^M00:00:14 >> Sharon Horowitz: Hi, good afternoon. Welcome to the African and Middle Eastern Reading Room. On behalf of the Geography and Map Division and the Hebraic Section, let me thank you for coming to today's program. My name is Sharon Horowitz. I'm a reference librarian in the Hebraic section. The Hebraic section began, or considers itself to have begun in 1912 with the receipt of 10,000 Hebrew books and pamphlets. Whose purchase was made possible by a gift from New York philanthropist Jacob Schiff. From those humble beginnings, our collections have grown to about 250,000 items. In Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Persian, and other Hebraic script languages. The Hebraic section also includes an important collection of books in Geez, Amharic, and Tigrinya, the languages of Ethiopia, past and present. Our section's holdings are particularly strong in the subject areas of Bible, Rabbinics, Liturgy, Hebrew Language and Literature, Responsa, and Jewish History. Two of our missions in this division are to publicize our collection and to bring people into the Library. One way we accomplish this is by holding lectures and having programs such as the one we are hosting here today. And now, a word about our speaker. Professor Marcin Wodzinski is a Professor of Jewish History and Literature. And the Head of the Department of Jewish Studies at the University of Wroc?aw, Poland. The scope of his academic interests range from the social history of Jews in the 19th Century. To the history of the Jews of Silesia. Jewish material culture, and especially the history of Hasidism and Haskalah. His publications include more than 100 articles in English, Polish, Hebrew, French, and Czech. He has written an co-authored and edited many books. And we are very honored to have him speaking to us today about his newest book. The Historical Atlas of Hasidism. Professor Wodzinski's interest in Jewish history and culture began with Jewish cemeteries. He learned Hebrew so that he could read the Jewish and Hebrew inscriptions on tombstones. And he became fascinated by the custom of Hasidic pilgrimages to the graves of Hasidic rebbes. His interest is not in the writing of the great leaders. But namely about the rank and file of average Hasidim. And how they understood the teachings of their leaders. Two items of business before we begin. Professor Wodzinski's book is available for sale after the program. And he has graciously agreed to sign for anyone who'd like. And also Michael Klein of the Geography and Map Division has prepared a small display of interesting and relevant maps related to today's program. And they're on display in our division's conference room behind me. So please join us there after the lecture. This event is being videotaped for subsequent broadcasting. There'll be a formal question and answer period after the lecture. At which the audience is encouraged to ask questions and offer comments. But please be advised that your voice and image may be recorded and later broadcast as part of this event. By participating in the question and answer period, you are consenting to the Library's possible reproduction and transmission of your remarks. And now, please join me in welcoming Professor Wodzinski. ^M00:03:46 [ Applause ] ^M00:03:51 ^M00:03:56 >> Marcin Wodzinski: Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me here. Thank you for coming. I'm very happy to be here. Before I begin, let me start with two comments. First of all, I was very happy to. I was very happy to hear about those 10,000 books with which it, it began. Because my departmental library has 10,000 books now. So maybe one day we will be as great as this place. And second of all, I am not sure you've noticed. But I'll be speaking about geography of Hasidism straight under the name of Moses Mendelssohn. I'm not sure that, that [inaudible] will stand it. But let's hope it won't fall on our heads. [Laughter] And now, I believe that all we here believe in the importance of Hasidism. That is gathers us here for the reason that we recognize the importance of the movement. And this might be for many different importances. For some this is because of the ideology issue. Or identity issue or the [inaudible] issue. For some other it might be anti-Hasidic sentiments or some others might be so-called threat of Hasidism. To contemporary Jewish life as some say. So many reasons, but Hasidism is indeed recognized today as one of the most important Jewish phenomena worldwide. And it actually captured international attention far more than any other Jewish phenomenon. To give three examples. In Orlando, Florida, in Disney World, there is, ex--exhibition about nations of the world. Israelis are not represented by soldiers in uniform or [inaudible] working in kibbutz. They're represented by Hasidic couple. The Hasidim who make a small minority of Israeli population today are taken to be representative. To be embodiment of what it is to be Israeli or Jewish more generally. The saying in circles in Moscow, there is a, there is a performance, Nations of the World. Different animals dressing in different garb. Two monkeys in Hasidic dress also representing, representing what is Jewishness. But maybe most spectacular is case from Poland from Lublin, the town of well-known Hasidic leader [inaudible], the Seer of Lublin. When several years ago, City of Lublin was looking for a visual representation of its 700 years of existence. That want to have kind of cis--visual icon. They make a competition. And the project that won is entitled, "The Eye of the Tzaddik ." And this is important. This is the Tzaddik Horowitz, the Seer of the, of the Lublin who apparently, according to tradition, could see from end of the world to another. But he is taken to be representative of not of Jewish Lublin. Of all the periods. He is taken to be representative of Lublin as such. And today, you have the Eye of Horowitz of Lublin on every [inaudible], on every bath, on every city announcement, everywhere you have [inaudible] everything around. And mind you, this is in the city of Lublin which for all medieval and early modern period was the town of [inaudible]. That did not allow Jews to live within its walls. And now not just a Jew, the Hasidic Jew is the repre--is the symbol of this town. I think this, this properly captures importance of Hasidism for Jewish and even more so non-Jewish world today. As something is taken to be representation of Jewishness or at least traditional Jewishness. And at the same time, as I come to study Hasidism, I to my surprise realized. That much of what we believe we know about Hasidism is informed by stereotypes. Hasidic, anti-Hasidic, and non-Hasidic ambivalent stereotypes. But these are clichés that blind both popular and academic research into Hasidism. From understanding of what really shapes and real phenomenon of Hasidism. Two images that I brought to your attention on the left. This is well-known portrait of the founder of Hasidism, Baal Shem Tov which is not the Baal Shem Tov. This is a portrait, this is well-known story. This is a portrait of Baal Shem of London, not Baal Shem Tov from Poland. But this image circulates worldwide as the image of the founder, right? This