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Who Will Lead Us?: The Story of Five Hasidic Dynasties in America
Hasidism, a movement many believed had passed its golden age, has had an extraordinary revival since it was nearly decimated in the Holocaust and repressed in the Soviet Union. Hasidic communities, now settled primarily in North America and Israel, have reversed the losses they suffered and are growing exponentially. With powerful attachments to the past, mysticism, community, tradition, and charismatic leadership, Hasidism seems the opposite of contemporary Western culture, yet it has thrived in the democratic countries and culture of the West. How? Who Will Lead Us? finds the answers to this question in the fascinating story of five contemporary Hasidic dynasties and their handling of the delicate issue of leadership and succession.
Revolving around the central figure of the rebbe, the book explores two dynasties with too few successors, two with too many successors, and one that believes their last rebbe continues to lead them even after his death. Samuel C. Heilman, recognized as a foremost expert on modern Jewish Orthodoxy, here provides outsiders with the essential guide to continuity in the Hasidic world.
Revolving around the central figure of the rebbe, the book explores two dynasties with too few successors, two with too many successors, and one that believes their last rebbe continues to lead them even after his death. Samuel C. Heilman, recognized as a foremost expert on modern Jewish Orthodoxy, here provides outsiders with the essential guide to continuity in the Hasidic world.
336 pages, Hardcover
Published June 6, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 20, 2017
A good examination of six different famous Hasidic dynasties: Munkacs, Boyan, Kopyczynitz, Bobov, Satmar, and Chabad-Lubavitch. It goes into the histories of all of them, which include a lot of petty squabbling, fights over treasuries and financial resources, and dowager rebbetzins trying to maintain their social status. No one comes out looking particularly good, though the author is surprisingly nice to Chabad. Joel Teitelbaum, the first Rebbe of Satmar, gets a lot of focus for just being the worst - which he was, railing against Zionism and imploring his followers to stay in Europe under Nazi occupation no matter what, then using their donations to bribe Hungarian officials and hooking up with the Zionist Jewish Telegraph Agency to get on the last train out of Europe. Most of his Hasidim died in concentration camps, but he rebuilt in America, rejecting the Zionists who saved his life. If there's a Jewish villain for the 20th century, he is it.
Not recommended for people without some familiarity with the history of Hasidim.
Not recommended for people without some familiarity with the history of Hasidim.
April 2, 2020
This was chosen for bookclub. Very informative and easy to read. A lot of similar names and too many lineages, would have been helpful if author included family trees. Interesting look at five Hasidic dynasties and the reckoning that these GREAT men are simply just human, flaws and all. This book sometimes read like Games of Thrones with power struggles and political maneuvering. Eye opening and recommended.
October 8, 2017
Fascinating inside look at the secret, insular world of the Hasidim in America.
July 18, 2018
In The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel, Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes write how politics and power shaped the destinies of Kings Saul and David, and set the stage for politics of the future. While the events in the Book of Samuel occurred over 3,000 year ago; Halbertal and Holmes astutely write how these events are like all politics and monarchies that have since followed.
In many ways, Who Will Lead Us?: The Story of Five Hasidic Dynasties in America, is an interesting complementary text. In this fascinating book, Samuel Heilman (professor of Sociology at Queens College of the City University of New York), writes of many of the same factors of power and succession that Kings Saul and David faced. Rather than kings of Israel, this book focus on Hasidic dynasties of the past century, in addition to the patterns and processes of contemporary Hasidic succession.
Pre-war Europe had myriad Hasidic dynasties and rebbes, many of which were destroyed in the holocaust. Yet the surviving rebbes that came to the United States before and after the war, were able to rebuild their communities to levels many thought unimaginable. For most of these groups the transition between leaders was harmonious. For others, there was more tension and conflict, than peace, love and understanding.
In the book, Heilman details the leadership, development and succession issues of the following Hasidic communities: Munkacs and Boyan/Kopyczynitz (leadership vacuum), Bobov and Satmar (competing successors) and Chabad (no successor).
Just as the dynasties of Saul and David had political intrigue and maneuverings, the same occurs at times in a few of the post-war Hasidic courts. Nature abhors a vacuum, as does power. When these rebbes didn’t leave a clear path for succession (Heilman details a few reasons why that is often not done), that creates a powder keg of a power struggle for an often-large number of sons and sons in laws who want to assume the most senior position. And in the case of Satmar, the dowager.
