Journal of Historical Geography 53 (2016) 63e74

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Historical Geography

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhg

Space and spirit: on boundaries, hierarchies and leadership in

Hasidism

ski
Marcin Wodzin
University of Wrocław, pl. Nankiera 15, 50-140 Wrocław, Poland

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This article examines spatial aspects of Hasidism, arguably one of the most important socio-religious
Received 29 October 2015 movements in modern Eastern Europe. More specifically, it focuses on the relationship between reli-
Received in revised form gious leaders in their courts and their followers in towns scattered across Eastern Europe. The article
1 April 2016
starts with the argument that in the wake of the exponential growth of Hasidism in the late eighteenth
Accepted 15 April 2016
and early nineteenth centuries, it developed an innovative institution of shtiblekh, or Hasidic prayer halls.
These prayer halls, often far from the court, became the basic structure for the influence of Hasidism.
Keywords:
Their number and geographical distribution allow us to establish the internal boundaries of Hasidism
Hasidism
Religious leadership
and the Hasidic groups' internal hierarchy. Most importantly, the article argues that the size of the group
Centre and periphery and the spatial distribution of their shtiblekh were closely correlated with the type of religious leadership
Eastern Europe employed by this group: from distant charismatic leadership at the great dominant courts through many
Jews intermediate forms down to small ephemeral groupings with intense, intimate relations of close char-
ismatic leadership.
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In the growing field of the geography of religion the distribution of
religious centres e either holy places, pilgrimage sites, shrines or
centres of leadership e has always been one of the central objects
of reflection.1 This traditional interest has been augmented by the
more recent spatial turn in the study of religion and, quite inde-
pendently, by the rise of the multidisciplinary field of leadership
studies, for which distance is an important factor in leader-follower
relationships.2 Despite this combined interest, it seems that the
spatial aspects of religious leadership and its connection between
E-mail address: wodzinsk@uni.wroc.pl.
1
Overviews of the major concepts of the distribution of religious centres can be
found prominently in every classic textbook of the geography of religion, see D.E.
Sopher, Geography of Religions, Englewood, 1967, chapter 5; C.C. Park, Sacred Worlds:
An Introduction to Geography and Religion, London, 1994, 56e92, 245e285; R.W.
Stump, The Geography of Religion: Faith, Place, and Space, London, 2008, 33e107.
2
On the spatial turn in the study of religion see K. Knott, Religion, space and
place: the spatial turn in research on religion, Religion and Society: Advances in
Research 1 (2010) 29e43; K. Knott, Spatial theory and the study of religion, Religion
Compass 2 (2008) 1102e1116; T.A. Tweed, Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Reli-
gion, Cambridge and London, 2008. For the spatial aspects of leadership studies see
M.C. Bligh and R.E. Riggio (Eds), Exploring Distance in Leader-Follower Relationships,
New York, 2013; S. Henderson Callahan (Ed.), Religious Leadership: A Reference
Handbook, Los Angeles, 2013.
3
See C. Brace, A.R. Bailey and D.C. Harvey, Religion, place and space: a framework
for investigating historical geographies of religious identities and communities,
Progress in Human Geography 30 (2006) 30.
the centre and the periphery continue to have been rather insuf-
ficiently examined, particularly in their historical aspects.3
One of the reasons for this comes from the fact that the recent
burst in geographical research on religion places its emphases in
significantly different areas, especially the politics and poetics of
space, migration conflicts, the rise of religious radicalism, or the
blurred boundaries between secular and sacred, but not traditional
studies of religious leadership.4 Another reason is the problematic
nature of primary sources for the historical geography of religion in
general and the relationship between centre and periphery in
particular. Scholars do use historical materials allowing for analysis
of the spatial aspects of religions, but these are usually either
macro-scale aggregated survey data on major world religions,
which do not allow for any more precise picture, or micro studies of
individual cases. Despite exponential growth of geotemporal da-
tabases, few of them find application in meso-scale research on the
historical geography of religion. On the other hand, when more
specific micro-scale materials are explored, this usually involves
discussion of individual cases of the process of diffusion, emergence
4
For a general overview of recent developments, see the two most recent
decennial reports by L. Kong, Mapping ‘new’ geographies of religion: politics and
poetics in modernity, Progress in Human Geography 25 (2001) 211e233; L. Kong,
Global shifts, theoretical shifts: changing geographies of religion, Progress in Human
Geography 34 (2010) 755e776.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2016.04.016
0305-7488/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
64
ski / Journal of Historical Geography 53 (2016) 63e74
M. Wodzin
of pilgrimage sites or politics of religious places, but not general
leader-follower and centre-periphery correlations.5 Meso-scale
studies, in both a social/institutional and spatial sense, i.e. studies
combining in-depth analyses of religious structures far below the
global level of world religions with large resources on trans-local
religious phenomena, are still a desideratum.6
I argue that sources for such analyses, even if hard to find, do
exist, or rather they could and should be generated from a variety of
indirect resources. While it might look like a Sisyphean task to
comb through thousands of multi-language volumes in search of
dispersed, sporadic and hard-to-process narrative data, I argue that
these materials, once aggregated, are invaluable for a quantitative
analysis of historical forms of spatial relationship between religious
centres and their peripheries.
In this article I take the case of leader-follower spatial correla-
tions in pre-Holocaust Hasidism (from Hebrew hasid, ‘pious’), one
of the most important religious and social movements to have
developed in Eastern Europe, and without a doubt the most sig-
nificant phenomenon forming the religious, social and cultural life
of the Jewish population in modern Eastern Europe.7 Hasidism
seems to be an ideal object for this kind of analysis. One of the most
frequently tackled issues in research into Hasidism has always been
the forms of its leadership. The tsadik (‘the righteous’, in Hebrew),
the charismatic leader of a Hasidic community is indeed a central
point, an axis mundi both of Hasidic ideology, as well as of the social
organization of the movement which was focused on pilgrimages
to the tsadik at his court, of contemplation on his work, and on
retelling miraculous stories from his life.8 For these reasons the
tsadik e as a splendid illustration of charismatic leadership e has
also been an interesting case for sociologists without any special
interest in Hasidism.9 Less attention has been devoted to the
decentralized nature of Hasidic leadership, to the division of
5
See Kong, Mapping ‘new’ geographies, 213e218.
6
See M. Stausberg, Exploring the meso-levels of religious mappings: European
religion in regional, urban, and local contexts, Religion 39 (2009) 103e104. For the
closest analogy to what has been suggested see R.A. Donkin, The Cistercians: Studies
in the Geography of Medieval England and Wales, Toronto, 1978; of newer studies see
L.W. Preston, Shrines and neighbourhood in early nineteenth-century Pune, India,
Journal of Historical Geography 28 (2002) 203e215.
7
Furthermore, Hasidism is today one of the most significant elements of Jewish
religious/cultural identity throughout the world. It is, therefore, understandable
that it is one of the most intensively studied aspects of the history and culture of
Jewish Eastern Europe, and now also the United States and Israel. A good and recent
summary of the state of research on Hasidism is to be found in M. Rosman, Pesak
dina shel ha-historiografiyah ha-isra'elit al ha-hasidut, Zion 74 (2009) 141e175.
8
For the most important studies on the role of the tsadik see A. Green, The
Zaddiq as axis mundi in later Judaism, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 45
(1977) 328e347; A. Rapoport-Albert, God and the zaddik as the two focal points of
Hassidic worship, in: G.D. Hundert (Ed.), Essential Papers on Hasidism, New York,
1991, 299e329; G. Scholem, The righteous one, in: G. Scholem, The Mystical Shape of
the Godhead, New York, 1991, 88e139; S. Dresner, The Zaddik: The Doctrine of the
Zaddik According to the Writings of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoy, New York, 1960. On
the interrelationship between doctrine and social functions see I. Etkes, The zaddik:
the interrelationship between religious doctrine and social organization, in: A.
Rapoport-Albert (Ed.), Hasidism Reappraised, London, 1996, 159e167.
9
See, for example, B. Turner, Religion and Social Theory, second edition, London,
1991, 93e98. The classic typology of religious leadership is in M. Weber, The Soci-
ology of Religion, Boston, 1985; on routinization of charisma see M. Weber, Economy
and Society: An Outline of Interpretative Sociology, Berkeley, 1968, 246e254. For an
application of Weber's theory to Hasidism see C.L. Bosk, The routinization of
charisma: the case of the zaddik, Sociological Inquiry 49 (1979) 150e167; S. Sharot,
Hasidism and the routinization of charisma, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
19 (1980) 325e336.
10
See especially G. Sagiv, Ha-shoshelet: bet Chernobyl u-mekomo be-toledot ha-
hasidut, Jerusalem, 2014; G. Sagiv, Yenuka: al tsadikim-yeladim be-hasidut, Zion 76
(2011) 139e178; N. Polen, Rebbetzins, wonder-children, and the emergence of the
dynastic principle in Hasidism, in: S. Katz (Ed.), The Shtetl: New Evaluations, New
York, 2007, 53e84; D. Assaf, The Regal Way: The Life and Times of Rabbi Israel of
Ruzhin, Stanford, 2002, 47e66.
Hasidism into a great many groups under the wing of a great many
rival tsadikim, as well as to the rise of dynasties in which the
dominant mechanism for the succession of leadership became
biological inheritance through a son, sons or sons-in-law.10
One of the least studied aspects of Hasidic leadership has been
the non-ideological aspect of the relationship between the tsadik
and his followers, as well as the influence that this relationship
exerted on the religious life of the Hasidim outside the tsadik's
court.11 The question is all the more relevant in that the expansion
of the small mystical circle of early Hasidism into a mass movement
meant that from the late eighteenth century up to the Holocaust a
vast majority of the Hasidim lived a long way from their leader and
visited him no more than once a year, paying him brief visits of a
single day, or at most a few days. Of course visits to the court, even if
infrequent, were still the high points of each Hasid's religious life.
However, the popularizing of the movement meant that it was not
at court, but in the hundreds of small towns inhabited by tens of
thousands of Hasidim, that the fundamental institutional, social,
cultural and economic developments of Hasidism took place. Living
far from the tsadik and his court, the Hasidim had to define how
their Hasidic identity expressed itself in their own home setting
and how to establish an interrelation between the festive religious
experience at the court and everyday religious life in their towns.12
They had to devise how they could and should organize their
religious life, which structures and institutions would be the most
appropriate, and what resources would be needed to create and
maintain them. Thus it is worth asking what the Hasidic forms of
religious life far from the court looked like and how the Hasidic
subculture developed there over the long course of the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries.13
As explained above, this article will focus on one aspect of this
phenomenon, namely the spatial relationship between the tsadik at
his court and the Hasidim in their towns. More generally, it poses
the question of the possible correlation between religious life and
the geographical distance between the religious centre and the
periphery, both in the centre and at the periphery. The conclusions
drawn from this analysis are, I believe, more broadly applicable
than just to the history of Hasidism, both as an example of how to
construct broad-based databases emerging from complex historical
materials and as a theoretical model for such a spatial analysis in
the history of religion.
So, what was the religious life of the Hasidim in their towns
outside the court?
Shtibl
As many memoirs of the time attest, everyday Hasidic life was not a
11
For initial observations see D. Assaf and G. Sagiv, Hasidism in tsarist Russia:
historical and social aspects, Jewish History 27 (2013) 250e252. On the relations
between the tsadik and his followers at the court see Assaf, The Regal Way,
278e284; on the ideological ramifications of these relations see H. Pedaya, Le-
hitpathuto shel ha-degem ha-hevrati-dati-kalkali be-hasidut: ha-pidion, ha-
havurah ve-ha-aliyah la-regel, in: Dat ve-kalkalah: yahase gomelin, Jerusalem,
1995, 311e373.
12
This has radically changed since the Holocaust, when the vast majority of the
Hasidim reside in urban enclaves next to their leaders. Still, leader-follower re-
lations in contemporary Hasidism are not extensively researched either. For a rare
study focusing on this aspect see J.J. Lewis and W. Shaffir, Tosh, between earth and
moon: a Hasidic rebbe's followers and his teachings, in: D. Maoz and A. Gondos
(Eds), From Antiquity to the Postmodern World: Contemporary Jewish Studies in
Canada, Newcastle, 2011, 139e170.
13
These questions have been best formulated by A. Teller, Hasidism and the
challenge of geography: the Polish background to the spread of the Hasidic
movement, AJS Review 30 (2006) 1e29. For the most recent review of the historical
studies on spatial aspects of Hasidism see M. Wodzin
ski and U. Gellman, Towards a
new geography of Hasidism, Jewish History 26 (2013) 171e199.

