The Center of Hasidism: Galicia, Sometimes in Ukraine, Sometimes Poland.

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

                                                1886: Jews and peasants of Galicia

                       Religiously, Galicia was: predominantly Christian. Catholicism was practiced in two rites. Poles were Roman Catholic, while Ukrainians belonged to the Greek Catholic Church. Judaism represented the third largest religious group, and notably, Galicia was the center of Hasidism. It brought happiness and joy into the Sabbath services.  It was uplifting and fun, yet was made up of the ultra orthodox people.  

Hasidism was started by the Rabbi, the Israel Baal Shem Tov (1699-1761) in places we haven't heard of, Yothynia and Podolia.  It was the outgrowth of the depressed state of Eastern European Jewry of the 18th century following the Chmielnicki massacres and Church

persecutions.  Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov or as the Besht, was a Jewish mystic and healer from Poland who is regarded as the founder of Hasidic Judaism. "Besht" is the acronym for Baal Shem Tov, which means "One with the Good Name" or "one with a good reputation".

Their antagonists, my Lithuanian ancestors, perhaps, were the Mitnaggedim, led by the Gaon of Vilna who regarded their teachings as heretical and reminding them of the reasoning by which Shabbetai Tzevi justified his apostacy.                             

This opposition was intensified after Shneour Zalman of Lyady who died in 1813, became leader of the hasidim.  

He founded the Chabad, a current, philosophical and rationalizing movement within Hasidism, which attracted the scholars of White Russia and Lithuania.  

In 1772, Galicia, which had 225,000 Jews (9.6% of the population), was annexed to Austria.  

In 1773, Galicia had about 2.6 million inhabitants in 280 cities and market towns and approximately 5,500 villages. There were nearly 19,000 noble families, with 95,000 members (about 3% of the population). The serfs accounted for 1.86 million, more than 70% of the population. A small number were full-time farmers, but by far the overwhelming number (84%) had only smallholdings or no possessions.

Galicia had arguably the most ethnically diverse population of all the countries in the Austrian monarchy, consisting mainly of Poles and "Ruthenians"; the peoples known later as Ukrainians and Rusyns, as well as ethnic Jews, Germans, Armenians, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Roma and others. 

In Galicia as a whole, the population in 1910 was estimated to be 45.4% Polish, 42.9% Ruthenian, 10.9% Jewish, and 0.8% German. This population was not evenly distributed. The Poles lived mainly in the west, with the Ruthenians predominant in the eastern region ("Ruthenia"). At the turn of the twentieth century, Poles constituted 88% of the whole population of Western Galicia and Jews 7.5%. The respective data for Eastern Galicia show the following numbers: Ruthenians 64.5%, Poles 22.0%, Jews 12%. Of the 44 administrative divisions of Austrian eastern Galicia, Lviv (Polish: Lwów, German: Lemberg) was the only one in which Poles made up a majority of the population. Anthropologist Marianna Dushar has argued that this diversity led to a development of a distinctive food culture in the region.                         

Linguistically, the Polish language was almost equally used with Ruthenian in Galicia. According to the 1910 census 58.6% of the combined population of both western and eastern Galicia spoke Polish as its mother tongue compared to 40.2% who spoke a Ruthenian language. The number of Polish-speakers may have been inflated because Jews were not given the option of listing Yiddish as their language.

The Jews of Galicia had immigrated in the Middle Ages from Germany. German-speaking people were more commonly referred to by the region of Germany where they originated (such as Saxony or Swabia).

For inhabitants who spoke different native languages, e.g. Poles and Ruthenians, identification was less problematic, but widespread multilingualism blurred the ethnic divisions again.

In 1772 with the partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the south-eastern part of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was awarded to the Habsburg Empress Maria-Theresa, whose bureaucrats named it the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, after one of the titles of the princes of Hungary, although its borders coincided but roughly with those of the former medieval principality. Known informally as Galicia, it became the largest, most populous, and northernmost province of the Austrian Empire, while after 1867 part of the Austrian half of Austria-Hungary, until the dissolution of the monarchy at the end of World War I in 1918, when it ceased to exist as a geographic entity.

