Read more
The Light of Learning is a pioneering study that belies notions of late Hasidic decadence and decline, and transforms our understanding of Polish Jewry during its final hour. In interwar Poland, Hasidism underwent a pedagogical revolution. By mobilizing Torah study, Hasidic leaders were able to subvert the "civilizing" projects of the Polish state, challenge the ascendancy of Zionism and Socialism, and create clandestine yeshiva bunkers in Nazi-era ghettos. Hasidic Torah study was thus not only a spiritual-intellectual endeavor but a political practice that fueled a formidable culture of resistance.
List of contents
- Introduction
- 1. Weathering the Crisis: Polish Hasidism through the First World War
- 2. A Higher Education: The Hasidic Pedagogical Revival
- 3. Aguda: The Politicization of Hasidism
- 4. Against Aguda: Politics without Party Politics
- 5. Physical Pogroms and Spiritual Pogroms: Hasidism in Post-Piludski Poland
- 6. Hasidism during the Holocaust
- Conclusion
About the author
Glenn Dynner is the Carl and Dorothy Bennett Professor of Judaic Studies at Fairfield University, editor of the journal Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, and a recent Guggenheim Fellow. He is author of Men of Silk: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society (OUP, 2006), and Yankel's Tavern: Jews, Liquor, and Life in the Kingdom of Poland (OUP, 2013).
Summary
The Light of Learning tells the story of an unexpected Hasidic revival in Poland on the eve of the Holocaust. In the aftermath of World War I, the Jewish mystical movement appeared to be in shambles. Hasidic leaders had dispersed, Hasidic courts lay in ruins, and the youth seemed swept up in secularist trends as a result of mandatory public schooling and new Jewish movements like Zionism and Socialism. Author Glenn Dynner shows that in response to this, Hasidic leaders reinvented themselves as educators devoted to rescuing the youth by means of thriving networks of heders (primary schools), Bais Yaakov schools for girls and women, and world-renowned yeshivas.
During the ensuing pedagogical revolution, Hasidic yeshivas soon overshadowed courts, and Hasidic leaders became known more for scholarship than miracle-working. By mobilizing Torah study, Hasidic leaders were able to subvert the "civilizing" projects of the Polish state, successfully rival Zionists and Socialists, and create clandestine yeshiva bunkers in ghettos during the Holocaust. Torah study was thus not only a spiritual-intellectual endeavor but a political practice that fueled a formidable culture of resistance. The Light of Learning belies notions of late Hasidic decadence and decline and transforms our understanding of Polish Jewry during its final hour.
Additional text
Dynner's book shows that there is ample reason to appreciate the distinctively vibrant forms of Hasidic Judaism that flourished in interwar Poland.
