A New Research Path in Studies about Hasidism

After reading several (meaning good dozen) of books about Hasidism, one may realize after a short while that the content is becoming repetitive. There are inevitably information about the history of the movement, outlines of the founders and famous dynasties (Satmer and Chabad especially, as they are by far the most successful; too much Chabad though in my humble opinion). Some unique information revealed in well-kept archives of various groups is what differentiates one book from the other. 

Historical Atlas of Hasidism has a completely different type of perspective. It has maps focused on various dynamics and trends, from the structure of the courts to the circulation of petitions and migrations and resettlements after WWII. 

'Hasidism has been conditioned by the spatial characteristics of the movement, not only in its social organization, but also in its spiritual life, type of religious leadership, or cultural articulation. And it is possible to capture this dimension of Hasidism with maps'. Such an approach is a welcomed changed of shift which may help seize trends and mentality patterns, as well as aspects of the material culture that previous studies neglected or were unable to understand.

Rightly, the author mentions among the limitations of the research in this field:  the predominance of intellectual history which neglects economic, social, cultural or political histories; an inadequate use of sources of non-Hasidic origin (particularly if not in Hebrew or Yiddish); a chronological focus on the early stages of the movement; esentialist and ahistorical approaches when it comes to what is and what is not Hasidism.

The focus on geography and classifications in general may lead to uncovering very interesting aspects on Hasidic life in Central and Eastern Europe but also allows regional identifications of trends and mentalities. 

Compared to the richness of information contained in the maps, the texts are not necessarily outstanding and repeat basic information about the various movements and dynasties found elsewhere. In one particular case when mentioning the 'Romanian features' - not detailed - of dynasties like Nadvorna or Vizhnitz - both named for localities that actually do not belong necessarily to the Romanian-administrative space, the author omits completely to offer well-deserved explanations of any kind.

Personally, this book helped me a lot in my future researches on Hasidism and hopefully will be able to go more into depth research.

The Most Efficient Way to Fight Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism has a long history that will never end. It only change faces and manifestations, but the profile of the actors stays mostly the same, both on the right and the left.

I was looking to read How to Fight Anti-Semitism not waiting to discover anything new, but curious about exactly what the title say. After all, some compare it to infamous 1930s, but the tools we have at our disposal are different. Also, there is something else that was not before, called the state of Israel, where the Jews can be protected when there is no safe haven left.

And what a lesson of fight this book is! Without being apologetic, without forgetting the difficulties the Israeli democracy is going through, without leaving behind any single aspect of religious Jewish life and identity.

This book resonates completely or partially with the experience of many Jews in Europe and America: keeping your identity hidden, even change your name for being left alone in your anonymity, hiding your religious identity signs (kippa, Magen David, tzitzit) for avoiding being aggressed, keeping quiet about what one thinks about Israel by fear of not being labelled 'Zionist'. From the right to the left, strong identities, which set apart from the majority are considered dangerous and treated accordingly. But how was it in the time of Queen Esther, the assimilated Jew at the Persian court who saved the murder of fellow Jews from Haman who couldn't stand them staying apart?

When you know who you are, you know what you are fighting for. This is how anti-Semitism is fought, with the mild yet sharp weapon of knowledge and education. Educate your critical thinking and be able to express your concerns in a reliable, coherent way. It is about time that more and more people give up the mentalitiy of the woman being raped accused for being her fault because dressed immodestly.

The 'how to' part takes only one chapter from the book - which I had in audio format, narrated by the author, but to be honest, even without this otherwise important chapter it's obvious how exactly one can fight anti-Semitism. I've seen reviews mentioning that the book fails to mention how to do that fight. Wrong. If at least once, or twice, or many times you've been victim of anti-Semitism you can easily figure out what it is all about. The story is already there. A story that concerns both Jews and non-Jews, Christians and Muslims. They always start with the Jews, but rarely ended with them.

A Jewish Mystery with a Talmudic Touch

Rabbi Small is one rabbi of a kind, working for over a year in the 'temple' in Massachusetts, for a couple of hundreds of Jewish families.When he was in the middle of the discussions about the renewal of his contract, an attractive young blonde babysitter was found dead on the synagogue's lover lane and her bag in the rabbi's car.