In 1782 to 1789, Joseph II introduced legislation aimed at the forced assimilation of the Jews S(sabolition of communal autonomy and the validity of rabbinical courts, liability to military servie, compulsory education in government schools, tax on kosher meats, etc.  )  

In suceeding years, the Austrian government tried to integrate the Jews by turning them to agriculture and ending their isolation.  The policy failed owing to the Jewish masses' loyalty to tradition.  This period was marked aby a flourishing of rabbinic scholarship and by a severe struggle between the Hasidim and the Mitnaggedim ending with the victory of the former and the consolidation of Galicia as a Hasidic citadel.

In the mid 1800's, a conflict developed between Hasidism and Haskalah.  from 1849, the Jews of Galicia began to receive equality of political rights and these were embodied in the Austrian constitution of 1867.  Galicia was an important center of non-Hebrew literature during the 19th and 20th centuries.  Many scholars worked there and many Hebrew periodicals were published in Galicia. The problem was Maskilim displayed which pronounced tendencies to assimilation, first in German, later to Polish and the culture.  The Jewish national movement in the late 19th century appealed to the Jews of Galicia, which was the birthplace of Hibbat Zion.  A Jewish workers movement started in Galicia.  At the same time, the Poles and Ukrainians began to push the Jews out of the economic sphere and their general plight always depressed, and deteriorated.  this led to extensive emigration, especially to the USA.  

In WWI, many Jews fled from Galicia to Hungary, Austria and Bohemia.  Galicia was again part of Poland from 1918 on.

Siege of Przemyśl in 1915

During the First World War, Galicia saw heavy fighting between the forces of Russia and the Central Powers. The Russian forces overran most of the region in 1914 after defeating the Austro-Hungarian army in a chaotic frontier battle in the opening months of the war. They were in turn pushed out in the spring and summer of 1915 by a combined German and Austro-Hungarian offensive.

In 1918, Western Galicia became a part of the restored Republic of Poland, which absorbed the Lemko-Rusyn Republic. The local Ukrainian population briefly declared the independence of Eastern Galicia as the "West Ukrainian People's Republic". During the Polish-Soviet War the Soviets tried to establish the puppet-state of the Galician SSR in East Galicia, the government of which after a couple of months was liquidated.

The fate of Galicia was settled by the Peace of Riga on 18 March 1921, attributing Galicia to the Second Polish Republic. Although never accepted as legitimate by some Ukrainians, it was internationally recognized on 15 May 1923.

The Ukrainians of the former eastern Galicia and the neighbouring province of Volhynia made up about 12% of the Second Polish Republic population, and were its largest minority. As Polish government policies were unfriendly towards minorities, tensions between the Polish government and the Ukrainian population grew, eventually giving rise to the militant underground Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

             Hasid and IDF taking a break to smell the roses.both speaking Hebrew and Hasid also speaking Yiddish.in Israel.....

As for Hasidism, it is still widespread.  Its teachings have become widely known in the occidental world, mainly through the works of Martin Buber, both through his retelling of Hasidic anecdotes and through his philosophy which has been termed "neo-Hasidic."

Martin Buber, Martin Buber (Hebrew: מרטין בובר;  February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism centered on the distinction between the I–Thou relationship and the I–It relationship. Born in Vienna, Buber came from a family of observant Jews, but broke with Jewish custom to pursue secular studies in philosophy.  

Martin (Hebrew name: מָרְדֳּכַי, Mordechai) Buber was born in Vienna to an Orthodox Jewish family. Buber was a direct descendant of the 16th-century rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen, known as the Maharam (מהר"ם), the Hebrew acronym for “Our Teacher, the Rabbi, Rabbi Meir”, of Padua. Karl Marx is another notable relative. After the divorce of his parents when he was three years old, he was raised by his grandfather in Lvov. His grandfather, Solomon Buber, was a scholar of Midrash and Rabbinic Literature. At home, Buber spoke Yiddish and German. In 1892, Buber returned to his father's house in Lemberg, today's Lviv, Ukraine.