is, well, this is at least a stereotype that many of us know is not true. Second of that you put, that I, that I put in there on the right side. This is what Hasidism really is. And for many people, this image of something like in Masonic Lodge, maybe. A sectarian group meeting somewhere in hiding. To do their secretive customs. Is a dominant image of Hasidism. Which emerges actually from late 18--and early 19th Century, anti-Hasidic debates. And of accusing Hasidism of being a sect. This sectarian terminology so strongly sticks to Hasidism that it blinds people from understanding Hasidism is not a sect. And also if we say a sect is sociological terms. It could be kind of neutral way of describing the structure of the movement. But obviously--[phone ringing]. It's not mine. If, if, if I may say, you know when Messiah comes or comes back for somes. It will, the first thing he will say is, "Turn off your mobiles." [Laughter] And okay, now, now coming back to now to Hasidism. ^M00:09:50 The term of sectarian or sect contains much of Christian debate around this sect, and it's not neutral. It's not descriptive. It's the label denigrating the phenomenon which is insinuating. That categories that do not belong to the [inaudible] really secretiveness, closed-mindedness, subjugation to the leaders. And all other things that we imagine about Hasidism. By hearing the term of sect of Hasidim. Freeing from this category I think is critical to understand that Hasidism was something far closer to confraternity or hevrah, brotherhood. And there were many other brotherhoods in Jewish communities in 18--, 19--, early 20 Century. Than to a sectarian structure. If we think about Hasidism this way, then immediately we understand that the boundary. Social boundary between being Hasid and non-Hasid was much lower. And they don't function the way we very often imagine. We have hundreds of articles who have tons of books describing world of Eastern Europe in binary oppositional terms of Hasidim and others. And I'm claiming these categories are not true. Coming from these stereotypes, the atlas that I'm discussing today is focusing more on spatial stereotypes that many of us share. It comes from certain concept of Judaism that is popular. And most widely, thanks to an ex-Hasidic figure of Abraham Joshua Heschel. Who is famously claiming that Judaism is religion of time and not religion of space. All the examples he was giving for this came actually from Hasidic tradition. And he was applying the [inaudible] even more than anything else as such a phenomenon that is rooted in time and not in space. Half a meter above the ground, as you saw in previous slide. ^M00:11:51 And actually this concept got circulation especially after the Holocaust for obvious reasons. When centers of Jewish life. Centers of studying of Hasidism moved from Eastern Europe to Palestine and Israel later on. To United States and Canada. And places very far from actual physical locations of where Hasidism once developed. And it was very easy for scholars of Hasidism to ignore where [inaudible] is. Because we could not find [inaudible] on any map because no such a place exists on any maps. It's Gora Kalwaria. Right? And it's very easy to ignore difference between Ukrainian Bratslav of [inaudible] of Bratslav. And the German of Breslau, [foreign language] for example. Because for some Brelaus and Bratslav is the same, essentially. And actually have written article that confused those two places. So I say it's critical to get to understanding those kinds of essentials. And this is one of few relative advantages of being marginal for myself being from Eastern Europe and studying Hasidism is that I'm closer to those spatial, physical, and social essentials of getting to Hasidism. What I would like to present to you. Depending on how much time I will have will be two or three of those stereotypes that I think are very important. And, and too predominant. First of them you see on the slide. A so-called Hasidic conquest of Eastern Europe. The Hasidim march, marching in their thousands to conquer town-by-town and turn it into Hasidic stronghold. Where do we know it from? Of course all we know is that Eastern Europe was Hasidic when? How much? To what, what extent? Well everybody eventually refers to page six in book by Shimon Dubnow, titled [inaudible] which is saying by 1800, all of Eastern Europe, with exception of [inaudible] was Hasidic. Okay. So my question is where did you take it from, Mr. Dubnow? And then Dubnow give references to [inaudible] political literature saying in late 18--, early 19 century. "Beware! Hasidim like a pest. They are spreading over. Be careful not to allow them to come to your town." Okay, but are we really believing in, in hyperbole to capture reality or to influence reality, rather? Obviously that function of political text by the [inaudible] was different than to give proper description of demographic trend of Hasidism. So my question is how can we come to mapping the phenomenon of this trend of Hasidism? The idea would be to have all the Hasidim from late 18th century to the Holocaust where they live and how many they were. And to make this up, but not such a map can ever exist because there are no membership lists for Hasidimists, you know. Instead, if we have any maps of Hasidism, all they start with mapping important [inaudible]. Several map of this kind exist. My problem is with both categories. One with what it covers and what is important. First of all, if you map on one sheet of map all the important [inaudible] then you have [inaudible] active in mid-18th century. And [inaudible] active in 1930s on the same map. This is as if mapping American life of the Civil War and today on the same map. It wouldn't give reality. This is blurring development. It's blurring the fact that in mid-18th century, Hasidism was nascent. And in the mid-19th century, it was huge first in Eastern Europe. So instead of mapping [inaudible] all in one map. I suggested divide it into five periods and do it slice by slice. And second suggestion. If I would be satisfied with category of [inaudible] and this you can obviously understand. Who's important? How we evaluate? Is, is [inaudible] important? He wrote important book that many people in 20th century study. Was he important then? Back in the 19th century? What we make importance of [inaudible]. Was important for people around him? He was maybe minor figure. He was important Hasidic writer. But it's very difficult to make any sense, especially for cartography, of a category of importance. So my simple response is it's not important [inaudible] of all of them. It's ambitious because obviously we don't know all of the [inaudible]. But fortunately, Hasidism's a culture of memory, very much so. And commemor--remembering and commemorating Hasidic leaders is important aspect of Hasidic religious life. For this reason, Hasidic communal memory preserves huge numbers of those. After going through three volumes of Hasidic encyclopedia which was actually biographies of several hundreds of tzaddikim. We meaning [inaudible] and myself who made this set of maps. We came to number of 1,787 tzaddikim active in Eastern Europe from the [foreign language] up to