The first from the 12 series built around Rabbi Small, Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman was published in 1964 and received the Edgar Award for Best First Novel one year later. 

For me, this was my first encounter with the rabbi and it was a pleasant lecture. It is a classical mystery novel, with hints spread long before the crime was committed, with a simple narrative and relatively easy going characters - both the bad and the good ones. The solution to the crime is highly unexpected, with couple of fake possible culprits dismissed during the search, but makes logically sense.

Additionally, there is the talmudic touch of the story, which makes it into a Jewish mystery. The Rabbi, a learned man deeply immersed into his learning and disregarding the need of building up alliances among the synagogue board members, uses his bright mind and talmudic knowledge to judge and find the murder. Compared to other religious chiefs - like the Catholic and Protestant priests - through judgment can a rabbi help the larger society in the middle of which he is living (not by blessing yachts for instance). But there are some ugly faces to the co-existence - which by the way are still surviving in the 21st century America: once the rabbi was counted among the suspects, there is a group of 'idiots of the village' - we'll call them 'alt-right' nowadays - calling him and his wife throwing up nauseous anti-Semitic attacks and even painting a red swastika on their door. The ways in which the Jews are seen by the majority is a matter of concern for the board of the 'temple' which makes sense anywhere in the diaspora.

I enjoyed this mystery and would love to read all the books from the series. Rabbi Small is a very relatable person to deal with.

'The Netanyahu Years'

Although so far, my favorite book about Bibi Netanyahu in terms of comprehensive view on the political character is Anshel Pfeffer's, The Netanyahu Years by Ben Caspit, also a journalist, offers a psychological description of the - still - Israeli prime-minister. And what you see at the end is not a nice view of him, not at all.

Used to live 'well at low cost' from his NYC years, Netanyahu - described by the former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin as 'an American soap opera hero', 'this emigrant (that) wants to be prime minister of Israel (allusion of the years Bibi spent with his family in the States) - is a man with a big, big love for power. And for Sara too.

'(...) friends, feelings, and commitments are all foreign to Netanyahu when he is focused on an objective'. As for now, his objective is to stay in power, even with the risk of keeping a country captive to his political projections, as it happens right now. Successfully entering the history as the longest prime-minister, the only way he got the revenge to Ben Gurion who marginalized his father and to the 'princes' of the Israeli politics who ridiculized his ambitions, he built up his own world. Where he and Sara - the first time in the seven decade old state of Israel when a prime minister wife become so involved in the everyday political life (not that they were not worth it) - are ruling a country, and even dare to face the American politicians and presidents. An attitude that not only damages Likud but on the medium and long term affects at a great extent the future of the Jewish state and its position into the world arena.

Although I've found that the book delves too much into psychology and even psychiatry, The Netanyahu Years is an useful reading, among other recent books about the Israeli prime minister.    

Five Hasidic Dynasties in America and the Search for Leadership

In non-elective structures where the criteria for leadership rely on non-rational qualities, the quest for a leader requests very complex choices. Typical for the European Askenazi Jews, lineage and ancestral merit are important in the choice of Hasidic leaders. What you do when there are conflicting personalities and the criteria of the 'zar hodesh' (literally, 'holy seed') does not stand some minimal chances of spiritual survival? When unhappy brothers rebel against each other for getting the power they assume they equally deserve? 

Who Will Lead Us? by Samiel C. Heilman covers the story of five Hasidic dynasties - some famous as Satmar, Bobov and Chabad, some less like Kopyczynitz - from the perspective of the approach to leadership. Leadership means charisma - according to the classical description of Max Weber - but also the capacity to manage properties, succeed to increase the number of followers, fundraise, even maintain a certain relatioship with the non-Jewish authorities. Following the 'theology of genealogical sanctity' metioned by Heilman: 'One succeeded not only to the position of rebbe but also to family leadership, and often inherited family property and control over precious objects like manuscripts or Judaica freighted with the iconic power of leadership'.

Who Will Lead Us? was built on an impressive amount of information. Inside information, historical information, any kind of information. You are took witness of the highs and lows of one of the most powerful Hasidic courts, with their conflicts, alliances for power and deceits. Some information are unique even for people familiar with some of these dynasties. 