This same area was fought over just as it is today with Russia attacking Ukraine.  Lviv, Ukraine keeps popping up. Russia hasn't given up wanting this land.  You'd think they'd get the message.  It's for the Ukrainians, the old land of Galicia. it's right in Central Europe and north of the Carpathian Mountains.    

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galicia_(Eastern_Europe)

Two Aspects of Orthodox Judaism: Chabad Hasidic Jews and Mitnaggedim

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                   

Shneour Zalman (September 4, 1745-December 15, 1812)

Our teachers of Judaism are called rabbis.  Some rabbis have developed followings of many people due to their wise teachings.  We have had but one way of worshipping in Judaism, and that was the Orthodox way.  It wasn't until Germany's enlightment period of reacting to the Napoleonic emancipation  that Reform Judaism came into being.  It introduced a shorter service and the organ and a sermon.  It was in the USA by 1875. That broke a lot of the traditions of Orthodoxy.   After swinging to this extreme, Judaism developed Conservative Judaism which was in the middle of the two by allowing men and women to sit together.  One synagogue in Portland was the Neveh Zedek Synagogue that was Conservative.

I might add that sermons were introduced because the Jews attending there no longer spent their time studying Torah and Talmud in groups where discussion was going on as in yeshivote (Jewish schools).  To enlighten them, they had to be told what was the expected lesson to be learned by the Rabbi himself.
                                                                                 

Israel Ben Eliezer or  Baal Shem Tov (1700 Podolia, Ukraine-1760)  student of Kabbalah.  In 1735 he was known for miraculous cures.  Lived in Medzibozh, Podolia, Ukraine; 10,000 followers came to his funeral.

Hasidism's founder was Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov ("master of a good name" usually applied to a saintly Jew who was also a wonder-worker).  He taught that man's relationship with God depended on immediate religious experience, in addition to knowledge and observance of the details of the Torah and Talmud.

Rabbi Shneour Zalman of Lyady/Liadi, Belarus,  also known as White Russia-- under Polish rule until 1772,   was such a rabbi.  He started a movement of Hasidism different from that of rabbis of Volhynia such as Baruch of Medzibozh and Abraham of Kalish  which were simple unlearned Hasidism that had spread throughout Volhynia and the Ukraine.  It also differed from  the Vilna Gaon.  " Chabad is today one of the world's best known Chasidic movements and is well known for its outreach. Organizationally, it is the largest Jewish religious organization in the world."  It's also known as Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic.
                                                                         

 The Vilna Gaon, Elijah ben Solomon Zalman (1720-1797) was the son of  Rabbi Shlomo-Zalman who died in 1758 . His father , Rabbi Shlomo Zalmen Vilna (1695-1758) married Treina of Seltz.  She was born in 1700.  He came from a prominent family in Vilna and his mother came from the town of Seltz(Selets) near Grodno, Lithuania.  Rabbi Shlomo Zalman was the son of Yissakhar Ber . The Gaon's great great grandfather was Eliyahu Khassid who married into another prominent rabbinic family.  His wife was a daughter of Rabbi Petakhiah who died in 1672.  

His teachings  were quite different from the popular rabbi  Eliyahu, known as the Vilna Gaon of Vilna, Lithuania.   So here we have two well-known rabbis from different countries, both in what was known as the Pale of Settlement.  This was land belonging to Russia, as Jews weren't allowed to live in Russia proper.  They were only allowed to live in the Pale, an area where the story of Fiddler on the Roof took place.

The Vilna Gaon's teachings were called Mitnaggedim/Misnagdim  Judaism.  "This developed by  Jews living in Europe as the term that referred to Ashkenazi Jews who opposed the rise and spread of early Hasidic Judaism.  The rapid spread of Hasidism in the second half of the 18th century greatly troubled many traditional rabbis; many saw it as a potentially dangerous enemy. They thought that it was another manifestation of the recent messianic movement of Sabbatai Zevi(1626–1676) that had led many Jews away from mainstream Judaism.