the Holocaust. And we divided those tzaddikim into where they lived exactly, in which places. And the periods they live. And out of this comes five maps. This is chapter 2-1 in the atlas. That you will see in a minute. ^M00:17:33 That give totally different image than the Hasidic conquest of Eastern Europe by 1800. First map is 1740 to 1772. And what you see on this map is essentially that you don't see much. Few dots. The dot is the place of life of a tzaddik, of Hasidic leader. The bigger dot, the bigger number of tzaddikim. Here we have one or two or three tzaddikim leading in a place, right? And all of them in area of Podolia. I, I have to say here, do we have a way to show it on the screen? Yes? Podolia and Volhynia. Very few of them in [inaudible] to become Galicia. Southern Belarus, Central Poland. There are very few dots. Very few Hasidic leaders at that time. If we move to the next period, 1772 to 1815. Which according to Dubnow, all this area of Eastern Europe was Hasidic already. We have visibly higher number of Hasidic leaders. But we have also huge areas not covered by the dots at all. So we first of all see that instead of Podolia here. It is more Volhynia in this area that is becoming more Hasidic. And there's very significant move northward and westward of Hasidic leadership because the main principle area for Hasidic leadership today, that period, is Galicia. Here. And southern parts of central Poland. But look at northern part of central Poland. Look on Belarus. Look on Lithuania. There is none. So this is obviously not the high point of Hasidic conquest of Eastern Europe. And this is 1815, right? Fifteen laters that Dubnow would put his point. This is 1815 to 1867. And I say this is a remarkable change. Somebody compared to a rush. But I think it was a hostile approach to Hasidism. It's obviously showing huge advancement of the numbers and also territorial expansion of Hasidic leadership. The assumption behind this [inaudible] I need to mention here is kind of trivial, it seems to me. That the number of leaders roughly corresponds to the number of followers. And that the places of the residence of leaders roughly correspond to the places of residence of their followers. It's not always the case. There are many exceptions that I, we can go into listing. But the general rule for macro image that I'm presenting now is very correct. So what we have here is farther shift to the west. Farther strengthening of Galicia and southern part of central Poland. And first Hasidic leaders appearing in territory of Hungary and Romanian territories. So we for the first time in mid-19th century. Hasidic leadership crosses the border of former [inaudible] to go southward of this territory. Alright? So this is, so this is happening. This is possibly, if we compare number of leaders to the number of Jews living in those territories, mid-19th century is the peak of Hasidic infiltration of Eastern Europe. The peak of their influence. In some areas, like in Galicia, it is obviously higher than 50% of Jews in Galicia being Hasidic. With some areas they are nearly totally Hasidic like central part of Galicia. And some others that are significantly less. So this is, so this is a case of, of Galicia, mid to late 19th century Galicia as the peak. Not 18--, 1800, right? And yet another map: 1867 to 18--to 1914. You see essentially the same pattern as before. But simply far bigger numbers. Those numbers correspond. They're bigger, but they correspond to the huge increase of number of Jews living in these territories. Because this is the time of very dramatic demographical increase. So relative numbers are not higher than before. Though obviously we see a strengthening of the, of the Hasidic leadership. And we see also very nicely territories where Hasidic leadership appears. And where there are no Hasidic leaders, i.e. there are no Hasidim there. And final map may be most surprising. Is the interval. And what we see here is most powerful Galician settlement that you have still. ^M00:22:27 Which is this appearance of Hasidic leadership from eastern territories. ^M00:22:35 ^M00:22:38 Here. very few Hasidic leaders here. And this is obviously an outcome of the pogroms of the First World War. But even more so of Soviet anti-religious policy that is actually combatting all forms of religious life. And especially as visible as [inaudible]. Being Hasid was very strong expression of religious identity. Not only their [inaudible] but also in dress. In outside look. So the Hasidic leadership was the first to, to be persecuted. And second phenomenon that you, that you see in this map. Is amazing concentration in metropolis. Something that we had not before. Here it is worse. So [inaudible], Vienne, [inaudible] and other big cities. The phenomenon did not exist before. And this, there are several, several factors leading Hasidism to what it is there. First of them is the First World War. Today people tend to forget about it, especially that the Holocaust overshadows importance of the First World War. But if you look on this picture, this is not the Warsaw ghetto, right? Though it looks so. This is the city of the town of [inaudible] on Russo-Galicio, on the Russo-Austrian border in eastern Galicia. As, as [inaudible] was describing [inaudible]. This was a very prosperous town leading from this border location. Having 700 homes. In 1914, right after the war begin, 23 remained. The city was simply pulled down. One of few buildings standing there was a famous Hasidic synagogue of the [inaudible]. Of the famous [inaudible]. Who escaped to Vienna as many dozens other Hasidic leaders escaping and abandoning. And many of them abandoning Galicia, abandoning territories of war. Many of them did not return to Galicia after the war because in [inaudible] there was no life after the war. Also because the city still exists but it was all burned down. [Inaudible] returned to his place in 1924. And actually does a very conscious attempt at rebuilding nonexisting town. And this is widespread phenomenon. Many of those who did not escape to Vienna, they escaped to other large towns. Because living in small towns was very dangerous. Because the first population to be exposed to atrocities of the war. To extractions to, to looting were people living in small communities. Because they were the easiest victim for armies, for looters. For whoever would pass the place. So a lot of Hasidic leadership is moving to big cities. And remains there after the war. You have the map of Hasidic leaders. It's around 80 Hasidic leaders and their movement during First World War. And what you see here is essentially that overnight, Vienna is becoming the epitome of [inaudible]. You have like, like 40 Hasidic leaders suddenly moving from all over eastern Galicia and Volhynia and coming to Vienna. And you have, and you have every second Galician Jew at that time is escaping to Vienna. I [inaudible] imagine. So this is huge mass of, of, of refugees, refugees of war. Settling there and turning Vienna into the center, right? The same to a smaller scale is happening in Warsaw. Though this is not outside of the Warsaw. This is actually the big metropoly into which tzaddikim from small places escape. The same you