ski / Journal of Historical Geography 53 (2016) 63e74
M. Wodzin
family affair. A typical Hasid would regularly spend his free time
and sometimes whole days and evenings in male confraternities,
united by a highly emotional and intense group experience. These
meeting places were called shtiblekh (singular, shtibl), a diminutive
of the Yiddish word shtub or ‘chamber; cell’. Many nostalgic
memoirs recall the shtiblekh as characterized by exceptional in-
tensity and beauty of ecstatic prayer, brotherly unity and love of all
the participants, a joyous atmosphere ‘where the soul shone on the
faces of the Hasidim, and the shtibl was filled with great warmth
and celebration’.14 Putting idealizing language aside, the shtibl was
certainly the most important institution of the Hasidim at the
communal level, one in which they could gather, build group bonds
and create an autonomous space for their religious practices,
including those which differed from those of other Jews.15 The
shtibl was also a tool of Hasidic propaganda: the existence of a shtibl
in a small town allowed people potentially interested in observing
Hasidism at close quarters, or in joining the Hasidic life, to ‘give it a
try’ without the need to undertake expensive, lengthy and socially
risky visits to a tsadik.16
As regards the activities they contained, shtiblekh were a place
for religious studies, private and public prayer, and for meetings.
This was also a place for occasional Hasidic celebrations and host-
ing visitors, including traveling tsadikim. Some particularly zealous
Hasidim spent nearly all their time in shtiblekh. For most, however,
it was rather a place for regular afternoon and festival gatherings,
where they could pray and participate in all other forms of religious
life of their Hasidic community.
Shtiblekh also fulfilled important socio-economic functions:
assisting Hasidim in financial difficulties, collecting money for
dowries for poor women, or simply providing board and lodging for
itinerant Jews. An ex-Hasid Yitzhak Even recalled that a Hasid
traveling to his tsadik ‘did not need much money to make the trip,
mainly just the cost of transportation, because Hasidim in the
places where you stopped along the way would take care of you’.17
Hosting pilgrims was not only an act of charity but also served to
build broader ties than just local ones between the followers of a
given tsadik, and thus strengthened group identity.
As far as their physical form, shtiblekh could be found anywhere,
both in separate buildings constructed specially for the purpose, or
in a free-standing peasant hut bought for the purpose, or a base-
ment, or rented rooms at a synagogue. From surviving memoirs,
descriptions and very few existing illustrations we find that a great
many shtiblekh were housed in very modest surroundings, often in
a single room, in little wooden buildings with modest furnishings
and poor sanitary conditions. Yitzhak Even commented on the
shtibl in Borysław that ‘The building was a simple ruin standing
simply by a miracle’.18
Unfortunately, we have rather meagre information on the pro-
cess of establishing shtiblekh. It appears a prevalent social structure
of an emerging shtibl was the interest group, usually employing a
client system, meaning an arrangement of informal dependencies
14
Izker-bukh fun Rakishok un umgegnt, M.Bakalchuk-Felin (Ed.), Johannesburg,
1952, 53.
15
For an introduction to the topic see L. Jacobs, Hasidic Prayer, London, 1972,
chapter 3; M. Wodzin
ski, The Hasidic ‘cell’: the organization of Hasidic groups at
the level of the community, Scripta Judaica Cracoviensia 10 (2012) 111e122; S.
Stampfer, How and why did Hasidism spread? Jewish History 26 (2013) 201e219.
See also G. Dynner, ‘Men of Silk’: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society, Oxford,
2006, 59e74 and M. Wodzin
ski, Hasidism and Politics: The Kingdom of Poland,
1815e1864, Oxford, 2013, 42e76, for an account of controversies over establishment
of the shtiblekh. See also the interesting collection of sources in Belzer kloiz in Tarne,
Ashdod, 2008.
16
See Stampfer, How and why did Hasidism spread?
17
I. Even, Funem rebens hoyf, New York, 1922, 5.
18
Even, Funem rebens hoyf, 5.
65
in which a wealthy patron provided clients with economic support
in exchange for their social and political support.19 In such an
arrangement, the rich patron, or his entire family, was naturally the
leader of the shtibl. Especially widespread were shtiblekh estab-
lished and financed by influential families, either the wealthy or
those of distinguished pedigree such as those from rabbinical
families, descendants of once-famous tsadikim. However, setting up
shtiblekh was not the exclusive preserve of influential or rich peo-
ple. For example, in Drohiczyn Poleski a group of Hasidim of limited
means, including a ritual slaughterer, a carpenter and several minor
tradesmen, worshiped in private houses until they finally resolved
to build a shitbl by themselves. Despite the opposition of local op-
ponents, the Hasidim succeeded in putting up their own shtibl in
record time with their own hands, and without any financial
backing.20
The relative impoverishment of some Hasidic groups not only
complicated the establishment of a shtibl, but its upkeep as well.
The largest expense was rent, then the cost of lighting and heating.
In addition, a shtibl needed funds to purchase utensils and fur-
nishings for the celebrations held there as well as alcohol and food.
Sometimes the main expenses were paid by a wealthy sponsor.
However, a shtibl was much more frequently maintained by dues
imposed on wealthier Hasidim, or from income derived from
auctioning off readings from the Torah.21 There were also local
customs for supplementing a shtibl's income. For instance, in Chełm
the Bełz shtibl was maintained from the dues of its wealthier
members, but since many of these worthies did not pay them on
time, the shtibl was always in financial trouble. The gabaim (the
synagogue trustees) would then block off the shtibl's door on the
Sabbath and everyone going out was forced to leave his talis (prayer
shawl). Quarrels and shouting were to no avail, and when the Ha-
sidim needed their talesim again they had to buy them back.22 A
witness to this same procedure in Brzeziny wrote:
What tricks went on during such a Sabbath in the shtibl is not
hard to imagine. People fought like lions, sprang through the
windows. No-one wanted to give up his talis of his own free will.
They were taken from everyone e from those who had paid and
also from those who did not have to pay because of poverty, so
that no-one would be shamed. After Shabbat the gabaim went
around to everyone and returned the talesim to those who were
not guilty and squared accounts with those who were in arrears,
and after that, everything went along normally until the next
seizure of talesim.23
The fact that the gabaim were trying to maintain an even-
handedness towards all the worshippers in the shtibl, irrespective
of their wealth, corresponded fully to the formal equality of all the
worshippers: ‘Here differences between rich and poor dis-
appeared’.24 However, we should not mistake this formal equality
for a lack of social hierarchy. Hierarchy was even evident in the
arrangement of the space where seats were assigned according to
social status: on the east side for the wealthy, the less wealthy and
the learned had their places on the south side, and so it went
19
On clientism in Hasidism see Wodzin
ski, Hasidism and Politics, 227e228 and
144e157.
20
See Drohichin; finf hundert yor yidish lebn, D.B. Varshavski (Ed.), Chicago, 1958,
159e161.
21
See, for example, Sefer Grayding, Y. Margel (Ed.), Tel-Aviv, 1981, 48e49.
22
Izker-bukh Chelm, M. Bakalchuk-Felin (Ed.), Johannesburg, 1954, 439e444.
23
F. Maliniak, Bzshezshin tsvishn tsvei velt-milkhomes, in: Bzshezshin: izker-bukh,
A. Alperin and N. Summer (Eds), New York, 1961, 91.
24
G. Go
ra, Dos Gerer shtibl, in: Izker-bukh nokh der horev-gevorener yidisher kehile
Tshizheve, S. Kants (Ed.), Tel-Aviv, 1961, 215.
66
ski / Journal of Historical Geography 53 (2016) 63e74
M. Wodzin
according to the principle of social rank. In each shtibl there was
also a leader, whose leadership derived either from personal
charisma, status at the tsadik's court, or wealth, especially if the
shtibl was someone's private property. In Sanok the Kanner family,
followers of the tsadik of Nowy Sa˛ cz [Sanz], not only owned a shtibl,
but also ‘exerted singular and decisive leadership’.25
The shtiblekh had a highly complicated system of rights and
duties, usually, it seems, conducted by volunteer functionaries.
Similarly to non-Hasidic prayer houses, a typical shtibl had a
designated person to say morning prayers, often someone else for
afternoon and evening prayers, and yet another person for prayers
on feast days and for musaf (additional prayers). In those shtiblekh
that had a room for women, there was also a zogerke e a woman
leading the prayers for the women. There was also a person
auctioning readings from the Torah and handling the shtibl's fi-
nances. Shtiblekh also had their own scribes and trustees respon-
sible for the regular running of the shtibl, and even their own cup-
bearers responsible for supplying alcoholic beverages and their
own clowns for the feast of Purim. In small shtiblekh many of these
duties could be combined or not filled at all, but so many duties
created internal hierarchies.26 The social composition of the shtibl
was thus anything but homogeneous.
Wherever possible the Hasidim aimed to set up their own
single-group shtiblekh, in which the followers of only one group or
dynasty would worship and nurture individual customs, thus
building in-group solidarity and cohesion. As a result, there might
be several, or even several dozen, shtiblekh in a single town. For
example, in Be˛ dzin at the end of the nineteenth century there were
three shtiblekh of Hasidim of Ger as well as seventeen shtiblekh
from just about every Hasidic court in central Poland.27 Most of
these shtiblekh gathered several tens and sometimes hundreds of
followers and by rule there were no shtiblekh with less than ten
worshippers (the prayer quorum). Thus, in Łowicz at the beginning
of the twentieth century there were shtiblekh of Ger with two
hundred worshippers, Aleksandro
w with ninety worshippers,
Grodzisk with ninety, Sochaczew with seventy, Skierniewice with
sixty, Ostrowiec with fifty, Mszczono
w with twenty, in addition to
several smaller groups which had no stable shtiblekh.28
Thus the shtiblekh became the basic institution of the Hasidic
courts' influence outside their own realm as well as for maintaining
links between the court and the provinces. Thanks to this the shtibl
is the ideal analytical tool for a great many phenomena occurring in
the Hasidic community: the degree of Hasidic infiltration into
specific regions; the intra-Hasidic hierarchy of influence; and the
issue of the leadership's ethos or typology, and what a typology of
Hasidic leadership might look like. Unlike spontaneous prayer
groups, the shtibl was a relatively stable institution with a well-
developed social structure and extensive membership requiring a
material infrastructure and economic backing. This means that the
shtibl is a reliable gauge of the relatively well developed and
enduring influences of Hasidism. At the same time the shtibl was a
small enough institution to reflect even minute divisions between
Hasidic groups and is thus a relatively accurate instrument. For
both these reasons shtiblekh are the basis of this analysis.
25
Batei tefilah, in: Sanok; sefer zikaron li-kehilat Sanok ve-ha-sevivah, E. Sharvit
(Ed.), Tel-Aviv, 1970, 49.
26
See, for example, Grayeve izker-bukh, G. Gorin (Ed.), New York, 1950, 147.
27
See Pinkas Bendin, A.S. Stein (Ed.), Tel-Aviv, 1959, 235e249.
28
Lovich: ir be-Mazoviah u-sevivah; sefer zikaron, G. Shayak-Charnezon (Ed.), Tel-
Aviv, 1966, 126.
Database: sources, value, limitations
This analysis is based on a list of all the shtiblekh existing in Eastern
and Central Europe from the end of the nineteenth century up to the
1930s, most of them, however, from the inter-war period. These data
are not sufficiently precise to be able to define their chronological
dynamic, instead they present a rather static image of Hasidism be-
tween the wars and on the eve of the destruction of European Jewry,
including the destruction of East European Hasidism.
Information on the shtiblekh is derived primarily from the me-
morial books of Jewish communities e a collection of over seven
hundred volumes produced for the most part after 1945, but
describing Jewish life in hundreds of towns and villages of Eastern
Europe before the Holocaust, as recalled by their former Jewish
inhabitants.29 Just about all the volumes include chapters on Ha-
sidism and/or prayer sites, chapters that have been trawled for
information on shtiblekh.30 The collection of 611 in-depth in-
terviews conducted by the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazi
Jewry team, part of which also deals with Hasidism and prayer
rooms in these 611 locations, has turned out to be equally valu-
able.31 The research base has also been supplemented with infor-
mation on the shtiblekh included in the Pinkas hakehilot e a lexicon
of Jewish communities in Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Hungary and
Romania, in lists of subscribers to Hebrew books, digitized Hebrew
periodicals, as well as other sources and publications.32
The final list contains information on 2854 shtiblekh in 858 lo-
cations, the overwhelming majority in Eastern Europe (only eleven
of them are located outside the area with a strong Hasidic pres-
ence).33 The shtiblekh ‘belong’ to 182 courts, that is they were linked
29
For a general analysis of limitations of memorial books as a source for historical
research see M. Adamczyk-Garbowska, A. Kopciowski and A. Trzcin
ski, Ksie˛ gi
_ o
pamie˛ ci jako
zro
dło wiedzy o historii, kulturze i Zagładzie polskich Zyd
w, in: M.

