Caught in the Thicket by David Assaf

This post is dedicated to the memory of Dena Hamburger.

A new book by Professor David Assaf : "Caught in the Thicket: Chapters of Crisis and Discontent in the History of Hasidism," (published by the Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History):


Table of contents in English (pdf).

Yair Sheleg wrote an expanded review in Haaretz: Shame and scandal in the family.

Chapter One: Apostate or Saint? In the Footsteps of Moshe, the Son of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady

Yair Sheleg reports: "The biggest scoop in the book has to do with the conversion to Christianity of Moshe, the youngest son of the founder of Chabad, Shneor Zalman of Ladi. The affair was known and dealt with in a heated debate among the Maskilim (followers of the Enlightenment) and after them the academic researchers, who tried to blur and even deny the story.

Assaf's discovery should put an end to the debate. According to him, in recent years Professor Shaul Stampfer of the Hebrew University found two files of documents relating to the affair in the National Archive of Belarus. Among other things, the files contained a letter from Moshe to the priest in his town, Oula, requesting conversion, the baptism certificate that was prepared for him and letters from his two brothers to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in which they state that their brother is mentally ill and ask, in the light of this, to revoke the conversion to Christianity as a step that was taken when he was of unsound mind and that exploited his illness (a description with which Assaf agrees)."

(A year ago there was a preview of this book in Haaretz, see our post and discussion Oy! for Reb Maishe, the Alter Rebbe�s son I am very disappointed by the policy of Haaretz to archive the old article as the links to it die. In any case people here remember the exchange. I wonder what will Yosef Kaminetzky come up with now?).

Photo by Yossi Melamed, Kobi Gideon/BauBau

Chapter Two: The Mitnagdim Laughed that He Was Drunk: The Fall of the Seer of Lublin

Yair Sheleg reports: "In another chapter Assaf tells the story of the Visionary of Lublin, one of the leading figures of the Hasidic movement in its second generation, who mysteriously fell from the window of his home on Simhat Torah and died after nine months of prolonged agony. The Maskilim, who had a continuing struggle with the Hasidim, claimed that the Visonary fell after he got drunk on the holiday. The Hasidim described the fall as resulting from a spiritual collapse after the failure of his efforts to bring about the redemption.

Assaf proposes that the fall was a suicide attempt. He bases this hypothesis on reports in Hasidic sources of a prior suicide attempt by the Visionary and his generally depressive personality."

Chapter Three: Happy Are the Persecuted: The Struggle Against Bratslav Hasidism

Yair Sheleg reports: "Another chapter of the book, which also touches upon the present, deals with persecution of the Breslav Hasidim by other Hasiduts in the 19th century. This included beatings and threats of murder and of informing to the authorities, which historian Raphael Mahler describes as more severe than the persecutions of the Hasidism by the Mitnagdim (literally, "opponents," to the Hasidic way), disciples of the Vilna Gaon. It is astonishing to see that the persecutors and the boycotters saw no need at all to justify the persecution. Such a justification has appeared only recently, Assaf says, in a booklet by a rabbi from Safed named Yermiyahu Cohen, who is trying in this way to renew the fight with the Breslavs, "and for the first time he justifies the struggle by saying that the Breslavs are not prepared to submit to the authority of any of the great sages of the generation."

Why, then, are the Breslavs not being persecuted as in the past, even though their presence is greater than ever? "This is part of the process of the privatization that is also happening in the ultra-Orthodox world," says Assaf. "This world is splitting into an infinite number of groups, none of which can control the other. Even if someone were to issue a boycott ruling, what ability would he have to enforce it?"

Chapter Four: Heretic, Who Believes Not in the Great Leaders of the Time: The Struggle Over the Honor of the Book Or Ha-Hayyim

Chapter Five: Excitement of the Soul: The World of Rabbi Akiva Shalom Chajes of Tulchin

Chapter Six: How Much Times Have Changed: The World of Rabbi Menachem Nahum Friedman of Itcani

Chapter Seven: Confession of My Tortured Soul: The World of Rabbi Yitzhak Nahum Twersky of Shpikov

Yair Sheleg reports: Especially exciting is the chapter on Rebbe Yitzhak Nahum Twersky, the son of the Admor of Shpikov, who was sent to marry the daughter of the Rebbe of Belz, whom he had never met before the wedding. The forced marriage greatly depressed him, especially as he had been exposed, primarily through his sisters, to the free world of the Enlightenment. A short time before he was led to the wedding canopy, Twersky wrote a long letter, a kind of confession, to the Enlightened writer Yaakov Dinzon, who was friendly with his sister, in which he detailed his hatred for the closed and ignorant world in which he lived: "I express free opinions, and I am forced to observe every jot and title of my ancestors' strictures. I am a person of good taste, and I love beauty, and I am forced to wear the clothing of savages." He writes that it is "unimaginable" for someone like him to live in such a suffocating atmosphere.

Future Book by David Assaf:

Yair Sheleg reports: Assaf has left one of the most scandalous stories of apostasy outside the book. This is the story of Beriniu, the son of the founder of the Rizhn Hasidut, who after his father's death became the admor in the small town of Layova. He hated his post and decided to resign from it, but the Hasidim did not let him. He was abducted and taken to the Hasidut's court in Sadigora, to be "persuaded," but was released from his imprisonment by local Maskils. He went to the home of the Maskil Dr. Yehuda Leib Roitmen in the town of Chernovitz, where he desecrated the Sabbath, ate non-kosher foods and published an open letter in the Jewish press declaring his enthusiasm for Enlightenment and his reservations about Hasidut. The affair scandalized the Jewry of Eastern Europe but in the end, Beriniu himself apparently could not stand the separation from the place where he was raised. He returned, humiliated, to the home of his brother, the Admor of Sadigora, and lived there in isolation until his death in 1876. Assaf says that he did not deal with this affair because he intends to devote an entire book to it.

Interesting that Schneur Zalman of NY wrote commenting to the Kotzker Rebbe LeOlam Voed that this Rizhiner son was mixed up with the Kotzker Rebbe. I spoke about this with Schneur Zalman last week and he said there is a source paper that attributes the mix up to a popular Yiddish book that he named. He said the mix-up with the Shabbos candle story is allegedly what happened with the Layova Rebbe not the Kotzker. He said he was looking again into this, so let him finish his research.

P.S. Yair Sheleg notes: Assaf cites the late researcher Dov Sadan, who visited the leftist Shomer Hatzair Kibbutz Merhavia, identified many descendents of admors there and wondered about the meaning of this. He offers a varied explanation: "First of all, the admor's home is the least supervised element in a Hasidic court. The court supervises everyone's life, but the admor's children are less supervised. They were also given an education different from that of the other children of the court, and at least in Ukraine this was a more open education. A third point is that unlike other people of the court, they know it from 'inside,' not only with the aura of sanctity but also the stitching - the power struggles, the gossip - and what is most important - The admors' families are 'noble families,' often with many material assets that engender power struggles, and with struggles about who will be the heir, struggles that we have encountered just recently in the Satmar Hasidut.

UPDATE: hydepark discussion.