While succession issues in royal dynasties have led to war, the battles here are much less dramatic. While no lives are lost, the result in some of these battles is that families and communities have been divided, and long-term friendships forever shattered.
In this most interesting work, Heilman astutely details the many aspects in play in modern Hasidic leadership. Starting with a leader who is often considered more divine than human. Add to that mix family dynamics, community expectations, money, power, real estate holdings, politics and more, in addition to being the intermediary between the community and the Almighty.
The five case studies that Heilman details show not just the story of often competing interests, but is also a fascinating sociological study of the issue.
One dynasty Heilman doesn’t mention, and one that could be called the no drama hasidim, is the Boston sect. They were established in Boston in 1915 by Grand Rabbi Pinchas David Horowitz. Nearly a century later when his son Grand Rabbi Levi Yitzchok Horowitz died, he ensured that his will was known with clarity before death. Which fully obviated any succession battles.
While Heilman is a sociologist in academia and this book is from the University of California Press, it is both absorbing and accessible. While not a Hasid himself, he was able to glean insights via interviews with many insiders from the various communities.
The reader may get the impression that succession battles are part of a Hasidic groups DNA. The truth is that most of the groups transition between leaders with no conflict or court battles. This book details the rare few that made it into the public eye.
When Jack Welch left General Electric, even with its formal succession process, it took nearly 7 years to determine who his successor would be. Hasidic groups, like Fortune 500 firms, function best when the future is clear. In Who Will Lead Us?: The Story of Five Hasidic Dynasties in America, we find out that finding a successor is not always so easy. Even when the obvious may be staring you straight in the face.
In many ways, Who Will Lead Us?: The Story of Five Hasidic Dynasties in America, is an interesting complementary text. In this fascinating book, Samuel Heilman (professor of Sociology at Queens College of the City University of New York), writes of many of the same factors of power and succession that Kings Saul and David faced. Rather than kings of Israel, this book focus on Hasidic dynasties of the past century, in addition to the patterns and processes of contemporary Hasidic succession.
Pre-war Europe had myriad Hasidic dynasties and rebbes, many of which were destroyed in the holocaust. Yet the surviving rebbes that came to the United States before and after the war, were able to rebuild their communities to levels many thought unimaginable. For most of these groups the transition between leaders was harmonious. For others, there was more tension and conflict, than peace, love and understanding.
In the book, Heilman details the leadership, development and succession issues of the following Hasidic communities: Munkacs and Boyan/Kopyczynitz (leadership vacuum), Bobov and Satmar (competing successors) and Chabad (no successor).
Just as the dynasties of Saul and David had political intrigue and maneuverings, the same occurs at times in a few of the post-war Hasidic courts. Nature abhors a vacuum, as does power. When these rebbes didn’t leave a clear path for succession (Heilman details a few reasons why that is often not done), that creates a powder keg of a power struggle for an often-large number of sons and sons in laws who want to assume the most senior position. And in the case of Satmar, the dowager.
While succession issues in royal dynasties have led to war, the battles here are much less dramatic. While no lives are lost, the result in some of these battles is that families and communities have been divided, and long-term friendships forever shattered.
In this most interesting work, Heilman astutely details the many aspects in play in modern Hasidic leadership. Starting with a leader who is often considered more divine than human. Add to that mix family dynamics, community expectations, money, power, real estate holdings, politics and more, in addition to being the intermediary between the community and the Almighty.
The five case studies that Heilman details show not just the story of often competing interests, but is also a fascinating sociological study of the issue.
One dynasty Heilman doesn’t mention, and one that could be called the no drama hasidim, is the Boston sect. They were established in Boston in 1915 by Grand Rabbi Pinchas David Horowitz. Nearly a century later when his son Grand Rabbi Levi Yitzchok Horowitz died, he ensured that his will was known with clarity before death. Which fully obviated any succession battles.
While Heilman is a sociologist in academia and this book is from the University of California Press, it is both absorbing and accessible. While not a Hasid himself, he was able to glean insights via interviews with many insiders from the various communities.
The reader may get the impression that succession battles are part of a Hasidic groups DNA. The truth is that most of the groups transition between leaders with no conflict or court battles. This book details the rare few that made it into the public eye.