ski (Eds), Tam był kiedy
s mo
j dom …
Adamczyk-Garbowska, A. Kopciowski, A. Trzcin
Ksie˛ gi pamie˛ ci gmin z_ ydowskich, Lublin, 2009, 11e86; also see A. Wein, Memorial
books as a source for research into the history of Jewish communities in Europe, Yad
Vashem Studies 9 (1973) 255e272; J. Kugelmass and J. Boyarin, Introduction, in: J.
Kugelmass and J. Boyarin (Eds), From a Ruined Garden: The Memorial Books of Polish
Jewry, second edition, Bloomington, 1993, 1e48. The newest bibliography of the
memorial books is to be found in A. Kopciowski (Ed.), Jewish Memorial Books: A
Bibliography, Lublin, 2008. Many of the books are available online at http://yizkor.
nypl.org. For the books partially translated into English see http://www.
jewishgen.org/yizkor/.
30
Data on shtiblekh are doubtless also to be found elsewhere, however a sys-
tematic search of this vast library of over seven hundred volumes, most of them
many pages long, would be neither possible nor effective.
31
The interview transcripts are stored in the Butler Library of Columbia Univer-
sity. I am grateful to Charles Nydorff and Robert H. Scott for their guidance and
assistance in accessing relevant pages of the interviews.
32
See Pinkas ha-kehilot Romania, 2 volumes, Jerusalem, 1969e1980; Pinkas ha-
kehilot Hungaria, Jerusalem, 1975; Pinkas ha-kehilot Polin, 8 volumes, Jerusalem,
1976e2006; Pinkas ha-kehilot Lita, Jerusalem, 1996; Pinkas ha-kehilot Slovakia, Je-
rusalem, 2003. Many thanks to Ilia Lurie for his assistance in excerpting these
books. For lists of subscribers see B. Kahan, Sefer ha-prenumerantn, New York, 1975;
S. Katsav, Sefer ha-hatumim, 3 volumes, Petah Tikva, 1986e1995. For online peri-
odicals see http://web.nli.org.il/sites/JPress/English. At the beginning of the twen-
tieth century the Hebrew press published numerous lists of donors to various
charitable causes, including numerous shtiblekh. For examples of other sources see,
for example, Y. Makover, Sefer ro'eh ne'eman, Jerusalem, 1990, 23e26; M. Herzog,
The Yiddish Language in Northern Poland, Bloomington, 1965. I have been helped
with supplementary information on shtiblekh in Volhynia by Vladimir Levin, for
which I am very grateful. I am grateful too to Daniel Reiser for information on the
stamps of Hasidic prayer rooms in books in the storage room of Hebrew printed
materials in Krako
w.
33
Given that the information on shtiblekh is often imprecise and on the whole
does not differentiate between ephemeral small groups and large groups several
hundred-strong, the database has been compiled so that dependent shtiblekh (ones
shared with another Hasidic group), or ones about which the sources are vague,
have been counted as a half, while those shtiblekh about which we have informa-
tion that in a given location they were dominant have been counted as two.