However, I had more than once the feeling of getting mostly sherayim (the morsels of food distributed to Hasidim from the rebbe's tisch/table). Academic research often involves gathering tons of information out of which you use only a small percentage for your main work. The rest you maybe will use on another occasion, maybe not. I had more than once the feeling while reading this book that there is way too much anectodic, that even the selection of the dynasties is not necessarily relevant but all those data was just there and had to be used. 

What I was expecting from such a book was maybe a serious academic analysis of this typical case of leadership, which is the religious leadership, specifically the Haredi one. Overwhelmed by too much information, this is what the book missed to provide.

Rav Pinto, Kushner, Trump&co.

If you think that something was missing from the 'bordel' which is the White House right now, think twice. Maybe you are wrong. There are all there, enjoying the show. Among them, representatives of the 'miracle rabbis' Pinto family.

Coming from a famous and revered family of Moroccan Jews, among which the Abuhazeira branch represented by the 'saint' Baba Sali, the Pintos are an interesting spiritual mix. Yoshiyahu Pinto who spent a year in an Israeli prison for bribery is a follower of the Satmer branch of Askenazi Hasidism. (He is not the only Sephardi Moroccan attracted to the European brand of Judaism, as the current ministry of Interior and Shas leader, Arye Deri whose parents were traditionally religious also studied in Askenazi yeshivot). Yoshiyahu's uncle, Rav David Pinto wears a kapota and a hat close to the Chabad style.

Both Jared Kushner, whose family is Modern Orthodox, and Ivanka Trump praise the Pinto family advice, either on personal and religious matters. (Actually, to keep things right, Hillary went for a blessing and an advice to them too). The Kushners are regular donors to various educational and charitable institutions belonging to the Pinto family, both in America and Israel and Ivanka is said to have kept a close relationship with the Pintos during her conversion to Judaism through the Chabad. Rav Yeshayahu Pinto apparently even mediated a dispute between Charles Kushner, Jared's father, and his brother Murray (the relationships in Kushner family, including between close brothers are extremely wild, to describe them in a very polite way, more about it in a well-documented book by Vicky Ward Kushner Inc.: Greed. Ambition.Corrution. The extraordinary story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump) 

Some say that in the hard moments of the Trump electoral campaign, Jared Kushner received advice and inspiration from the Pinto rabbis, for example to replace Corry Lewandowski with Kellyann Conway. From the Pinto family headquarters in Ashdod, Israel, every Shabbat candles are lit and blessings are made for president Trump. 

While recently in Morocco with Jason Greenblatt, Kushner went to the graves of the holy Pinto rabbis. In NYC, he and Ivanka are often visiting the grave of the Schneerson rabbi, also considered a 'miracle rabbi' for some of his Askenazi followers.

Sometimes though, even the holiest miracle rabbis can't do anything during debacle times.

Traces of Jewish Life in Coppenbrügge, Niedersachsen

There are not too many stories about the Jewish life in Coppenbrügge, a small village situated near Hannover and Hameln, in Niedersachsen, Germany. The community was always small, with around 50 Jews living here at the beginning of the 19th century. 

The presence of Jews here is first mentioned in 1630. For the holidays and the Shabbat, the services were offered as far as Hameln, made famous by Brothers Grimm Pied Pipper of Hamelin.

The few Jewish families living here were active in small businesses, such as the Levy family, which owned a textile factory. Oskar Levy was member in the local hunting and war veterans associations, from whom he was dismissed shortly after the Nazi come to power. 

But the Nazi were not having enough humiliating and killing innocent people, they had their feud with the dead Jews too, as they destroyed the local cemetery where 60 people were laid to rest. The cemetery was open since 1787, for the Jews living in the communities of Coppenbrügge, Brünninghausen and Hohnsen.

After the war, the plot that used to be a cemetery was purchased by a private person and was returned back to the Jewish community only in 1988. There are no information about Jews living now an open Jewish life in Coppenbrügge. The area of the former cemetery is marked with a fence, with a modest memorial for the Jews murdered.

An informative billboard has an outline of the circumstances that lead to the destruction of the Jewish life in Coppenbrügge, mentioning the name of the former Jewish residents murdered: Erich Levy, Lieschen Levy, Oskar Levy, Ruth Levy, Ernst Rothstein, Bertha Spiegel. May their memory be a blessing and the name of their murderers for ever erased!