When Jack Welch left General Electric, even with its formal succession process, it took nearly 7 years to determine who his successor would be. Hasidic groups, like Fortune 500 firms, function best when the future is clear. In Who Will Lead Us?: The Story of Five Hasidic Dynasties in America, we find out that finding a successor is not always so easy. Even when the obvious may be staring you straight in the face.
April 1, 2021
Rigorous mental exercise
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2020
My hat goes off to Professor Heilman just on the strength of the yeoman's work that he did in disentangling these extremely complicated (though interesting!) histories of even just half a dozen Hasidic groups. Even as I was reading, there were too many marriages and horse trades for me to keep track of any specific case.
It only just sent me away with general impressions of the fight for successors to Hasidic dynasties.
What do I take away from this book ( that can obviously be read out of order)?
1. The fact that one dynasty exists as opposed to another really is completely fortuitous. The way that these situations were described, there's no reason that it had to be the way that it was. (Es muss sein.) It could well have been otherwise. (Es konnte auch ander sein.)
The Chabad and the Munkatch Court had successors that were complete accidents.
Boyan and Kopyczynitz were settled by drawing lots! (p.69)
All of these movements started from a very few people.
2. The number of first cousin marriages is appalling. (p.11, 156). The inbreeding intensity is so high that I should probably go and join some type of Hasidic Court and sell my self and my children as much-needed genetic diversity.
Also, it seems like there is significant amount of cross marriage of related people between dynasties.
Just recently, I have finished a book by someone who left Satmar (Abby Stein), and something that she said many times without even thinking about it was how frequently people in the family were related to each other in multiple ways.
3. There are many declared preferences vs. Revealed preferences. In the case of Yoelish Teitelbaum: He told his followers to stay put, but he himself went to safety. (p.169. The Chabad Court also moved several times. p. 101. The Bobover Rebbe fortified the locals in their locales, but kept running for his own life. )
4. A lot of these Hasidic Customs are just *disgusting*.
a. I'm reading (p.202) that people are praying at the graves of dead people to ask for their intercession on current elections? (Heretofore, I'd thought that intercession was another religion.)
b. There is also this concept of shaving a woman's head, which I thought was expressly forbidden by the Torah ( Nazir 28b, Shabbat 64b
/Devarim 21:12)
c. There is a Prohibition against going to Gentile courts to litigate Jewish matters, and this seems to have slipped everyone's mind in these conflicts.
d. Making pilgrimages from Eretz Israel, (where they live and where everybody is Jewish) back to European countries that they were chased out of?
e. Paying pidyon to rebbes. There is another religion that got into a lot of trouble for the sale of indulgences. This behavior has some extremely uncomfortable overlap. (At least for this reviewer.)
Other thoughts.
1. This book was written 35 years after the death of Eric Hoffer, but just the same he presciently foreshadowed that mass movements could get started without belief in God but never without a believe in the devil. And it is written (p.172) "It would be worthwhile to pay some wicked Jews to come and live there so that the good Jews can have someone to separate from."
2. Even as much as these rabbis romanticize the past that never existed, in places such as Romania, rabbis in Europe had to be elected by the community. This concept of hereditary dynasties is something that's actually relatively new.
3. These succession struggles really go overboard. And in that sense, they are rich with resonances to any succession struggle anywhere. Dowager Empress Cixi? Dowager Rebbetzin Feigy? So much narcissism of small differences
4. Even though these people are Hasidim, and the specific symbols of desperate sociology are unique and specific, the structural architecture is identical.
i. Great Men lead, and they don't seem to realize that they're going to die. And that leads to all of the bitter succession struggles such as in Satmar and Bobov. ( I would have to say that the businesslike Chabad was the only one of these groups that had a clear succession plan.)
ii. Some conflict somewhere between some old men, and they send young man off to fight each other. And the fight keeps on going on through the generations long after these men have died. (I have in mind the Guomindang and the Communist Party.)
iii. A lot of these men start off in some other profession, and they only accidentally display exceptional Talent as administrators / rabbis. (Chabad's Menachem Mendel Schneerson actually went to school at the Sorbonne and was set to be an engineer. One among the Kopyczynitzer rebbes was also a diamond merchant.)