ski / Journal of Historical Geography 53 (2016) 63e74
M. Wodzin
to that many tsadikim or lines of tsadikim. The largest of the courts
(Ger) controlled 294 shtiblekh, the smallest had barely two. Given
that the object of the list is to define the relationship between
Hasidim far from the court and the Hasidic leadership, the list does
not take into account those tsadikim who had taken under their
wing just one shtibl in the location where they lived. For the same
reasons the list omits general Hasidic shtiblekh, that is ones where
all the Hasidim of a given location prayed, irrespective of which
tsadik they followed. Pan-Hasidic shtiblekh of this sort were com-
mon in areas where the influence of Hasidism was relatively slight
and there were too few followers of specific tsadikim to establish
separate shtiblekh for each court or dynasty. From shtiblekh
appearing on the lists of subscribers to Hebrew books, it would
appear that in Belarus and Lithuania ‘pan-Hasidic’ shtiblekh with no
attachment to any specific court accounted for almost 40% of all the
shtiblekh in those areas, while in Ukraine such ‘ecumenical’ shti-
blekh accounted for only 9%, in Galicia barely 4%, and in central
Poland as little as 2%.34
Although the list of 2854 shtiblekh is certainly far from complete, it
appears to be highly representative, at least for some regions.35 Un-
fortunately, the quality of the available sources and thus the repre-
sentativeness of the data varies greatly by region. The most important
source, the memorial books, provide a very good picture of central
Poland, a slightly poorer one of Galicia, Volhynia and Polesia, and a
very weak and unreliable one for Eastern Ukraine and Belarus, most of
Hungary and Romania (Maramuresz being the exception). This means
that the database is uneven and unfortunately hard to compare be-
tween specific areas. Thus, from the list we cannot draw clear con-
clusions on demography: where there were more and where there
were fewer shtiblekh, hence more or fewer Hasidim.36
It should be remembered too that the list is a far from accurate
reconstruction, even in those places where it is highly representative.
This is a function of the imminent complexity of Hasidism and the
nature of the sources, which do not always accurately ascribe a shtibl's
affiliation. Was the ‘Trisker shtibl’ in Lublin really home to the fol-
lowers of the tsadik of Trisk (Turzysk), or perhaps his son from Kazi-
mierz, or perhaps some of his descendants in Chełm, Warsaw or
Cze˛ stochowa who had retained the title of tsadik of Trisk? The sources
usually fail to provide an answer to this sort of question. Moreover, in
many cases assigning a shtibl to one of the major groups does not
definitively signify a connection with that group. For example, very
often shtiblekh belonging to various groups of the Sadagura dynasty
(Czortko
w, Husiatyn, Bojan, Buhuş) were called by the collective
name ‘Sadagorer shtibl’. We have a similar dilemma with the Habad
shtiblekh, which do not have to belong to the main Habad-Lubavitch
[Lubawicze] line, but might belong to one of the competing lines
(Lady, Kopy
s, Bobrujsk). The same is true of just about all the dy-
nasties. Despite these reservations the database provides us with
much valuable, reliable and representative information, insofar of
course as we know what to ask.
Table 1 shows all the courts with ten or more shtiblekh divided
into the five main provinces. The data require interpretation and I
suggest below three possible avenues of analysis in terms of the
34
See Kahan, Sefer ha-prenumerantn.
35
The Hasidic work Makover, Sefer ro'eh ne'eman, 23e26, contains a list of 114
Aleksandro
w shtiblekh retained in the collective memory of the Hasidim of this
dynasty, while my own list e drawn up using a completely different method e
contained 121, 70% of them in Makover's list. Similarly, Vladimir Levin, who on the
basis of a very detailed archival survey has gathered information on all the shtiblekh
in Volhynia, expanded my list of 169 shtiblekh by a further 48, in other words by
28%. I accept a 70% overlap as more than adequate.
36
See the summary of the debates on the demography of Hasidism and its
methodologies in M. Wodzin
ski, Historical demography of Hasidism: an outline,
Yearbook of International Religious Demography 2 (2015) 177e186.
67
internal boundaries of Hasidism, the Hasidic groups' internal hi-
erarchies, and the typology of their leadership.
Boundaries
The data in Table 1 have been presented divided into ‘five basic
provinces’, yet such a division is in no way obvious for at least two
reasons. First, the very concept of a geography of Hasidism has been
sharply criticized on several occasions.37 Critics have correctly
pointed out that the geographical spaces in which the various
tsadikim operated crossed political frontiers, that the followers of
the tsadikim came from various regions, that the epithets
commonly ascribed to Hasidim from the various regions (Lithua-
nian Hasidim as ‘scholarly’, Ukrainian as ‘common folk’) are simply
inaccurate, and that the names given to the contemporary Hasidic
courts do not designate an actual connection with specific places in
Eastern Europe. Secondly, the suggested boundaries of the divisions
are the political borders of Eastern Europe in the nineteenth cen-
tury, that is prior to 1918, whereas the overwhelmingly greatest
amount of data on shtiblekh comes from the inter-war period; thus
the accepted boundaries appear to be an anachronism (see Fig. 1).38
The material provides strong arguments against both of these
assertions. The boundaries of the Hasidic courts' spheres of influ-
ence indicate a strong correlation with the political borders of
nineteenth-century Eastern Europe. This is shown in Table 1 in the
column ‘concentration in the province’, which indicates how many
shtiblekh of a given court were located in the same nineteenth-
century province as the court with which they were affiliated.
The average for all shtiblekh here is 83%, and ranges from 68% for
Galicia and Bukovina to 95% for central Poland. With the exception
of several Galician courts, which had expanded into Hungarian
territories (hence still within the borders of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire), and several other dynasties with a specific history, just
about all the courts limited their influence to territory within the
borders of nineteenth-century political or administrative entities.
The durability of the phantom borders of nineteenth-century
Europe in the structure of the influence of inter-war Hasidism
points to the conservatism of the Hasidic movement in which
institutional change e as well as any other e came about very
slowly, usually over several generations. Even the cataclysm of the
Great War did not bring about any radical changes in this area,
although hundreds of tsadikim and thousands of their followers
migrated to distant regions.
On the other hand, this immutability also points to the power of
the borders of cultural influence created in the nineteenth century.
Twenty years after the political border between central Poland
(that is the former Kingdom of Poland) and Galicia was removed,
hardly any shtiblekh of tsadikim from central Poland were set up in
Galicia, nor those of tsadikim from Galicia on the territory of central
Poland. The same happened with all the other boundaries. This
provides a powerful argument in favor of the link between the
geography of Hasidism and political borders, and demonstrates
that the distinctive features differentiating Hasidism in Lithuania
and Galicia from central Poland or Ukraine should be sought not in
the doctrine, writings or lives of the tsadikim, but rather in features
of a general character applying to thousands of their followers. Such
features are institutional or cultural differences appearing in broad
37
For criticism of the notion of ‘Hasidic geography’ see A. Aescoly, Ha-hasidut be-
Polin, Jerusalem, 1998, 34e36; D. Assaf, Ha-hasidut be-hitpashtutah: deyokeno shel
r. Nehemia mi-Bihava ben ha-Yehudi ha-Kadosh, in: I. Bartal, C. Turniansky and E.
Mendelsohn (Eds), Ke-minhag Ashkenaz u-Polin, Jerusalem, 1993, 269e79; D. Assaf,
‘Hasidut Polin’ o ‘hasidut be-Polin’? Le-ve'ayat ha-geografiyah ha-hasidit, Gal-Ed 14
(1995) 197e206; Assaf and Sagiv, Hasidism in tsarist Russia.
38
See Wodzin
ski and Gellman, Towards a new geography of Hasidism, 183e186.
68
ski / Journal of Historical Geography 53 (2016) 63e74
M. Wodzin

Table 1
The influence of specific Hasidic courts calculated on the number of shtiblekh c.1900e1939.