 The Vilna Gaon, Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, a prominent rabbi, galvanized opposition to Hasidic Judaism. He believed that the claims of miracles and visions made by Hasidic Jews were lies and delusions.  He must have been a genius.  He had delivered an advanced discourse on the Talmud when he was only seven years old, and  he had studied Jewish texts eighteen hours a day.

 Gaon is a word from the Babylonian Jewish community meaning an intellectual leader, often with temporal power in post-talmudic period from 6th to 11th centuries.  They headed the 2 leading academies of Sura and Pumbedita.  Gaon means eminence, pride, meaning head of the academy which is the pride of Jacob.  Academies were ancient institutions dating from days of Rav and Samuel from early amoraic days.   Being we were told by Moses that we were to be a nation of Priests, teaching what he had brought to us from G-d, it is understandable that Jews have strived in intellectual pursuits, especially in our own religion.  It was not stressed that we were to be a nation of warriors.

Judaism has had many who interpret much from what Moses brought to us.  Zalman's Chabad stands for the words:  Hokhmah Binah va-Daat, which is Hebrew for WISDOM, UNDERSTANDING AND KNOWLEDGE.  Chabad's attraction to people was that it was intellectual.

Zalman was persecuted and was twice imprisoned due to the Mitnaggedim.  When he was released, his movement of Chabad grew rapidly.  People had questions that needed answers, and the rabbis tried to answer that which was not written outright by Moses.  He wrote his opinions called a Tanya which were essays on the subjects of the soul, moral conduct, creation and the Deity.  All this was in his discourse Shaar ha-Yihud veha-Emunah. This amounted to being a pantheistic philosophy of Judaism.  He taught people that "there is no vacuum in which G-d is not present."  The world was created by divine power ex nihilo  which continues to sustain it.  If this active force (Divinity) remove itself from the object acted upon (creation), all would return to nothingness.

He taught that MAN must gain mastery over his evil desire, which is the product of his animal soul, by means of wisdom, understanding and knowledge.  The emphasis is on Torah study and intellectual contemplations, not emotional ecstasy.

Hasidim stressed the observance of the commandments but opposed excessive ascetic practices and fasts.  They admire and work to attain humility, saintliness, joy and melody.  The tzaddik (a righteous man known for his outstanding knowledge of his faith and piety)  was a spiritual leader but not a miracle worker.  Chabad Hasidim have a special rite and follow the legal code laid down by Shneour Zalman.

The characteristically "Lithuanian" approach to Judaism of Mitnaggedim was marked by a concentration on highly intellectual Talmud study. Lithuania became the heartland of the traditionalist opposition to Hasidism, to the extent that in popular perception "Lithuanian" and "misnaged" became virtually interchangeable terms. 

Our Talmud states that the merits of at least 36 tzaddikim in each generation keep the world in existence.  This idea of tzaddikim is of special significance in Hasidism where it was developed by Dov Ber of Mezhirich and Jacob Joseph of Polonnoye.

Jacob Joseph was a student of the Baal Shem Tov who published his works for him.  The Baal Shem Tov's doctrines were largely based on kabbalistic teachings of Isaac Luria and his school but with innovations.  Isaac Ben Solomon Luria was (1534-1572), known as the Ashkenazi, was a Palestinian Kabbalist born in Jerusalem and educated in Egypt but lived in Safed, Israel, well known there today by his synagogue which still stands.
                                                                   

7th in line: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of beloved memory 

Their leaders have been  descendants of Schneersohn:

Founder of Chabad: Rabbi Schneur Zalman 1745-1812 of Liadi.
  His daughter was Devorah Leah who became the wife of  Dov Ber and Menahem Mendel's mother.  She died when Menahem was 3 years old.  
1. Dov Ber Schneuri/ Schneerson 1773-1828;  2nd Rebbe of Chabad, lived in  town of Lyubavichi (now in present-day Russia).  
2. Menahem Mendel  Schneerson of Liubavich , Tzemach Tzedek, b: 1789  d: 1866
3. Shalom Dov Ber  Schneerson d: 1920
4. Joseph Isaac Schneerson  d: 1952  who was imprisoned for a time in Soviet Russia and released in 1927.  He eventually settled in New York, which was also  the home of Menahem Mendel.  
5. Baruch Schneur Schneerson 
6. Levi Yitzchak Shneerson, renowned Kabbalist, talmudic scholar and leader
7. Menachem Mendel Schneerson 1902-June 12, 1994, lived in  Nikolayev and Dnieperptrosk (Ukraine), Leningrad, Berlin, Warsaw, Paris and New York; built upon and expanded his predecessors’ work to revolutionize Jewish life across the globe; known simply as “the Rebbe.”

 "Today, more than 4,000 full-time husband-and-wife teams direct Lubavitch institutions across the globe, from inner-city pre-schools to rural synagogues. An average 1.5 Lubavitch institutions open each week across the globe."
The founder of Chabad, Rabbi Schneur Zalman, "in response to renewed persecutions against the chassidic community in Vilna, Rabbi Schneur Zalman rearticulated his non-confrontational stance, writing, “We are obliged to remain silent, to tolerate and accept the torment with love . . .” He promised his followers that if they kept the peace, the chassidic path would ultimately emerge triumphant."

Hasidim regarded the tzaddikim as the intermediary between G-d and man.    Originally one of his pupils was chosen to succeed him, but the title eventually became hereditary.  According to Hasidic doctrine, the tzaddik is the foundation--the soul--of the world who brings down divine blessings.  HIs words are regared as miraculous and prophetic.  Many of the tzaddikim, the dynasties of Rozhin and Chernobyl, adopted a very comfortable way of life..  Others, especially in Poland and Galicia, lived simply and charitably, opposing rich living.

"Hasidism's opponents charged that the Tzaddikim (plural) often enriched themselves at the expense of their followers. In the generation after Dov Baer, numerous new Hasidic groups were formed, each with its own Tzaddik, referred to as a rebbe. These rebbes became a kind of Jewish royalty. When one died, he was succeeded by either his son or son­ in­law. Those Hasidic groups that established eminent family dynasties became successful. Many Hasidic groups, however, went into decline when their rebbe died and left behind less capable successors."

The difference today between Chabad and Orthodox Judaism is more that " Hasidism generally places a much greater stress on simcha shel mitzvah — the joy of performing a commandment."  Chabad has grown and are now found in most parts of the world including the USA, Canada, Australia and North Africa as well as in Israel.  There, they have founded the agricultural settlements of Kephar Chabad and Shaphrir.

The reason that rabbis could be so learned comes from marrying very young, sometimes even at 14 in the old country, and the fact that the wife worked in her own shop.  Her working allowed her husband to study.  Every Friday night, her helpfulness is remembered in a beautiful rendition of a prayer, thanking her.  Rabbis worked, too, in a skill or profession, even raising grapes in France as RASHI had done.  Women selected mates according to their standing in the synagogue.  The more intelligent, the better the husband, usually.  Rabbinic dynasties tended to marry into other rabbinic dynasties.  Of course, men never tire of beauty.  Rachel caught Jacob's eye because of her great beauty and kindness to him.

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia p. 394 Habad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shneur_Zalman_of_Liadi
Eliyahu's Branches by Chaim Freedman
http://forward.com/news/177251/fast-growing-chabad-asks-who-will-be-leader-for-n/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chabad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misnagdim
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/hasidim_&_mitnagdim.html
http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/2298506/jewish/Chasidim-Mitnagdim-and-Enlightenment.htm
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/77049/jewish/Rabbi-Schneur-Zalman-of-Liadi.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dovber_Schneuri