have later on in Kiev. And this is something that is, that has tremendous importance. Not only for physical structure. In a sense where a Hasid is traveling to his Hasidic leader. It has tremendous importance also for spiritual life of Hasidism. Because the fact that up to the First World War, tzaddikim were living in small towns was not accidental. There was obvious choice. Several of the tzaddikim did live in bigger towns like [inaudible] but it was always commented. It was something exceptional that there must have been a reason to this. And it was given in Hasidic stories that the [inaudible] was leading the Warsaw for certain reason. And he left Warsaw because it was impossible for the Hasidic to live in sort of big city. Now it changes. Why tzaddikim were living in small towns? Because a small town was a place at which Hasidic court could establish its ritual of being separated from normal life. You had to go on one or two or three days', three, not the three. The pilgrimage to get there, right? You had to wait at the gates of the court to get accepted. You had to wait for the visit to the rebbe and the visits were very often at all this time of night, two AM, four AM. To make it into something special. This is not part of your daily routine. This is something special, this is something sacred. That is how Hasidic courts functioned. And now try to imagine you, your rebbe, [inaudible] here. ^M00:28:07 You meet him on the stroll of the city of Warsaw. He's just marching somewhere. This distance between the leader and the follower is disappearing suddenly. The bubble breaks. And you can imagine you have three rebbes in the same tenement house as you do. So what you do, you start hopping. There is a phenomenon that today is the sociology of religion called that [inaudible] Hasidism religion a la carte. And I say Hasidism a la carte emerges as a huge phenomenon during the First World War and after. We have memory memoirs testifying to the fact that Hasidim are not so much Hasidim of the rebbe anymore. They are Hasidim in more general sense. They come to one rebbe once, to another rebbe for another occasion. This one is nicely singing so we go to sing with him. The other is giving better sermons. So we go to listen to his sermon. The other one is a miracle maker, so we go to him for a miracle if we need a miracle at this occasion, right? So this changes entirely the structure of spiritual interaction between leader and follower. And this is what I believe you can read from those maps. And then with the information that the maps provide, you get back to narrative sources which give you plenty of this information. The rebbe on the slide is [foreign language] one of the, actually the last Hasidic leader to leave Soviet Union in '64 when he was, he was freed from exile. And so this is, so this is a huge phenomenon that is changing Hasidism and more importantly, I say that what we know as Hasidism today is to a big extent, an outcome of this change. Of things that happened during First World War. What we have as metropolitan Hasidic leadership happens exactly then. What we see as the development of modern [foreign language], it happens exactly there as a change in ideologies of Hasidism. It's happening exactly there. The interwar period creates structures of contemporary Hasidism. Obviously the Holocaust ends Hasidism in Eastern Europe and makes this new reappearance in Palestine and North America, Israel and North America. So this is obviously another turning point. But if we think about institutional way how Hasidism functions. Most of the changes happened before the Holocaust. They are not the outcome of the Holocaust. And I think this is very important to understand where contemporary Hasidism comes from. ^M00:30:49 ^M00:30:53 Another concept that I would like to ask is how Hasidic leadership functions. And this is again rooted in a stereotype of you know this heavenly leader. Somewhere above the heads doing things. But we know very little actually about the interaction of the two. Even if he was the celestial leader. Being you know that, that, that, that channel between the heavenly bounty and us here. He is bringing the blessing of the God, of, of God to us. It's obviously the actual relations that I wanted to study. And this I believe can be approached only if we realize that in that golden period of Hasidism, from late 18th century up to the Holocaust, the vast majority of the Hasidim did live at the court. And very often they did not live close to the court. They had to travel to him. The vast majority of their religious life was happening not at the court. Not with the rebbe, with the tzaddik. It was happening in their relation within their communities, within their shtiebel. In their prayer houses. And the prayer house seems to me so far totally ignored as a prime site of the development of Hasidic religious life. How did it look like? What were the ceremonies? What were some of structures? What was the experience of being Hasidic there? Not at the court. And the map, chapter five speaks about prayer houses, shtiebel. This is, this is beautiful picture. I'm not sure you can see it clearly. Because this picture was exposed twice. One, there is a space, and then you have figures here who look like ghosts there. I feel it's very telling because this is a picture shortly before the Holocaust. So those people are disappearing from this shtiebel very soon. This is [inaudible] in Volhynia. Now what I managed to do, and this is I believe a good example of why in my humble opinion, atlas is the best response to the questions I ask. Is to map it through not qualitative. But not sort of [inaudible] but quantitative approach. Maps are a marvelous research tool today because with the advent of digital humanities, they allow us to do things that were not available to us before. We can process amount of data that our minds would not make sense of. So for this map, I managed to gather in variety of sources. Information on nearly 3000 Hasidic shtiebel in Eastern Europe between 1900 and 1939. It was quite a work. I would say 12-years' project to get to have all of them. But once I get them, with traditional tools, I would get nowhere. Because I could not understand what was the pattern behind it. By putting this into databases and processing it with so-called GIS, geographical information system tools. We can come to seeing the map as the endpoint of the research. But as a start point. I did a series of maps that show me different patterns emerging from this data. By different questions I can ask by combination of [inaudible] keys. And from this, I start my analysis how Hasidic life can be understood. Thanks to getting into this information about their shtiebel and how it's structured. So first information that comes from here that you see on those. Is how Hasidic leader--how Hasidic hierarchies intra-Hasidic hierarchies looked like. In pre-Holocaust Eastern Europe. Which groups dominated in which territories, and which were smaller. If you, if you take for example central Poland, this territory, you know that 22% of all shtiebel were Gerrer. Ger was the dominant group. It was followed by 12% of Alexander, followed by-- ^M00:35:03 [ Foreign Language ] ^M00:35:07 Which is not Polish court. And on and on. Once you get this data, you immediately understand what is about the conflict between Ger and Alexander. We have a lot of narrative sources about it. But we know very little how it emerges. It's not, it's nothing personal, I say. It's simply structural. These are two dominant groups competing for dominance in territory. And this is replicated in Galicia. In Galicia, you have what? You have Belz and then you have [foreign language] followed by [foreign language], Bobov and others. So you have another well-known case of [foreign language] as the conflict for leadership. You understand the structures within Hasidic world, explaining to you how the structures look. But this can go much farther. I will not show you many maps of this chapter because we have no time for this. But this is one of them. By dividing Eastern Europe into squares of 35 by 35 kilometers each. Which roughly gives the, the, the, the, the footage of an average district in Europe. I counted all the shtiebel in each of those quarters. I did not count it myself with a pen, you know that, that the software did it to me. But it was, it was possible to count for each of those squares what is the dominant group. And what emerges out of this is very clear map of which Hasidic groups dominate which areas. It's not kind of general central Poland. You can very clearly see that Ger is dominating center and eastern part of central Poland. But it's not dominating all of the western out, outreach because this is a territory for Alexander. You beautifully understand that the dominant Galician group of Belz is not dominant in all of Galicia. This is a, the green here. It's dominant only in central part of Galicia. And if you move west, you have [inaudible] Bobov. If you, if you move east, you have [inaudible] an offshoot of [inaudible] dominated there. So you get into much deeper knowledge. With this you can even get to understanding the spiritual relation between tzaddik and followers. Because once I calculated, I cannot talk about it, sorry. Once I calculated relation between the size of group and distance between the court and the shtiebel, then you realize there is very consistent correlation between those two. And you can establish kind of typology of course by their distances and size of the group. And it's not only physical. This is about the type of leadership. Because very naturally for the big Hasidic group, say Ger. Which has been mentioned already. If Ger was in [inaudible] of Poland, apparently having 100,000 followers which is obviously inflated number. But obviously tens of thousands of followers. And then average distance between the court and the, and the shtiebel was something like 150 kilometers. It's very ob--very obvious that the vast majority of Ger Hasidim never saw their leader. If they came to the court once a year, or maybe not even once a year. They were together with ten or 20,000 other followers. And they could not get close to the rebbe. It was more like the soccer match than, than a religious experience of being close to your intimate guide. Because well, if you're wealthy. If you were important, if you were learned, you obviously get close to the leader. But for average rank and file Hasid, and I'm interested in them. It was very far. Then you understand that those courts had to develop alternative forms of religious affiliation. On the other hand, you have courts like Bobov which in absolute numbers is a small court in the [inaudible]. It's less than one percent of the shtiebel belonging to Belz, to, to Bobov. Less than one percent. Even in Galicia, it's less than four percent of the shtiebel that are Bobov. But if you go into the westernmost part of Galicia into [inaudible] then you have 16% of them being Bobov, and this is the dominant group. Because all others are smaller. ^M00:39:43 There are areas, districts in westernmost part of Galicia where, where Bobov is more than 50%. What does this say? Bobov is less successful than Belz? No, it established different relation between the leader and followers. For Bobov rebbe and Bobov Hasidim, it is more important to be in a group of big cohesiveness to be close. To be recognized at the court. To be able to travel there. That's different type of, of religious [inaudible]. Different charismatic leadership. Distant charismatic leadership. And close charismatic leadership that different groups display. And this is again, this is confirmed in our [inaudible] sources. If you go to Pintchiv for example, you read that the Pintchiv was very proud of knowing all of his Hasidim by name. He knew all of them. He knew all their problems, the [inaudible] were coming to him. They were close to him, and he was close to them. And they appreciated. But this was very small group at the same time. Should we say Pintchiv was less successful than Bobov? I say no. This is simply different model of religious leadership. And this you get again from maps and from numbers. And of which I believe for many is surprising. Okay, so coming to the final section that I would like to speak for a little. We had still ten minutes, right? ^M00:41:11 This is the picture taken of the [inaudible] rebbe at, at Auschwitz, just before he goes to the gas chamber. And the obviously turning point in my history in what I present is the Holocaust. And I'm mapping the way to death of many Hasidic leaders. It's 80 Hasidic leaders that I mapped on this map to show where Eastern European Hasidism dies. And it is nothing surprising. You see that the major place for death of Hasidic--of tzaddikim came from Hungary is Auschwitz. You see that mostly for Hasidim from central Poland is Warsaw ghetto and then Treblinka. You see the places that, that, that we know. But I think it's very important to map it. Not only to know it, but to prove it. How it looks. So and is very important to me, this is very important chart to, to show death. But also to show resurrection. Because after chapter seven, there's chapter eight. And we have it beginning with this picture of young Hasidic boys in [foreign language]. Boys, not girls because girls don't go out so easily, right? Which is another topic which appears in atlas. The gender issue. But my question, my most essential question that I ask not these boys. But I ask in chapter eight, in chapter leading with contemporary post-war. And Contemporary Hasidism is again, as, as you could realize so far. I like simple question and simple answers. So the simplest question to ask that I heard many times. And possibly some of you asked this question already. Is how many there are. How many Hasidim there are today? And I would say this was to my biggest surprise that sociologists say no, it's too difficult to answer this question. It's always too difficult to answer any question, obviously. It doesn't mean we should not try to do it. And obviously there are good studies trying to, to, to, to, to answer this question. There is beautiful article that is based on census polls and combining this with different information. It is trying to do it for United States and there are other ways that people are trying to use school records. Political data on voting to kind of extrapolate the rough number