Court No. of shtiblekh of a given court on the territory of: Concentration in the Share of shtiblekh in Distance
province provincea
Central Galicia Ukraine Belarus- Hungary- Other Together Meanb Median
Poland Lithuania Romania

Galicia and Bukovina

Bełz 20 87 4 9 1 121 72% 14% 151 119
Vijniţa [Vizhnits] 1 37 2 79 119 31% 14% 167 182
Sadagura 2 49 41 1 1 94 52% 11% 276 293
Czorko
w 4 59 6 1 3 73 81% 9% 199 155
Husiatyn
8 44 7 59 74% 7% 197 180
Nowy Sa˛ cz [Sanz] 4 25 4 1 34 75% 4% 149 127
Bojan 1 19 9 29 65% 3% 221 189
Koso
w 11 1 14 26 42% 3% 149 171
Bursztyn (Stratyn) 22 3 25 88% 3% 92 85
_
Zydacz o
w 19 6 25 76% 3% 112 93
Bobowa 23 1 24 96% 3% 86 93
_
Błazowa 17 17 100% 2% 78 56
Sieniawa 1 12 13 92% 2% 106 76
Dolina 2 1 9 12 17% 1% 116 129
Dziko
w 1 11 12 91% 1% 91 84
(Tarnobrzeg)
Ottynia 7 1 3 11 64% 1% 96 56
Dyno
w 11 11 100% 1% 50 50
Otherc 10 119 5 1 134 88% 16% 69 42
Total 52 571 77 129 835 68% 100% 154 121

Central Poland
Ger [Go
ra Kalwaria] 281 6 1 6 294 96% 24% 146 145
Aleksandro
w 159 2 2 2 165 96% 13% 145 148
Kock 64 3 7 74 86% 6% 152 143
Mszczono
w 46 46 100% 4% 112 103
[Amshinov]
Radzyn
37 5 3 45 82% 4% 131 141
Radomsko 32 9 1 42 76% 3% 119 97
Warka (Otwock) 37 37 100% 3% 110 107
Sochaczew 34 34 100% 3% 117 102
Radzymin 27 2 28 95% 2% 88 72
Kazimierz 26 2 28 93% 2% 134 135
Grodzisk 27 27 100% 2% 103 95
Skierniewice 27 27 100% 2% 96 78
Stryko
w 24 1 25 96% 2% 117 115
Lublin 22 22 100% 2% 99 96
Sokoło
w 21 1 21 98% 2% 135
Paryso
w 19 19 100% 2% 76 59
Biała 16 2 18 89% 1% 69 56
Kozienice 15 1 16 94% 1% 90 86
Ostrowiec 14 1 15 93% 1% 147 165
Che˛ ciny 12 12 100% 1% 66 50
Kromoło
w 10 2 12 83% 1% 43 40
Radoszyce 12 12 100% 1% 77 90
_
Modzyce (De˛ blin) 12 12 100% 1% 92 89
Mie˛ dzyrzec 10 10 100% 1% 53 37
Otherd 184 4 1 3 192 96% 16% 67 46
Total 1160 25 12 26 1226 95% 100% 117 108

Ukraine
Trisk [Turzysk] 34 78 4 115 68% 30% 151 134
Ołyka 37 37 100% 10% 98 87
Czarnobyl 24 2 2 28 85% 7% 244 203
Makaro
w 26 26 100% 7% 170 186
Talne 24 1 25 96% 6% 218 239
Stepan
1 20 1 22 91% 6% 115 81
_
Berezne 18 1 19 95% 5% 79 76
Skwira 18 18 100% 5% 156 149
Bracław 7 2 5 1 15 34% 4% 501 609
Hornostajpol 13 1 14 93% 3% 149 149
Niesuchojeze_ 9 1 10 90% 3% 63 61
[Nezhiz]
Othere 2 60 1 63 95% 16% 91 50
Total 41 5 329 13 389 85% 100% 154 123

Belarus and Lithuania

Lubawicze 4 2 19 77 5 106 72% 37% 475 430
Karlin-Stolin 2 37 24 63 38% 22% 186 177
Słonim 3 24 27 89% 9% 144 130
Kojdano
w 2 18 20 90% 7% 104 105

ski / Journal of Historical Geography 53 (2016) 63e74
M. Wodzin 69

Table 1 (continued )

Court No. of shtiblekh of a given court on the territory of: Concentration in the Share of shtiblekh in Distance
province provincea
Central Galicia Ukraine Belarus- Hungary- Other Together Meanb Median
Poland Lithuania Romania

Kobryn
3 11 14 79% 5% 116 93

Otherf 4 1 51 56 91% 20% 152 127
Total 11 2 62 201 5 286 70% 100% 273 196

Russia (Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine)

Total 52 6 391 213 7 675 90% 203 146

Hungary and Romania

Sighetu 52 52 100% 44% 48 30
pa
Sa ^nţa [Spinka] 39 39 100% 33% 75 64
Otherg 2 4 21 1 28 75% 24% 81 53
Total 2 4 112 119 94% 100% 73 53
Grand Total 1263 604 484 239 248 2854 83% 147 117
a
This column contains information on the percentage of shtiblekh belonging to the courts in that province and not on all the shtiblekh in that province.
b
The mean distance between a court and that court's stiblekh, adjusted for multiple, uncertain and dominant shtiblekh.
c
In Galicia and Bukovina the courts that had less then 10, but more than one shtibl were the following: Olesko, Rozwado
w (8), Saso

w, Strzeliska Nowe, Komarno,
Kopyczyn
ce (7), Nadwo
rna (6), Chrzano
w, Kołaczyce, Ropczyce, Wielopole, Rymano
w (5), Szczucin, Bukowsko (4), Czcho _

w, Gliniany, Grodzisko, Mielec, Połaniec, Zabno (3),
Delatyn, De˛ bica, Głogo
w, Grybo
w, Gwo
zdziec, Krako
w, Leowo, Mo
sciska, Nowy Wi
snicz, Przemy
sl, Przemy
slany, Rudnik, Rzeszo
w, Sambor, Struso
w, Tarno
w, Zaleszczyki,
_
Zmigr
d (2).
o
d
Parczew (9), Kołbiel (8), Piaseczno, Rozprza, Min
sk, Puławy (7), Gostynin, Kałuszyn, Pilica, Pin
czo

w, Przysucha, Zwolen _

, Zarki (6), Łomazy, Nowe Miasto, Łuko
w, Ozar
_ o
w-


Cmiel o _

w, Zychlin (5), Bychawa, Cze˛ stochowa, Tomaszo
w Lub., Zawiercie (4), Bełzyce,
_ Chełm, Ciechano
w, Lubarto
w, Przedbo
rz, Rejowiec, Suchednio
w, Włodawa, Wolbo
rz,
Wolbrom, Wołomin, Wyszko _

w (3), Zelech o
w, Biskupice, Błe˛ do

w, Kielce, Kutno, Lipsko, Markuszo
w, Płock, Serock, Siedlce, Szydło _

w, Turobin, Wa˛ chock, Zgierz, Zyrard
w (2).
o
e
Ostro
g, Zinko
w (9), Mie˛ dzybo
z_ (6), Raszko
w (5), Korosteszo
w, Rotmistrzo
wka (4), Maciejo
w, Monasteryszcze, Sawran
(3), Czeczelnik, Czerkasy, Kontakuzenka, Łuck,
Mirgorod, Rzyszczo
w, Sokoło
wka, Złotopol (2).
f
Kopy
s (9), Lady, Starosiele, Lachowicze, Lubieszo
w (7), Białystok (6), Jano

w (4), Brze
s
c, Dawidogro
dek (3), Bobrujsk, Domaczewo (2).
g
Karacsonfalva (Cr aciuneşti) (7), Szatma
r (6), Munk
acs (Muka cevo) (5), Buhuş (4), Ştef
aneşti (3), Borşa, Trebusany (2).

social structures, just like the network of shtiblekh discussed here,
but also socio-economic status, networks of economic cooperation,
or the inclusion and exclusion of various social groups, especially
women and paupers.39
At the same time we should see the unchanging nature of inter-
war Hasidism's borders as a sign of its crisis. Although we do not
know the precise dimensions of the phenomenon, Hasidism was
experiencing at that time an outflux of followers, and a sense of
crisis and danger was widespread.40 A natural consequence of this
was the fact that between the wars shtiblekh were usually being
closed down rather than founded, and there was scant opportunity
to set up new shtiblekh for newly-forming groups, and therefore for
changes in the pre-war boundaries of influence in the geography of
shtiblekh. This explains the relatively weak visibility of the groups
that were then intensively developing, such as Bobowa, Piaseczno
or Radomsko. Their influence is not reflected in a significant num-
ber of identifiable shtiblekh because they either infiltrated existing
prayer houses (which retained their old names) or, sometimes,
entirely took them over, but only rarely did they establish new ones.
Hierarchy
The other rather obvious observation emerging from Table 1 is the
hierarchy of influence, which is relevant insofar as it allows a better
understanding of the social-political processes occurring within the
Hasidic community in twentieth-century Eastern Europe, both at
the micro level of specific Jewish local communities as well as at the
39
On differences in social status see below. On differences between Galicia and
central Poland in the degree of exclusion of women see M. Wodzin
ski, Women and
Hasidism: a ‘non-sectarian’ perspective, Jewish History 27 (2013) 409e412.
40
On the crisis of interwar Hasidism see M. Herman, Ha-yahas li-venei no‘ar ba-
hasidut be-tekufah she-beyn milhamot ha-‘olam: ha-hidushim ha-hagutayim ve-
ha-ma‘asiyim be-hasidut Polin li-venei ha-no‘ar ki-teguvah le-azivat ha-dat
1914e1939, unpublished PhD dissertation, Bar Ilan University, 2014. On the de-
mographic dimension of the crisis see M. Wodzin
ski, War and religion, or, how the
First World War changed Hasidism, Jewish Quarterly Review 106 (2016)
forthcoming.
macro level of entire countries. Owing to the previously mentioned
uneven nature of the sources, it is impossible to establish an overall
hierarchy of influence for the whole of Eastern Europe. However we
can outline the hierarchy within the five provinces mentioned, and
thus within the borders beyond which the influence of specific
Hasidic groups usually did not extend.
The column ‘Share of shtiblekh in province’ presents the hier-
archy of courts as measured by the percentage of shtiblekh recog-
nizing the authority of a given court, compared to the related
number of shtiblekh ‘belonging’ to all the courts of a province (N.B.
not compared to all the shtiblekh in a province). From these figures
it is clear that in central Poland the dominant group was Ger, with
Aleksandro
w as its closest competitor. Competition between these
two groups is also evident in narrative sources, while both groups'
ethos was to a great extent formed by this rivalry.41
The hierarchy and the relationship between the dominant
groups in Belarus/Lithuania was similar. Habad-Lubavitch had the
greatest influence, closely followed by Karlin-Stolin and, less
effectively, Słonim. Interestingly, insofar as the influences of Ger
and Aleksandro
w were spread more or less evenly throughout
central Poland, then in the case of the Belarusian/Lithuanian courts
we can observe territorial specialization: the Lubavitch shtiblekh
were concentrated in eastern Belarus and Lithuania (Vitebsk,
Minsk, Wilno), the Słonim shtiblekh were to be found more or less
exclusively in the southern part of Wilno territory and the northern
part of Polesia, with the Karlin-Stolin shtiblekh in the southern part
of Polesia and the northern part of Volhynia. Their spheres of in-
fluence hardly overlapped. This pattern seems to correlate closely
with the location of the courts: Lubavitch in eastern Belarus, Słonim
in northern and Stolin in southern Polesia (see Fig. 1).
In Galicia and Bukovina the two groups with the largest number
41
See D. Schreiber, Gava tura beynenu: mahloket Gur-Aleksander ve-hashpa‘atah
‘al hasidut Polin bi-tehilat ha-me'ah ha-‘esrim, Zion 79 (2014) 175e199; for
memoirist sources see especially Y.Y. Trunk, Poyln: zikhroynes un bilder, New York,
1944, volume 3, 19e24; Seyfer Pabianits; izker-bukh fun der farpaynikter kehile, A.W.
Jasni (Ed.), Tel-Aviv, 1956, 86e87.
 Fig. 1. Hasidic courts in Eastern Europe, c.1900e1939.
of shtiblekh were Bełz and Vijniţa [Vizhnits] (whose shtiblekh were
located mainly in Hungary). However, we have to adjust the hier-
archy here. The three main groups next in order were Sadagura,
Czortko
w and Husiatyn
, together with Bojan and a few smaller
groups also belonging to the single Friedman dynasty of Sadagura.
All these groups together controlled 32% of the Galician shtiblekh,
hence they were the dominant dynasty. This leads us to look at
more complicated scenarios of territorial expansion than the nu-
clear model hitherto examined. A careful analysis of the distribu-
tion of shtiblekh shows that there was a clear territorial division
between this dynasty's groups: the influence of the tsadik of
Sadagura extended throughout the whole of eastern Galicia and
Bukovina, and also the Russian regions of Volhynia and Podolia; the
tsadik of Czortko
w had shtiblekh in the central band of eastern and

