Hasidic Judaism

Hasidic Judaism (also spelled Chasidic) was founded by Israel ben Eliezer (1700-1760), also known as the Ba'al Shem Tov, or the Besht. Hasidic Judaism was formed in a time of persecution of the Jewish people, and in a time when European Jews had turned inward to Talmud study; many Jews at this time felt that most expressions of Jewish life had become too academic, and that they no longer had any emphasis on spirituality or joy. The Ba'al Shem Tov set out to change this.

He attracted many disciples; his disciples attracted many followers and themselves established numerous Hasidic sects across Europe. After the Besht's death, his cause was carried on by his followers, especially Dov Baer of Mezhirech. From his court students went forth; they in turn attracted many Jews to Hasidism, and many of them came to study in Mezhirech with Dov Baer personally. Hasidic Judaism eventually become the way of life of the majority of Jews in the Ukraine, Galicia, and central Poland; the movement also had sizable groups of followers in Belorussia-Lithuania and Hungary. Hasidic Judaism came to Western Europe and then to the United States during the large waves of Jewish emigration in the 1880s.

Early on, there was a serious schism between the Hasidic and non-Hasidic Jews. European Jews who rejected the Hasidic movement were dubbed by the Hasidim as "mitnagdim", (lit. opponents). Some of the reasons for the rejection of Hasidic Judaism was that they were very lax in following certain Jewish laws; even more problematic was the overhwhelming exuberance of Hasidic worship; their untraditional ascriptions of infallibility and miracle-working to their leaders, and the concern that it might become a messainic sect, which in fact had occured among the followers of both Shabbtai Zvi and Jacob Frank. On a more prosaic level, other Mitnagdim argued that Jews should follow a more scholarly approach to Judaism. At one point Hasidic Jews were put in cherem (a Jewish form of communal excommunication); later there was a reapproachment between Hasidic Jews and those who would become Orthodox Jews. Since then Hasidic Judaism has been entirely subsumed into Orthodoxy; Hasidic Judaism is now considered a branch of Haredi (right-wing) Orthodoxy.

During the Holocaust the Hasidic centers of Eastern Europe were destroyed. Survivors moved to Israel or America, and established new centers of Hasidic Judaism. There was a significant revival of interest in Hasidic Judaism on the part of non-Orthodox Jews due to the writings of non-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish authors like Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel. Some of the more well known Hasdic sects still extant include Breslov, Lubavitch (Chabad), Satmar, Ger, and Bobov Hasidim.