5. Sometimes it seems like there's a rebbe at every subway stop. Mentioned are any number of pocket-sized dynasties that I've never heard of. The Amshinover Court, Sagidura, et al.
6. It really is true that those who bite the hand that feeds them lick the boot that kicks them. The United States accepted these Hasidic Jews, and yet they not only engage in a culture war against the United States but they idealize the places from which they fled with Nazis on their tails.
Also, there is Anti-Zionism all throughout these dynasties. (It is odd that the Zionists are the ones responsible for saving the largest number of Jewish lives and building a state and yet they get no respect from the very people that they finance.)
7. There is significant evidence of Haredi leakage. With in the Boyan and Kopyczynitzer dynasties, part of the reason that they ran out of candidates was because sons of Yiddish speaking Hasidim from Europe became Modern Orthodox and went to university. (p.84-- One of the candidate grandsons turned down the job of rebbe and became a rocket scientist.)
8. There is a great deal of hagiography: Random events are repackaged as things that were destined to happen. (In fact, almost every time Heilman uses the word hagiography in the text, he is describing that exact situation.)
9. The machinery of these dynasties gives the impression that they are the inert coagulum of what once was a highly reactive sap. So, some Charismatic Rebbe somewhere dies and his gabboim keep things going long enough to get somebody - - anybody - - that can be fit into that role. (In the case of Chabad, they have been going strong for a quarter of a century without a rebbe.)
Verdict. I would recommend this book at the price of probably about $10 and then another $4 worth of shipping. It's a great read, and it raises a lot of sociological / historical / philosophical questions. And in that way, it provides mental exercise.
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2020
My hat goes off to Professor Heilman just on the strength of the yeoman's work that he did in disentangling these extremely complicated (though interesting!) histories of even just half a dozen Hasidic groups. Even as I was reading, there were too many marriages and horse trades for me to keep track of any specific case.
It only just sent me away with general impressions of the fight for successors to Hasidic dynasties.
What do I take away from this book ( that can obviously be read out of order)?
1. The fact that one dynasty exists as opposed to another really is completely fortuitous. The way that these situations were described, there's no reason that it had to be the way that it was. (Es muss sein.) It could well have been otherwise. (Es konnte auch ander sein.)
The Chabad and the Munkatch Court had successors that were complete accidents.
Boyan and Kopyczynitz were settled by drawing lots! (p.69)
All of these movements started from a very few people.
2. The number of first cousin marriages is appalling. (p.11, 156). The inbreeding intensity is so high that I should probably go and join some type of Hasidic Court and sell my self and my children as much-needed genetic diversity.
Also, it seems like there is significant amount of cross marriage of related people between dynasties.
Just recently, I have finished a book by someone who left Satmar (Abby Stein), and something that she said many times without even thinking about it was how frequently people in the family were related to each other in multiple ways.
3. There are many declared preferences vs. Revealed preferences. In the case of Yoelish Teitelbaum: He told his followers to stay put, but he himself went to safety. (p.169. The Chabad Court also moved several times. p. 101. The Bobover Rebbe fortified the locals in their locales, but kept running for his own life. )
4. A lot of these Hasidic Customs are just *disgusting*.
a. I'm reading (p.202) that people are praying at the graves of dead people to ask for their intercession on current elections? (Heretofore, I'd thought that intercession was another religion.)
b. There is also this concept of shaving a woman's head, which I thought was expressly forbidden by the Torah ( Nazir 28b, Shabbat 64b
/Devarim 21:12)
c. There is a Prohibition against going to Gentile courts to litigate Jewish matters, and this seems to have slipped everyone's mind in these conflicts.
d. Making pilgrimages from Eretz Israel, (where they live and where everybody is Jewish) back to European countries that they were chased out of?
e. Paying pidyon to rebbes. There is another religion that got into a lot of trouble for the sale of indulgences. This behavior has some extremely uncomfortable overlap. (At least for this reviewer.)
Other thoughts.
1. This book was written 35 years after the death of Eric Hoffer, but just the same he presciently foreshadowed that mass movements could get started without belief in God but never without a believe in the devil. And it is written (p.172) "It would be worthwhile to pay some wicked Jews to come and live there so that the good Jews can have someone to separate from."
2. Even as much as these rabbis romanticize the past that never existed, in places such as Romania, rabbis in Europe had to be elected by the community. This concept of hereditary dynasties is something that's actually relatively new.
