Reveals the untold tale of shocking events and anomalous figures in the history of Hasidism
This fascinating volume reveals some of the dark, dramatic episodes concealed in the folds of the hasidic —cloak—shocking events and anomalous figures in the history of Hasidism. Using tools of detection, Assaf extracts historical truth from a variety of sources by examining how the same events are treated in different memory traditions, whether hasidic, maskilic, or modern historical, and tells the stories of individuals from the hasidic elites who found themselves unable to walk the trodden path. By placing these episodes and individuals under his historical lens, Assaf offers a more nuanced historical portrayal of Hasidism in the nineteenth-century context.
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David Assaf is Professor of Modern Jewish History at the Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University. His field of expertise is the history and culture of traditional Eastern European society, of Hasidism especially.
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