of Hasidim. There are researched into the [inaudible] of Hasidism for individual locations. Like Williamsburg, often gives you groups like Belz. But we don't have an overall picture. And I think this overall picture is very important. For anybody interested in Hasidism. And especially for those who preach about Hasidic conquest of contemporary Jewry. And because after all, we need to know if it's true. And how far it is true, or how far it is not. So after some investigation. I realized there are indeed even today, there are not Hasidic membership lists. This would be best, right? To have the, you know one unified list of all the Hasidim worldwide. And to map them. Unfortunately, not. But there are very close substitutes to this. Every big and [inaudible] number of small, mid-size, and small Hasidic groups. Every couple of years issues a telephone directory for this specific group. And these books function very often like membership lists. They are with few exceptions, they are very reliable because obviously each group wants to include everybody. It's important to be in the book. If you are not in the book, it might cause troubles. You might be not [inaudible] and one of us. And it is also important that those groups want, want to prove their demographical size because it's important factor, right? If you have mayor of New York coming to you as a rebbe to beg for your votes. You say, "See telephone book of my group. It's, it is big. I can give you those votes, and you give me relative value for this," right? So this size is important for the group. On the other hand, there is very clear protection from inflating these numbers. And actually there were, there was several years ago this interesting debate. Within Hasidic [inaudible] about one [inaudible] against other [inaudible] stealing claims. Because they wanted to show bigger. And the other one was protecting them for the same reasons that the groups want to keep it appropriate. They don't want the others to, to come victor on the basis of fake data, right? So those data are very reliable. I, I confronted those numbers with a number of those. And I, I came into possession of 44 either telephone directories or substitutes for telephone directories. Which small groups, there's no need to issue telephone directory. They have just Excel sheet they are sending to all the folk within them. So that was essentially the easiest. Because somebody could, from the group would just send it to me. With telephone books, I had to find a Hasidic friend or a friend who has a Hasidic friend who would be ready. To give it to me and to trust that I will not misuse this book for, for some reasons. Some groups have those books. Some groups are too small to have it. If you have all your fellow Hasidim in your smartphone, there's no need to have a telephone book for it, obviously. But still, I get to 44 of those. Forty-four, if we know the, roughly speaking 130 Hasidic groups today. This is minority. But if we realize this is 44 of 100 that covers all biggest and mid-size groups, that I did not miss any group. That is larger than the 1000 families. Then the number of 44 comes to more than 90% of Hasidic population worldwide. And I managed to process this data. This data are very good because they give city, telephone number, of course. Address and a zip code for every Hasidic household. And it's possible to have every Hasidic household pinned to the map for exact location of this. And what comes out of this is, this is the map. This is the list. There are maps. Most generally, the number that comes out of this is 129,000 Hasidic families worldwide. If we accept sociology's claiming that every Hasidic household today is 5.5 members. It comes to a number of between seven, too low or too high? [Inaudible response] No, it is because I, I'm afraid you are thinking about ultimate size of the family. And not the average size: 5.5 for a family includes families that have all their children out already. Staying alone. Or families who don't have children yet. Or families who just start having children. And families who at this moment have all ten children at home. If you take into average 5.5 is a very reasonable estimation. And it is proved by counting of many of those in small locations. It's, it's not been done on all Hasidic families, but it's confirmed by a representative samples. So it comes to as I say 129 families, and between 700, [inaudible] Hasidim worldwide. Which in comparison to the number of [inaudible] Jewish population comes to the number of five percent. The relative number is five percent of Jews worldwide at Hasidim today. Okay, and now I come to now fifty-plus percent in Galicia in late 19th century. And now tell me whether five percent is a lot of not. I believe that, the, the, the, the rumors about Hasidic conquest of world Jewry today far premature. ^M00:49:32 It's, it's obviously not a dominance. And even more so if we realize what's the nature of the Hasidic settlement, the structure of Hasidic settlement. And if we realize that the vast majority of Hasidism live in close neighborhoods. I mean, where dense neighborhoods of their population. In so-called enclaves. The term is not proper, but like cities like [inaudible] or Williamsburg or Borough Park. Then we need to realize even more so that with those five percent Hasidic presence is very strong at some places. But it's highly localized. Outside of those places, it's tiny. It's almost nonexistent. Those numbers when spread into individual countries come to United States having around 42%. Israel having around 48% of Hasidim. And in both of those countries, the Hasidim constitute five percent. The size of the square is the size of the Hasidic community. The color is the ratio, is the percentage, right? So yellow is five percent. Deep yellow for United Kingdom is ten percent. Now many green small squares which is small community and very small percentage. The only color that sticks out is the red. For 33% of population being Hasidic. And this is the, this is the country in which you don't hear about Hasidic conquest. And this is Belgium. Which is an outcome of two factors. On the one hand, there's huge Hasidic settlement in Antwerp, and on the other hand, Belgium is a country of very weak Hasidic populations, 29,000 of, of them only, altogether, right? So this, this 10,000 oh Hasidim in, in Antwerp make huge proportion of, of Belgian Jews . This numbers, because as I was saying we know which street they live. Which zip code each family has. And which rebbes they frequent. It can go into much deeper divisions. So what we have here is the next map is what are the biggest settlements? The biggest bubbles being Williamsburg, Borough Park on this side of the pond. This is also [inaudible] Crown Heights. New Square, Spring Valley, Lakewood, and other--Miami, Los Angeles, and Montreal, of course. How could I miss it? [Inaudible] ^M00:52:18 On the other side, this is Jerusalem--. ^M00:52:23 [ Foreign Language ] ^M00:52:31 This is what you get.. But what you get also with the pie charts is that you can divide how it splits into individual groups. And you can understand dynamics of different groups. You can compare it to ideology of those groups. And then