3. These succession struggles really go overboard. And in that sense, they are rich with resonances to any succession struggle anywhere. Dowager Empress Cixi? Dowager Rebbetzin Feigy? So much narcissism of small differences
4. Even though these people are Hasidim, and the specific symbols of desperate sociology are unique and specific, the structural architecture is identical.
i. Great Men lead, and they don't seem to realize that they're going to die. And that leads to all of the bitter succession struggles such as in Satmar and Bobov. ( I would have to say that the businesslike Chabad was the only one of these groups that had a clear succession plan.)
ii. Some conflict somewhere between some old men, and they send young man off to fight each other. And the fight keeps on going on through the generations long after these men have died. (I have in mind the Guomindang and the Communist Party.)
iii. A lot of these men start off in some other profession, and they only accidentally display exceptional Talent as administrators / rabbis. (Chabad's Menachem Mendel Schneerson actually went to school at the Sorbonne and was set to be an engineer. One among the Kopyczynitzer rebbes was also a diamond merchant.)
5. Sometimes it seems like there's a rebbe at every subway stop. Mentioned are any number of pocket-sized dynasties that I've never heard of. The Amshinover Court, Sagidura, et al.
6. It really is true that those who bite the hand that feeds them lick the boot that kicks them. The United States accepted these Hasidic Jews, and yet they not only engage in a culture war against the United States but they idealize the places from which they fled with Nazis on their tails.
Also, there is Anti-Zionism all throughout these dynasties. (It is odd that the Zionists are the ones responsible for saving the largest number of Jewish lives and building a state and yet they get no respect from the very people that they finance.)
7. There is significant evidence of Haredi leakage. With in the Boyan and Kopyczynitzer dynasties, part of the reason that they ran out of candidates was because sons of Yiddish speaking Hasidim from Europe became Modern Orthodox and went to university. (p.84-- One of the candidate grandsons turned down the job of rebbe and became a rocket scientist.)
8. There is a great deal of hagiography: Random events are repackaged as things that were destined to happen. (In fact, almost every time Heilman uses the word hagiography in the text, he is describing that exact situation.)
9. The machinery of these dynasties gives the impression that they are the inert coagulum of what once was a highly reactive sap. So, some Charismatic Rebbe somewhere dies and his gabboim keep things going long enough to get somebody - - anybody - - that can be fit into that role. (In the case of Chabad, they have been going strong for a quarter of a century without a rebbe.)
Verdict. I would recommend this book at the price of probably about $10 and then another $4 worth of shipping. It's a great read, and it raises a lot of sociological / historical / philosophical questions. And in that way, it provides mental exercise.
August 28, 2018
Heilman's writing is dull. His credibility is also greatly diminished by his last book about the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
Three interesting facts about these Hasidic Rebbes jump out at me:
1) Their supremely hypocritical way of saving themselves at Israel's expense when they denounce the Zionist enterprise both before and after
2) How often they fail to produce a son/heir or any children at all
3) the lust for power and the cynical maneuvering to get there
Three interesting facts about these Hasidic Rebbes jump out at me:
1) Their supremely hypocritical way of saving themselves at Israel's expense when they denounce the Zionist enterprise both before and after
2) How often they fail to produce a son/heir or any children at all
3) the lust for power and the cynical maneuvering to get there
January 28, 2025
A Good Study
Not really an academic paper, but not too far removed from it in the way it uses facts derived from original documents. I really enjoyed reading this history of 5 different Hasidic dynasties. Some basic familiarity with Hasidic Judaism is helpful when reading this.
Not really an academic paper, but not too far removed from it in the way it uses facts derived from original documents. I really enjoyed reading this history of 5 different Hasidic dynasties. Some basic familiarity with Hasidic Judaism is helpful when reading this.
December 10, 2020
I started out reading the hardcover edition of the book, but it weighed several pounds, so a year or so later, I read the rest as a Kindle book.
Re the rating: I thought the book seemed very well-researched, and was clearly written enough so a layperson (well, a goy, technically) could follow it. So there was the high rating. I'm currently feeling rather sensitive about groups of people choosing their own alternative set of facts, but that's more in regard to the whole country, and other fundamentalist types of religions. I also have certain feelings about how some people react to trauma by becoming intolerant and/or controlling, but that also happens with members of many sorts of religions. That's not at all unique to sects of Hasidim. I just happened to read those last several chapters at a time when the content was more of a challenge to deal with mentally than the first few chapters had been. The book was good. My patience for narratives about groups who may oppose the laws of a secular state and science in general is low at the moment.
