Home > Issues > Issue 56 | March 2021

    Issue 56 | March 2021

    Issue 56 | March 2021

    Portrait of a Boy, Isidor Kaufmann, circa 1895 Courtesy of the Jewish Museum, New York

    Articles

  • Portrait of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady. This 19th-century engraving, apparently produced by artist Boris Schatz, was based on a drawing purportedly dating back to the rebbe’s imprisonment in 1798 | Courtesy of the National Library of Israel

    Festivals of Freedom – Jailed Chabad Leaders

    Netanel Lederberg

    The horrors of imprisonment in czarist and Stalinist Russia were seared into the memory of all who survived their sentences. Few, however, celebrated their release as joyously as the Lubavitcher rebbes, whose followers mark these occasions

  • Both in Europe and in the land of Israel, Hasidim were drawn to urban centers. Kerosene peddler on a Tel Aviv sidewalk, circa 1920 | Photo: Ze’ev Aleksandrowicz, Pikiwiki

    Tel Aviv’s Not-So-Black Hats – Hasidic Tel Aviv

    Menachem Keren-Kratz

    The city that never sleeps might now epitomize secular Israel, but for decades it was the country’s Hasidic capital – and Zionist too! Menachem Keren-Kratz Shoppers on Tel Aviv’s fashionable Shenkin Street and high-tech workers

  • By embracing train travel, the Hasidic movement showed that despite its conservatism, it was in fact thoroughly modern. Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter of Ger, author of the Hasidic work Imrei Emet, taking leave of his followers at the station before setting out on a visit to Mandate Palestine | Photo: Virtual Shtetl, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews

    The Hasidic Track – Hasidic Train Line

    Ze’ev Kitsis

    Change followed swiftly in the wake of the railway, making the steam engine’s power and speed synonymous with modernity. Yet the ostensibly conservative Hasidic movement eagerly embraced the noisy, crowded carriages of train travel. New way

  • The movement begun by the Ba’al Shem Tov spread rapidly, with new branches and dynasties every generation. Rabbi Yisrael Hopstein, the Maggid of Kozhenits, and his son and successor, Rabbi Moshe Elyakim Beriah, 19th century engraving | Episcopal Library, Sendomeje

    Old Sparks, New Vessels – Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov 

    Roee Horen

    Hasidism’s emergence at the dawn of modernity – and the movement’s subsequent, unprecedented success – can be attributed to Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem Tov’s skillful use of surprising sources to weave innovation into the fabric of Jewish tradi

  • Boy Wonders – Child Rebbes

    Gadi Sagiv

    Ever since the position of Hasidic master began to pass as an inheritance from father to son, children have occasionally become rebbes overnight. But can they leave their toys long enough to lead? Gadi Sagiv In the summer of 187

    • Columns

  • Tale of a Trail | Hamat Gader

    Tamar HaYardeni

    From ancient geological wonder to crocodile spa, Hamat Gader has gone through many incarnations and as many hands. Despite its pagan statues, its hot springs drew even the Talmudic sages  Tamar HaYardeni Where To? Hamat GaderHi

  • Portrait of a People | Lonely at the Top

    Naomi Samuel

    Naomi Samuel Vladimir Lenin in SmolnyOil on canvas190 x 287 cm1930New Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow Isaak

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