you understand why Satmar which is two of three Hasidim in [inaudible]. And you go to Israel, and you have very few Satmar Hasidim, right? And you see how they are distributed. And then you go into [inaudible] and you go into [inaudible] and you have no Satmar Hasidim at all. And you understand it is connected to the location of this place. Behind or not behind the green line in occupied territories, right? So it goes into division. And allows us internal hierarchies of Hasidic politics there. And you can come into numbers with New York City having 26% of world Hasidim. Jerusalem next. Then Borough Park being part of this New York City, right? Williamsburg, Brooklyn, [inaudible] and on, right? ^M00:53:30 Antwerp, you have almost 1800. Montreal, 2000. ^M00:53:36 Coming back into this map. This can be also divided into individual groups. That we know possibly to surprise of some of you. That [inaudible] is still the dominant group today. And i, I, I know the reason for assuming [inaudible] is dominant, because they have the biggest [inaudible]. They have the best visibility. But it doesn't mean they are the most numerous. Of course you can claim that Satmar is divided into [inaudible] so it's not 26,000. You can divide them by 13,000. So it is still below [inaudible] but then you can say [inaudible] is also divided into [inaudible] and [inaudible]. Well, we won't go into the division. Ger is not divided. It's 12,000, right? And Belz and all others. So, so the, the maps are presented. They're, all maps and, and the end tables. And it can go, it can also present, yeah. I'm finishing right now. It's, it can also present how much individual groups are divided into locations. And how they compare between themselves. And whenever I have telephone directories for then and now, as sociologists like to say. I have the map of Bobov 20 years ago and today. And we can see how their settlement is changing. What is dynamic of those groups? Over period of time? And we can see where [inaudible] are living. So if you want to know where to go for the [inaudible], you get to chapter eight for point four. And you open it, and then you can do Hasidic a la carte. You can hop between Hasidic Williamsburg, right? Because you have their locations. And you can see how [inaudible] is distributed. And how it differs between 1999 where the, where [inaudible] houses and where they are today. And what is that, what are the numbers. And you can go even farther. You can go also into culture geography of Hasidism. How do we know that this [inaudible] Galician? And what are we to say for defining [inaudible] Hasidim as Galician? And on and on. And how Jewish settlement was divided--no time to talk about. An [inaudible] to talk about it. Thank you very much. Now is the time for questions. And I very much hope you will ask me challenging questions. Should I direct? And should people speak to the mic? ^M00:55:56 [ Applause ] ^M00:56:01 >> Repeat the questions. >> Marcin Wodzinski: Okay, I will repeat the question. >> So that it's on the video, yes. >> Marcin Wodzinski: Yes, please? [Inaudible response] I can't hear you, sorry. ^M00:56:12 [ Inaudible ] ^M00:56:38 The question is about possible correlation between economical factor and the move of Hasidic leadership. From Russian territories, Podolia and Volhynia westward to Galicia and central Poland. I don't think is such a factor. Galicia at the time is the poorest area of Austrian empire. And the, proverbially poor area. So this is not for economic reasons. And even more so, I want to, to point to possible misinterpretation in your question. Because you speak about the move. And I was speaking about the movement itself. But it's not people moving. This is centers moving. They disappear here and appear there. So it's not actual people moving the place. Leaders in Galicia die and in Podolia die. And there have no new leaders appearing in their place. While many more new leaders appear in Galicia, in central Poland. So the movement is not of actual people with their feet. It is more movement of the movement of Hasidism, right? Yes, please. ^M00:57:42 >> I'm interested in how many got out, and how did they get out? And how--. >> Marcin Wodzinski: You mean the Holocaust? >> I mean how come there's any left? Because the Nazis deliberately came to massacre these little villages. First with guns and trenches, and then finally with --. I'm, I'm just amazed that so many people--how did they get out? >> Marcin Wodzinski: Okay, thank you. Thank you for question. The question I need to repeat to the microphone is. How did it happen that any Hasidim survived the Holocaust? And this is very good question. Because it's very few of them that they did. Hasidim, we know very little actually what was, what was happening to Hasidims. We had great research about Hasidic thought and the Holocaust. And the leading scholar of this issue sits with us here. But I say together with this, we know amazingly little about actual faith of the Hasidim during this time. And this is something that is more general. Not only for Hasidism. This is more general scene of historiography. That is tending to abandon religious groups and religious life. And to ignore it, especially for modern times. I think we know too little about what was happening to them. We know, we can assume. And we, we have some anecdotal materials confirming that as you were indicating. Hasidim were very often the first victim of the Nazi oppressors because they were the most visible. If somebody was a Jewish doctor. Dress, dressed in European dress, speaking Polish of Czech or whatever, Russian. Living life of their neighbors, it was very difficult for German army to recognize he's Jewish. Maybe polish or Ukrainian or, or Lithuanian neighbors would help Germans eventually with this. But in the first stage, it was not obvious. The first Jew to be approached and ridiculed and massacred or killed. Were obviously Hasidim because they differed by the outfit. By the, by the, by they, how they looked like. So this very clear. Also, if you go farther. You obviously understand that for this well-educated Jewish physician, it was much easier to hide. Because he had two things to offer. He looked like a gentile. He know the language, he knew the language. He had Polish friends also for whom he was a doctor. And he had also something to offer. It was a good to have a doctor in hiding, right? Just in case. And we have actually testimonies of Hasid. What could he offer? A prayer. He knew no Polish. He could not, even if he wanted to pretend to be non-Jew. He had no ways to do it. Even he if he cut his beard, changed the dress. He would look Jewish because he had no other ways of behavior. He did not know nothing of how it was to be [inaudible]. Because he spent far more of his life within Hasidic world. Than those incorporated people. So obviously, very clearly we have [inaudible] leading to decimation of the Hasidim during Second World War. very few of them survived. I have two maps. I show one of them only. That place of death of the tzaddikim. Which is showing 80 of them. And there's another map that I wrote of, to, to survival of several tzaddikim. And on this map, I mapped ten of them only. And this I did