
Hasidism
Key Questions
Marcin Wodzinski(Author)
Oxford University Press Inc
Published on 17. November 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
370 pages
978-0-19-755264-3 (ISBN)
Description
Hasidism is one of the most important religious and social movements to have developed in Eastern Europe, and the most significant phenomenon in the religious, social and cultural life of the Jewish population in Eastern Europe from the eighteenth century up to the present day. Innovative and multidisciplinary in its approach, Hasidism: Key Questions discusses the most cardinal features of any social or religious movement: definition, gender, leadership, demographic size, geography, economy, and decline. This is the first attempt to respond those central questions in one book.
Recognizing the major limitations of the existing research on Hasidism, Marcin Wodzinski's Hasidism offers four important corrections. First, it offers anti-elitist corrective attempting to investigate Hasidism beyond its leaders into the masses of the rank-and-file followers. Second, it introduces new types of sources, rarely or never used in research on Hasidism, including archival documents, Jewish memorial books, petitionary notes, quantitative, and visual materials. Third, it covers the whole classic period of Hasidism from its institutional maturation at the end of the eighteenth century to its major crisis and decline in wake of the First World War. Finally, instead of focusing on intellectual history, the book offers a multi-disciplinary approach with the modern methodologies of the corresponding disciplines: sociology and anthropology of religion, demography, historical geography and more.
By combining some oldest, central questions with radically new sources, perspectives, and methodologies, Hasidism: Key Questions will provide a radically new look at many central issues in historiography of Hasidism, one of the most important religious movements of modern Eastern Europe.
Recognizing the major limitations of the existing research on Hasidism, Marcin Wodzinski's Hasidism offers four important corrections. First, it offers anti-elitist corrective attempting to investigate Hasidism beyond its leaders into the masses of the rank-and-file followers. Second, it introduces new types of sources, rarely or never used in research on Hasidism, including archival documents, Jewish memorial books, petitionary notes, quantitative, and visual materials. Third, it covers the whole classic period of Hasidism from its institutional maturation at the end of the eighteenth century to its major crisis and decline in wake of the First World War. Finally, instead of focusing on intellectual history, the book offers a multi-disciplinary approach with the modern methodologies of the corresponding disciplines: sociology and anthropology of religion, demography, historical geography and more.
By combining some oldest, central questions with radically new sources, perspectives, and methodologies, Hasidism: Key Questions will provide a radically new look at many central issues in historiography of Hasidism, one of the most important religious movements of modern Eastern Europe.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
629 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-755264-3 (9780197552643)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Marcin Wodzinski is Professor of Jewish History and Literature at the University of Wroclaw, Poland. His special fields of interest are Jewish material culture and the social history of Jews in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe, especially the history of Hasidism and Haskalah. His books include: Hebrew Inscriptions in Silesia 13th-18th c. (Pol., 1996), Haskalah and Hasidism (2005), Hasidism and Politics (2013), and Historical Atlas of Hasidism (2018).
Author
Professor of Jewish History and LiteratureProfessor of Jewish History and Literature, University of Wroclaw
Content
Acknowledgments
Note on Transcription and Place Names
Introduction
Chapter 1: A Definition
Chapter 2: Women
Chapter 3: Leadership
Chapter 4: Demography
Chapter 5: Geography
Chapter 6: Economy
Chapter 7: The End and the Beginning
Conclusion
Bibliography
List of Figures and Tables
Index
Note on Transcription and Place Names
Introduction
Chapter 1: A Definition
Chapter 2: Women
Chapter 3: Leadership
Chapter 4: Demography
Chapter 5: Geography
Chapter 6: Economy
Chapter 7: The End and the Beginning
Conclusion
Bibliography
List of Figures and Tables
Index