had them in the narrow band
central Galicia; the tsadik of Husiatyn
along the north-eastern border of Galicia; and those of the tsadik
from Bojan were in Bessarabia and central Galicia.42
The expansion and hierarchy of the courts in Ukraine appears
to be close to the Galician model with the domination of a single
42
zyn
For the Friedman dynasty see Assaf, The Regal Way. Tsadik David of Ro _ fled in
1842 from Russia to Austria and over the next few decades the dynasty showed
signs of activity in both Russia and Austria, making a special case of cross-border
expansion.

ski / Journal of Historical Geography 53 (2016) 63e74
M. Wodzin
dynasty, in this case Twersky (Trisk, Czarnobyl, Makaro
w,
Talne, Skwira).43 However, here the analysis of an eventual ter-
ritorial division of Ukraine between the tsadikim of this dynasty
is difficult, both on account of the poor quality of the data and,
especially, the scale of the destruction of Hasidism there as a
result of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet persecution of
religious life.44
All in all we can speak of a nuclear and dynastic model of the
Hasidic groups' expansion, although of course it should be
remembered that these models rarely existed in their purest
form and are more of a typological abstraction rather than
empirically defined structures of leadership and territorial
expansion. In addition, the dynastic model was not restricted to
Galicia and Ukraine. In central Poland it was represented by, for
instance, the dynasties of Przysucha (in Table 1 the courts of
Biała, Paryso
w, Mie˛ dzyrzec and lesser ones), of Kock (Kock,
Sokoło
w, Puławy) and of Warka (Warka-Otwock, Mszczono
w,
Skierniewice).
Significantly, the groups' hierarchy in each of the areas studied is
consistent with a Pareto distribution. In other words they display an
exponential distribution in which the values are disproportionately
concentrated: two main groups (or dynasties) dominate about half
the shtiblekh in an area, then two or three groups contain a further
25% of the shtiblekh, 20% of the groups contain almost 80% of the
shtiblekh, and half of all the groups include 90% of all the shtiblekh.
This allows us to divide the groups into several categories: from the
dominant (in central Poland they were Ger and Aleksandro
w), by
way of the medium-sized courts (such as Kock, Radomsko,
Sochaczew), the small ones (Che˛ ciny, Kromoło
w, Mie˛ dzyrzec), right
down to the ephemeral courts with only a few shtiblekh and min-
imal influence. The last group is the largest, but it also controls the
smallest number of shtiblekh.
The typology of leadership
Apart from the Hasidic groups' place in the hierarchy, the number
of shtiblekh affiliated with a given tsadik also provides indirect in-
formation on the type of leadership exerted by that tsadik. This is a
fundamental issue for Hasidic spirituality, within which the tsadik
was the axis mundi, the focal point of devotion and of Hasidic
religious, social and cultural life. Of course this does not mean that
factors other than the size of the group did not affect the type of
leadership. The situation was very much more complex, and
Hasidic leadership can be legitimately typologized using different
parameters.45 Nevertheless, it appears that the number of shtiblekh
e and thus followers e affiliated with a given court had to have
43
On the Twersky dynasty and their strategies of expansions see Sagiv, Ha-
shoshelet, 142e171. See also D. Assaf, Untold Tales of the Hasidim: Crisis and
Discontent in the History of Hasidism, Hanover, 2010, 128e137.
44
On anti-religious Soviet activities and Jewish resistance see D.E. Fishman, Pre-
serving tradition in the land of revolution: the religious leadership of Soviet Jewry,
1917e1930, in: J. Wertheimer (Ed.), The Uses of Tradition, New York, 1992, 85e118;
S.D. Levin, Toledot habad be-Rusyah ha-sovyetit: 1918e1950, New York, 1989.
45
See A. Green, Typologies of leadership and the Hasidic zaddiq, in: A. Green (Ed.),
Jewish Spirituality, New York, 1986e1987, volume 2, 127e156; Etkes, The zaddik; J.
Weiss, Mystical Hasidism and the Hasidism of faith: a typological analysis, in: S.
Magid (Ed.), God's Voice from the Void: Old and New Studies in Bratslav Hasidism,
Albany, 2002, 277e285; H. Pedaya, Ha-ba'al shem tov, r. Ya'akov mi-Polnoya, ve-ha-
Magid mi-Mezritch: kavei yesod legishah tipologit datit, Daat 45 (2000) 25e73; U.
Gellman, Ha-hasidut be-polin ba-mahatsit ha-rishonah shel ha-me'ah ha-tesha-
esreh: tipologiot shel manhigut ve-edah, unpublished PhD dissertation, Hebrew
University, 2011; T. Kaufmann, ‘Mashkemo u-ma'ale: Tipologiah shel tsadik be-
toratav shel r. Avraham ha-malakh, Kabbalah 33 (2015) 239e272. The typologies
of Hasidic leadership did not refer to the most general typologies of religious
leadership, as developed in Weber, The Sociology of Religion and J. Wach, Sociology of
Religion, Chicago, 1944.
71
been one of the key parameters defining the type of relationship it
had with its followers, and thus provides an additional useful tool
for a typology of religious leadership.
For a proper grasp of this relationship it is necessary to examine
yet another parameter, the distances between courts and shtiblekh,
as shown by the ‘Distance’ columns in Table 1.46 The relationship
between the number of shtiblekh and the mean distance is shown in
Fig. 2, whose smoothed mean plots the development of medium
relationships between these two parameters: the greater the group
(i.e. the greater number of shtiblekh), the greater the average dis-
tance between a court and the shtiblekh, which naturally have to be
distributed over a greater area.47
This size-distance relationship has further implications, in line
with the general typologies of distant leadership: the greater the
number of shtiblekh and the greater the physical distance, the
greater the social and emotional distance between the Hasidim and
the tsadik.48 This was seen most clearly at the courts listed above as
dominant, where the tsadikim exerted mass leadership. As we
know from numerous accounts, they attracted thousands of fol-
lowers and in the twentieth century even tens of thousands, and
this mass dimension, and thus the power of the group, was one of
the sources of pride and group identity for their followers. The
inevitable cost, however, was that contact between the tsadikim
and the overwhelming majority of the Hasidim visiting them had to
be minimal.49 Among the thousands of followers of the tsadikim of
Ger or Bełz, a huge majority never spent more than a few holy days
at their courts (always in the company of thousands of other
faithful), never studied with them and never had any more
meaningful personal contact. And the tsadik did not know most of
his followers, or knew them only superficially.50 Of course, the
degree of contact between the tsadik and his court varied. The e
lite
core of a group e the scholars, the rabbis, the wealthy e came into
close contact with the tsadik. The great majority of followers was,
however, continually deprived of such contact. This sometimes led
to tension, when, for example, showing too obvious favoritism to-
wards the wealthy undermined the ideological egalitarianism of
Hasidism.51 More often, however, it seems to have created substi-
tute forms of religious experience. In the case of the dynasties of
Sadagura and Czarnobyl this could be the ostentatious lavishness
with which the tsadikim of these dynasties surrounded them-
selves.52 In the case of Ger it could be an emphasis on independent
Talmudic studies, acquired in shtiblekh far from the tsadik.53 The
tsadikim of Lubavitch developed a network of intermediaries
46
Although the mean and the median distance appear to be a significant measure
we should bear in mind that, owing to the incomplete nature of the data, this can
be a misleading parameter, especially for the smallest courts. Furthermore, as a
result of the changes of the Great War the courts of some tsadikim were no longer to
be found where their names would suggest. Each case needs to be verified
historically.
47
Of course this is limited by the general distance decay effect: the further the
distance, the proportionately smaller the number of Hasidim willing to travel to the
tsadik. The mean plot follows the logarithmic regression model.
48
See J. Antonakis and L. Atwater, Leader distance: a review and a proposed
theory, Leadership Quarterly 13 (2002) 673e704.
49
See, for example, A. Ruppin, Pirkei hayai, Tel-Aviv, 1944, volume 1, 217e219.
50
The memorial book wrote of the minor tsadik of Saso
w (7 shtiblekh e 0.8% of
the shtiblekh in Galicia and Bukovina) that his distinguishing feature was that he
‘had an extraordinary memory and remembered [even] the names of his Hasidim
who came to him only rarely’, see Sefer Oshpitsin, H. Volnerman, A. Burshtin, S.
Geshuri (Eds), Jerusalem, 1977, 95.
51
See, for example, Leo Baeck Institute Archives, MM93, 160e161.
52
On the so-called regal way and its religious significance see Assaf, The Regal
Way, 212e225.
53
See, for example, Sefer yizkor shel kehilat Dzialoshits ve-ha-sevivah, Tel-Aviv,
1973, 195e196; Sefer Ripin, S. Kants (Ed.), Tel-Aviv, 1962, 157; Izker-bukh Gni-
voshov, D. Shtokfish (Ed.), Tel-Aviv, 1971, 67.
72
ski / Journal of Historical Geography 53 (2016) 63e74
M. Wodzin
Fig. 2. Number of shtiblekh and mean distance between shtiblekh and courts, 1900e1939.
between the tsadik and his followers.54 To be sure, it is reductive to
identify these courts with their one most stereotypical feature.
There is also no strong evidence that these features developed as
substitute forms of religious experience or that they developed in
response to the crisis of personal encounter. Still, the importance
invested in non-personal forms of religious experience at those
largest courts allows us to consider such a possibility.
The tsadikim themselves were certainly aware of the alienating
effect of success. Shneur Zalman of Lady e one of the most famous
tsadikim of the beginning of the nineteenth century, to whom
hundreds of followers made pilgrimages e taught his Hasidim how
to limit the number of visits to court and how to develop an in-
dependent spiritual life without the need for pilgrimages.55 Hasidic
literature often told too of the frustrations of the most celebrated
nineteenth-century tsadikim pestered by the visits of thousands of
followers and of their longing for the lost intimacy of small religious
groups.56
At the other extreme e both in terms of numbers of shtiblekh,
average distances between a court and a shtibl, as well as the type of
leadership e were the ephemeral courts mentioned earlier, those
with two or three shtiblekh. In our sample such courts controlled 6%
54
On the emissaries and their role in Habad see S.C. Heilman and M. Friedman,
The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Scheersohn, Princeton, 2010.
See also the popular, but very instructive, S. Fishkoff, The Rebbe's Army, New York,
2003. On historical developments see I. Lurie, Edah u-medinah: Hasidut habad ba-
’imperiah ha-Rusit 5588e5643, Jerusalem, 2006, 43e47.
55
Anti-Hasidic writer Josef Perl (1773e1839) spoke of upwards of eighty thou-
sand devotees of Shneur Zalman, see J. Perl, Uiber das Wesen der Sekte Chassidim, A.
Rubinstein (Ed.), Jerusalem, 1977, 122. A more reliable contemporary witness spoke
of more than two hundred visitors, ‘and maybe more than a thousand’, while yet
another Hasid saw more than six hundred pilgrims at that same court. See Y.
Mondshine, Ha-ma'asar ha-rishon, Jerusalem, 2012, 124e125, 150e151. On the in-
struction see I. Etkes, Darko shel rabi Shneur Zalman mi-Lady ke-manhig shel ha-
sidim, Zion 50 (1995) 334e41; N. Loewenthal, Communicating the Infinite: The
Emergence of the Habad School, Chicago, 1990, 47e48.
56
d