on purpose, to show this proportion between those two. But still, some of the Hasidic leaders and some of the Hasidim survived. Some of them survived in camps. Some of them survived in Soviet Union. Some of them found themself in the Russian zone when the war started. And then because of anti-religious policy of Soviet Union, they were expelled to Siberia. And they were lucky to be expelled to Siberia. Because many of them survived there. In harsh conditions, but they did. And eventually they made it out. There is beautiful picture of Hasidic Jews in [inaudible] in atlas there. That's a surprising place for them, but it happens. So this is how they, how they survived. Those numbers were extremely low after the Holocaust. And there was quite a, a common understanding that Hasidic world doesn't exist anymore. It's mostly thanks to demographical factors. The fact that Hasidic families are by nature more numerous. They have more children. Than non-Hasidic Jewish families. And the very conscious, long-lasting educational culture, spiritual guidance from Hasidic leadership, by those few who survived. That they managed to build communities. And they provided safe haven to those few Hasidim who survived. And the first of them would be Bobov rebbe. Who [inaudible] the Bobov rebbe died during the Holocaust, but his son survived quite miraculously. ^M01:02:53 You wanted to ask a question? And then, and then I--. ^M01:02:58 [ Inaudible ] ^M01:03:12 Thank you. The question was if out of Hasidism a la carte, a new Hasidic movement? Or semi-Hasidic movement emerged? No, the nature of Hasidism a la carte is the lowering of affiliation. So not creating the movement. Of course Hasidism a la carte had huge influence on creating neo-Hasidism which is not a movement. But it is a cultural phenomenon very important from beginning of the 20th century and especially important after the Holocaust. Where many people of non-religious communities affiliate with some concept or behaviors of Hasidic world. And take it as inspiration. And put it into new context. Some Hasidic groups today are also strongly inspired by this. And [inaudible] being the most visible expansion, ex-, ex-, example of this development. Which is taking forms of kind of New Age religion in some sections of Breslow. So this is, so this is phenomenal. But I wouldn't speak about a new movement that comes directly from this Hasidism a la carte. But I would say about creation of the huge spectrum of positions between staunch Hasidic and non-Hasidic identities. Of people who are Hasidish, semi-Hasidish, counter-Hasidim, sometimes-Hasidim, ex-Hasidim. But still respecting Hasidism. And all those positions. And as I just heard to--today in the morning. This group is growing today. ^M01:04:49 [ Inaudible ] ^M01:04:56 Early 1900s, you say, right? ^M01:04:59 [ Inaudible ] ^M01:05:05 There were many, well Hasidim were under-represented in immigrations from late 19th century. Because for many Hasidic leaders, United States was not the golden [inaudible], the golden state. It was a [inaudible], the [inaudible]. Non-kosher country. And this was for the reason that United States or America in general. Was understood as secular place. The place where you are supposed to lose your traditional Jewish identity. Which was indeed the case. Still many people from Hasidim and of Hasidic origin were coming and were establishing their Hasidic prayer houses. And in Lower East Side, this is the map for 1918. There was a number of those. It is still, they are under-represented. And it's very clear that if you go deeper into those Hasidic shtiebel, there are how you say? Ex-Hasidic. They keep [inaudible] they keep Hasidic prayer, prayer tradition. They keep tradition of being from localities. And having association to a specific rebbe. But they are not behaving Hasidic anymore. At the same time, they very nicely--I'll give you the, the [inaudible] after [inaudible] okay? It's, on this map, you see Hasidic shtiebel divided in Lower East Side into those who are in the eastern part. And they are Hungarian and Galician. And those who are in the western part, they are Polocian Russian. So even on this side of the pond, they keep their distinctions. Their [inaudible] distinctions from the Old World. So obviously they are, and it's covered in the atlas. ^M01:06:49 [ Inaudible ] ^M01:07:17 For Satmar I don't know. The question is how far it is possible to map outreach of Hasidic groups today or after the war, more generally? Especially for the biggest groups of [inaudible] and [inaudible]. For Satmar, I don't know sources for this, unfortunately. For [inaudible] it was relatively easy thanks to phone books again. Because I found two of them listing all [inaudible] houses. Worldwide. In 1999 and 2016. And the deep blue is the size of the number of Hasidic houses in given countries. In 1999, and the light-blue is 2016. And you see how it changes. In some countries, like United Kingdom, there's no growth at all. In some countries, there were no places before 1999. You also see the color of the country represents ratio. The relative number of [inaudible] houses by the size of Jewish population. So the most intense colors you have were Indo China, China, Nigeria, surprising places. I think that but also to an extent, Kazakhstan, India, [inaudible] it's very strongly proved that [inaudible] is strong wherever Jews are weak. As a community. [Inaudible] is developing on the peripheries of Jewish world. They are conquering territories where Hasidic, where, where Jewish communities are weak. And this is actually something that is exactly opposite to the dominant Hasidic trend. Because Hasidim today [inaudible] by all mean avoid places where, which have weak Jewish presence. For obvious reasons. To be [inaudible] you need a really good orthodox [inaudible] infrastructure. You need to have a butcher, synagogue, [inaudible] and you need to have this butcher and that butcher. You know, it goes very, very deep into, into establishing structures for this reason. The vast majority of Hasidim live in metropolis. In huge centers where you have all this infrastructure. And [inaudible] is exactly the opposite. And I think it is fascinating about [inaudible]. Again, what you can read from telephone books. ^M01:09:45 ^M01:09:48 [ Inaudible ] ^M01:09:57 No, no. You have individual households, one, two, three, four. Each of them has, you have the first name, last name. Place of the telephone number, zip code. Street, city. And I had to read all of those. By the name of the city and to put it into the registry under the name of the city. And then to sum it up and then I could have numbers. Two thousand families living in Montreal. So that's how it goes. There's no shortcut, unfortunately. There's no way to do it, you know. No, no, no, no, no. Unfortunately, no. Well, when it was an Excel file, I could arrange it by the place, and then to do the just sum up. But for all other books. And actually those books are not arranged by place. But [inaudible] I had to read line by line. Satmar book is that size, 600 pages or something. And I had to read it line by line. Fascinating read. [Laughter] ^M01:11:01 ^M01:11:04 I think that's right. This right? Thank you very much.