Re the rating: I thought the book seemed very well-researched, and was clearly written enough so a layperson (well, a goy, technically) could follow it. So there was the high rating. I'm currently feeling rather sensitive about groups of people choosing their own alternative set of facts, but that's more in regard to the whole country, and other fundamentalist types of religions. I also have certain feelings about how some people react to trauma by becoming intolerant and/or controlling, but that also happens with members of many sorts of religions. That's not at all unique to sects of Hasidim. I just happened to read those last several chapters at a time when the content was more of a challenge to deal with mentally than the first few chapters had been. The book was good. My patience for narratives about groups who may oppose the laws of a secular state and science in general is low at the moment.
November 4, 2021
Surprisingly Intriguing
First the negatives, the author is a college professor, and the book begins with a lengthy introduction that reads like a college paper. But hang in there, because once you get past that, 5 fascinating stories await you. Heilman chose 5 Hassidic sects to focus on with each of them telling the often chaotic history of what can happen when a sect's leader, the Rebbe, dies, because then a successor most be chosen to serve as the next Rebbe. In a similar analogy to European royal families, the Crown Prince isn't always the best choice. These sects have myriad colorful characters, and there has been plenty of mayhem in choosing a new Rebbe, which sometimes even ended up with permanent splits within one Hassidic group.
The book ends with another scholarly piece, but the author's propensity for using the phrase "as we have seen..." was plenty annoying. Reader, please note that if I'd skipped the intro and ending, I really wouldn't have missed much. You can and enjoy the main content.
First the negatives, the author is a college professor, and the book begins with a lengthy introduction that reads like a college paper. But hang in there, because once you get past that, 5 fascinating stories await you. Heilman chose 5 Hassidic sects to focus on with each of them telling the often chaotic history of what can happen when a sect's leader, the Rebbe, dies, because then a successor most be chosen to serve as the next Rebbe. In a similar analogy to European royal families, the Crown Prince isn't always the best choice. These sects have myriad colorful characters, and there has been plenty of mayhem in choosing a new Rebbe, which sometimes even ended up with permanent splits within one Hassidic group.
The book ends with another scholarly piece, but the author's propensity for using the phrase "as we have seen..." was plenty annoying. Reader, please note that if I'd skipped the intro and ending, I really wouldn't have missed much. You can and enjoy the main content.
January 22, 2023
The most interesting thing I learned from this book is that (at least in places with lots of competing rebbes, such as 20th-c. Brooklyn and Israel) Hasidism is more of a free market than I ever imagined. How so? If people don't think one rebbe is appropriate, they can move to another.
Heilman recounts the story of one of the Munkacs rebbes, who was too Zionist and "modern" for his Hasidim after being scarred by Holocaust-era experiences. Ultimately, some of the surviving Munkacs Hasidim asked the rebbe's son to be the next Munkacs rebbe. The son said yes, but scrapped his plans to go to college because he did not believe that Hasidim would accept a college-educated rebbe.
Heilman recounts the story of one of the Munkacs rebbes, who was too Zionist and "modern" for his Hasidim after being scarred by Holocaust-era experiences. Ultimately, some of the surviving Munkacs Hasidim asked the rebbe's son to be the next Munkacs rebbe. The son said yes, but scrapped his plans to go to college because he did not believe that Hasidim would accept a college-educated rebbe.
November 22, 2019
Disappointed from the academic point of view. It rather contains plenty of anecdotic information about different Hasidic groups and conflicts, which might have a place in a Hasidic book of gossips, but it does not help to understand phenomenon and set up perspectives.
September 22, 2021
A fascinating read about Hasidic Judaism, and the ways different groups navigate choosing a new rabbi to lead them. Would’ve rated this four stars but the way he portrayed women in the book was limited, flat, and ultimately a disservice to the nuance of exploring continuity and succession.
November 26, 2017
Fascinating examination of five hasidic sects and how they handled succession crises -- either situations of too many contenders, or too few.
May 30, 2023
Finally, an alternative to Artscroll hagiographies
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews