- 5. The two strands of the religious kibbutz in formation -- 6. The psychic collective of the religious kibbutz -- 7. The psychic collective encounters commune reality -- 8. The Halakhic-socialist collective : the religious kibbutz and Moses Hess -- 9. An evolutionary-functional perspective

Sam Lebens has written a richly inventive and thought-provoking book that contributes greatly to philosophy of religion and to contemporary Jewish philosophy. While there is much that merits response, I will focus here on one central theme of the book: the doctrine, dubbed (Extreme) Hasidic Idealism by Lebens, that we exist only in God's imagination — accordingly that we are nothing but divine ideas. I will also argue that the book exceeds its self-presentation as a work in the "analytic style" and illustrates the need to overcome the analytic/Continental divide.

Abstract. Sam Lebens has written a richly inventive and thought-provoking book that contributes greatly to philosophy of religion and to contemporary Jewish philosophy. While there is much that merits response, I will focus here on one central theme of the book: the doctrine, dubbed (Extreme) Hasidic Idealism by Lebens, that we exist only in God's imagination — accordingly that we are nothing but divine ideas. I will also argue that the book exceeds its self-presentation as a work in the "analytic style" and illustrates the need to overcome the analytic/Continental divide.

The article examines the influence of the mass pilgrimage of representatives of the foreign Hasidic communities on the dynamics of the development of Ukrainian-Jewish relations in particular, and, on the ethnopolitical processes of modern Ukraine in general. The relevance of the research determined, firstly, by insufficient study of the specified phenomenon in domestic science; secondly, the fact that the number of pilgrims who visit our country every year significantly exceeds the number of parishioners of local Jewish communities. The specificity of the Hasidic creed requires that believers have to regularly visit the burial places of their leaders. Therefore, since the mentioned religious movement originated in Ukraine, the connection with it of many foreign Jewish religious communities is maintained at a high level, regardless of the circumstances. Neither the pandemic nor the war significantly reduced the number of visitors to the places of burial of the teachers of Hasidism. The facts provided by the author reveal two contradictory trends in the reaction of local residents to the arrival of numerous followers of the Jewish religious-mystical movement: 1. The spread of hostile attitudes and actions directed against foreigners; 2. Growing interest in the development of pilgrimage and increasing of the tolerance. The first trend is caused by significant differences in worldview, culture, and everyday habits. It is also a result of corruption problems, since the municipal authorities enter only a small part of the funds obtained from the pilgrims into the local budgets. The second trend is determined by the interest of local residents in earning money related to the service of pilgrims and tolerance, which is spreading more and more in society. The conclusions note that the development of friendly relations between the local population and Hasidic pilgrims contributes to the positive dynamics of the image of Ukrainian society not only in the Jewish environment, but also in numerous communities of the modern Western world that are not directly involved in Judaism. This, in turn, will help Ukrainian post-war reconstruction. For solving problems related to pilgrimage the author recommends a number of educational activities for the local population, regional officials and the pilgrims themselves.

"The Habad movement, born in eighteenth-century Belarus, has developed into one of the most influential streams of Hasidic Judaism. Drawing on both mystical sermons and legal writings of its founder, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady (1745-1812), Eternity Now provides the first account of the historiosophical dimensions of early Habad doctrine. Challenging the commonly held view that Shneur Zalman was primarily concerned with supratemporal transcendence, Wojciech Tworek demonstrates the importance of time and history in his teachings. Tworek argues that the worldly dimensions of Shneur Zalman's thought were largely responsible for the rapid growth of Habad at the turn of the nineteenth century and fostered its transformation from an elitist circle into a mass movement. Tworek's readings of Hebrew and Yiddish sources demonstrate the implications of these ideas not only for male scholars but also for non-scholars, Jewish women, and even non-Jews. Philosophical and kabbalistic thought joined together to form a model of religious experience attractive to a broad audience, laying an ideological foundation for the missionary messianism that was to become a hallmark of Habad in the twentieth century" --

Abstract
The traditional academic approach to the study of the Hasidic movement in Judaism has tended to be based primarily on texts. Although book learning is important to Hasidim, the heart of the movement is living experience, in particular oral teaching of the Hasidic understanding and application of Torah by the Rebbe, most often in the Yiddish vernacular. Failure adequately to take account of this "oral Torah" (borrowing the term commonly applied to the Talmud) has led to inadequate, even erroneous conclusions about Hasidism and its tenets and history.

Examines the influences of Marxism & Jewish-mystical tradition on Walter Benjamin's concept of history through an analysis of his eighteen theses contained in Ueber den Begriff der Geschichte ([On the Concept of History] 1974). Benjamin's thoughts are read as a series of nonsystematic meditations that include references to Stalinism, social democracy, fascism, & socialist defeats. It is argued that Benjamin's central message is focused around recognizing capital as the material core of modernity. It is posited that three characteristics of mystical thought prevade Benjamin's thinking: the interpretation of human reality represents the symbols of a historical, hidden reality; the struggle with, but ultimate acceptance of paradox; & the search for a metaphysical unity. Photographs by Roman Vishniac of Eastern European Hasidic communities prior to the Nazi genocide are used to suggest that Benjamin saw the lives of oppressed peoples as a means to understanding the true essence of historical events. 5 Photographs, 13 References. M. Greenberg