See, for example, Y. Kim Kadish, Siah sarfei kodesh, Ło z, 1928, volume 1, 18, 25.
of all the shtiblekh, though their real share was probably greater.57
In their case there was no difference between Hasidic experience at
a tsadik's court and the life of Hasidim far from the court, for the
court was also a shtibl, where all religious needs of the followers
were met, or it was at most a few kilometres away.
A spectrum of medium-sized groups existed between these two
extremes. Courts with fewer shtiblekh than in the dominant courts,
but with similarly high average distances form a diverse group
composed of two subsets. One of these was regressive groups, such
as Kock or Warka-Otwock which historically were dominant
groups, but had lost this position, though their shtiblekh continued
to be scattered over a large area formerly under their dominion. The
other subset (for example, Ostrowiec) was courts which from the
start had applied an alternative leadership model in which the
position of the tsadik was not based on an intimate relationship
with the nearest Hasidim, but rather on the scholar's, mystic's or
miracle worker's national fame.58
Another type was regional courts having an average number of
shtiblekh and with average or low distances. These courts' shtiblekh
were as a rule concentrated in a quite small area, such as
Kojdano
w's shtiblekh in the Wilno region, or Berezne's
_ in eastern
Volhynia, or Biała's in Podlasie. A good example is the court in
Bobowa which controlled only 0.8% of all shtiblekh known to us.
This meant that in Galicia it controlled the insignificant figure of
3.8% of the shtiblekh. However, in Krako
w region, in which most of
them lay, it controlled 16%, which in relationship to the dispersion
of the remaining groups made it a dominant court there, and in
some districts a total hegemon.
A similar model, although on a still smaller scale, was provided
57
Firstly, the database does not list single shtibl groups (as explained above), and
secondly the ephemeral groups were the easiest to forget or ignore, thus were
certainly underrepresented in the memorial books.
58
On Meir Yehiel Halshtok of Ostrowiec, famous for his intellectual sharpness and
ascetic practices, see M. Grosman, Zikhroynes fun Ostrovtse, in: Ostrovtse, Buenos
Aires, 1949, 43e44.

ski / Journal of Historical Geography 53 (2016) 63e74
M. Wodzin
by local, or district, courts, whose radius of influence was limited to
one or two districts, but in that area had an influence similar to the
national influence of dominant groups, or of regional groups. The
Galician court of Błazowa_ had in total just as many shtiblekh as
Bobowa, but they were concentrated in a very small area around
Rzeszo
w district, where it was the dominant group.59 Similarly,
among the twenty-three shtiblekh in Garwolin district the largest
number belonged to the local court in Paryso
w, while in Be˛ dzin
district (forty-eight shtiblekh) the regional Radomsko court suc-
cessfully competed with Ger for dominance (seven each), as did the
local Kromoło
w court (five). Over the whole of Eastern Europe,
divided for computational purposes into squares with sides of
thirty-five kilometres (which approximated the average size of a
district), and calculating the courts with the greatest number of
shtiblekh within them, in more than half of those squares primacy
did not lie with any of the dominant groups (Ger, Aleksandro
w and
so on), in 30% of them the groups with local or regional reach
dominated, and in 20% of the squares no group achieved domi-
nance at all.60
This reveals a key distinction between dominant national courts
and regional and local ones, whose territorial limitations should not
be seen as a relative weakness, but as an example of another model
of territorial expansion and leadership. In those groups in which
shtiblekh lay within a radius of thirty or forty kilometres from the
court, almost every Hasid was able to reach his tsadik's court many
times a year, even on foot, to spend the Sabbath or a feast day there.
He was recognized there and he was in close, intimate contact with
his spiritual leader. Numerous memoirs emphasize precisely this
type of interpersonal relationship e radically different from that at
dominant courts e and the warm, intimate atmosphere of small
Hasidic groups.61 The tsadik of Pin
czo

w (six shtiblekh and a median
distance of twenty-six kilometres) made it a point of knowing all
his Hasidim well and having an intimate atmosphere at his court,
while the tsadik of Wa˛ chock (two shtiblekh, a median distance of
four kilometres) certainly gathered all his Hasidim, the local
craftsmen and workers, for a Sabbath meal every week.62
The relationship between the size of a group and the distance
between a tsadik and a Hasid differs in each of these models. But it
did not diminish the leadership potential of any of them. Research
into charismatic leadership confirms that leadership charisma can
be developed on the basis of great physical and social distance and
low interaction (as in Ger), just as well as on close social relations
and intense interaction (as in Wa˛ chock).63 But there are important
differences between the two. In this sense the results of the above
analysis confirm Boas Shamir's theory of the fundamental differ-
ence between distant charismatic leadership and close charismatic
leadership.64 At the same time, however, they demonstrate that
this is not a binary opposition, but rather that there was a full
spectrum from distant charismatic leadership at the great domi-
nant courts of Ger or Lubavitch through many intermediate forms
down to small ephemeral groupings. This forces us not only to
59
See, for example, Sefer Pshemishl, A. Mencher (Ed.), Tel-Aviv, 1964, 141; Sanok;
sefer zikaron, 103e108.
60
I am grateful to Waldemar Spallek for his assistance in mapping these courts
within computational squares.
61
On the lesser dynasty of Horodok see Pinsk; sefer edut ve-zikaron li-kehilat Pinsk-
Karlin, Z. Rabinowicz and N. Tamir (Mirski) (Eds), Tel-Aviv, 1966, volume 1,
352e353; on the tsadik of Opoczno see Sefer Pshitik: matsevet-zikaron li-kehilah
yehudit, D. Shtokfish (Ed.), Tel-Aviv, 1973, 45.
62
czo
For Pin
w see Undzer shtot Volbrom, M.S. Geshuri (Ed.), Tel-Aviv, 1962, 197; for
Wa˛ chock see Sefer Virzbnik-Starakhovits, M. Shutsman (Ed.), Tel-Aviv, 1973, 44.
63
B. Shamir, Social distance and charisma: theoretical notes and an exploratory
study, The Leadership Quarterly 6 (1995) 19e47.
64
Shamir, Social distance and charisma.
73
examine Hasidic leadership as more complex than it would appear
from the binary typology hitherto employed, but also provides a
useful tool allowing us to attempt to quantify these typological
differences.
Wealth
What is more, the same size-distance correlation proves useful in
analyzing other distinctive features of the status, ethos or self-
perception of various Hasidic groups. A good example is their
economic status. Many memorial books indicate that some Hasidic
groups were commonly considered wealthier while others were
seen as poor, and there is a pattern in it: wealthy Hasidim regularly
gathered around large dynasties, while smaller courts attracted the
poorer.65 In Belarusian Telechany, for example, the Hasidim were
described as divided into the followers of the tsadik of Stolin who
were rich businessmen, the followers of the middle-rank tsadik of
Lubieszo
w who were middle class, and the followers of the local
tsadik of Jano
w Poleski who were complete paupers.66 We lack hard
statistical data to prove it and there is the possibility of distortions
and misperceptions in these popular attributions, projecting the
wealth of the dynasty on the wealth of its followers for example.
But even if this were only images or self-images of the groups, this
would be an important indicator of the interdependence between
the size-distance and imagined groups' status.
Still, testimonies are consistent enough to suggest the percep-
tion did reflect, even if imperfectly, the economic reality behind it.
How then to explain it? A modified rational choice theory might be
of use here. As explained above, the contact between the lesser
tsadikim and their followers did not require much effort, as they
usually clustered in the immediate vicinity of their courts. In
contrast, the great courts had their followers scattered over whole
countries, which involved high costs in maintaining ties with the
tsadik, both the material cost of transportation and the emotional
cost of intermittent contact. At the same time, it was precisely this
burden which was a key mechanism in maintaining the commun-
ity's high effectiveness by weeding out ‘free-riders’, individuals
unwilling to invest any major effort in group relations.67 Those who
remained were highly motivated and able to invest a lot, including
in financial terms. Additionally, such a court might not have pro-
vided intimate religious experience, but it did provide extensive
contacts with numerous highly committed coreligionists scattered
widely throughout the country. In commercial circles this provided
a real added value. In other words, precisely because of the high
distances between the court and its followers membership in such
a community required a real investment, but also produced a high
return.
There are certainly other correlations between size-distance and
status, ethos, self-perception or other characteristics of various
Hasidic groups. This size-wealth correlation simply signals the
possibility of further investigations.
Conclusions
These sorts of typologies of Hasidic religious groups will not replace
65
For an analysis and evidence see M. Wodzin
ski, The socio-economic profile of a
religious movement: the case of Hasidism, European History Quarterly (2016),
forthcoming.
66
Telekhan, S. Sekuler (Ed.), Los Angeles, 1963, 144.
67
See L.R. Iannaccone, Why strict churches are strong, American Journal of Soci-
ology 99 (1994) 1184e1189. See also L.R. Iannaccone, Sacrifice and stigma: reducing
free-riding in cults, communes, and other collectives, Journal of Political Economy
100 (1992) 271e297; R. Stark and R. Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side
of Religion, Berkeley, 2000, 22.
74
ski / Journal of Historical Geography 53 (2016) 63e74
M. Wodzin
detailed research into the specific history of each of the groups
examined. For instance, the group of Bracław Hasidim had one of
the highest average distances between the ‘court’ and the shtiblekh,
despite the low number of shtiblekh (see Table 1). But this was the
only group without a real live tsadik, and thus also without a centre
in Bracław, or anywhere else. Furthermore, the persecution of the
Bracław Hasidim by other Ukrainian Hasidic groups, and later So-
viet anti-religious policies, meant that in the inter-war years the
overwhelming majority of Bracław Hasidim lived in central Poland,
and not in eastern Ukraine.68 In this way the group falls outside the
typology mentioned above and creates its own, unique group
which we could call transterritorial. Fig. 2 also illustrates several
more atypical places e Lubavitch, Sadagura, Spinka [Sa p ^
anţa],
Sighet e with radically different, higher or lower, parameters. Each
one of them would require a separate study. Nevertheless, relating
those specific courts to an average allows us to establish with a fair
degree of accuracy the type to which they belong. It also allows us
to pinpoint the courts that radically differ from the average and do
not follow general tendencies and then e through specific analysis
of the history of these groups e to identify factors disrupting the
general trends and thus to understand these general trends still
further. Thus, independently of the individual character of each
such story, and also independently of the database's limitations, the
analysis presented above allows us to draw a number of conclu-
sions both about Hasidism and about the more general relationship
between a religious centre and its periphery.
Above all, Hasidism created a highly effective religious institu-
tion at the level of the local community, which served both to fulfil
the daily religious needs of the Hasidim, effectively strengthened
their social ties within the shtibl and with the other group members
in other towns, maintained the link with the court and served as an
effective propaganda tool. The networks of these shtiblekh became
the basic structure for the influence of Hasidic courts beyond their
domain, while their number and geographical distribution allow us
to establish some basic characteristics of these groups. One of these
characteristics was the enduring quality of nineteenth-century
political borders, indicating cultural and social divisions which
remained unchanged in inter-war Hasidism. At the same time, the
number and geographical distribution of shtiblekh define with
some precision the type of geographical expansion practiced at that
court: from dominant courts, by way of regressive, regional and
local ones down to ephemeral courts. What, however, is more
important is that these same parameters are a valid indicator
allowing us to establish the type of religious leadership exerted by a
given court. The differences between the small courts and the large
ones were not necessarily the result of the lesser or greater success
of their religious message (although in some cases that was
possible), but rather of the leadership strategies selected by them,
defined by the level of their contacts, or by the size of the group
participating in religious rituals.
The case of the spatial distribution of Hasidic prayer houses also
68
On persecutions of the Bracław Hasidim in the Ukraine see Assaf, Untold Tales,
120e153. On Bracław Hasidism in the inter-war period see D. Halhamai, Si'ah tsa-
dikim, Jerusalem, 1981, 106e115; M. Piekarz, Hasidut Polin, Jerusalem, 1990,
240e241.
provides an indication of possible new research into historical ge-
ographies of religion more generally. First, it clearly demonstrates
that rich and valuable historical resources still exist and, with the
advent of digital humanities, might be available to hand. I would
even suggest that the further beyond the standard sources the
historical geography of religion reaches, the better results it might
expect. Moreover, the case analyzed above indicates that the mar-
riage between historical geographies of religion and the digital
humanities might be equally profitable for both parties. For the
former, it boosts its source basis. For the latter, it provides a way out
of a much-debated crisis by proving that it does not have to be
merely a provider of tools.69
Second, even the very rough and imprecise data that we possess
now hint at the possibilities of tracing quite nuanced phenomena,
as exemplified by the correlations demonstrated above between
the size, wealth and type of leadership or, indeed, the very insti-
tutional nature of a religious group.
Third, it indicates that meso-scale research into the internal
diversity of religious beliefs, groups, sects and movements can shed
much new light on the geography of religious life, past and present,
in its real, human dimension. In fact, only by going below the
macro-scale of Eastern European Judaism into the specific religious
movement of Hasidism have we been able to trace the dynamics of
boundary formation, hierarchies and leader-follower relationships.
There is no reason not to extend that analysis to the comparative
study of medieval Cistercians, the eighteenth-century Pietistic
awakening, or nineteenth-century roadside Hindu shrines. This
might open the field to a successful comparative study of religious
space and place where the interests of the geography, sociology and
history of religions meet.
Acknowledgements
I owe words of thanks to Anna Kałuzna, _ Vladimir Levin, Ilia Lurie,
Charles Nydorff, Daniel Reiser, and Robert H. Scott who assisted me
in gathering data for his article. I am also grateful to Piotr Wnuk-

ski, Wrocław University, for his statistical consultations and
Lipin
assistance in presenting the data in the chart. Many thanks to Jarek

ski for translating parts of the text and Waldemar Spallek for
Garlin
preparing the map. I would further like to thank two anonymous
reviewers and the editor of Journal of Historical Geography Miles
Ogborn for their most helpful comments and suggestions. Funding
for this research was received from the Ministry of Science and
Higher Education, Republic of Poland (No 11H 12 0290 81), within
the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities,
2013e2018.
Marcin Wodzin
ski is professor of Jewish history and literature at the University of
Wrocław, Poland. His special fields of interest are Jewish material culture and the social
history of Jews in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe, especially the history of Hasi-
dism and Haskalah.
69
On the prospects of digital humanities in historical research see J. Guldi and D.
Armitage, The History Manifesto, Cambridge, 2014, 88e116. For the major and in my
opinion much deserved criticism of the contemporary development of digital hu-
manities see R. Grusin, The dark side of digital humanities, Differences 25 (2014)
79e92.