A rabbi‐informer and the Hasidim of Będzin. Dimensions of Hasidic politics

Abstract

This study analyses the interplay between the high and the low, or local, level of Hasidic political engagement, an important matter, that has been so far neglected. The best‐known actions of Hasidic shtadlanim (political intercessors), such as interventions by Rabbi Isaac of Warka or Rabbi Menehem Mendel Schneersohn, occurred at the highest state levels, and attempted to influence regulations of a general nature. This portrays Hasidic politics as being chiefly engaged in solving general problems for the whole Jewish community. Nevertheless, it is not unreasonable to suppose that significant sections of Hasidic politics were not concerned with general issues at state level, but rather, with small local conflicts and individual problems. Thus, seeking to find similarities and links between Hasidic macro politics and local community politics appears to constitute a legitimate question. Were these local activities in any way connected or dependent on wider national politics? Did any structural similarities exist between them and, if so, what was their source? What implications did this have on the relations between the leaders and community in a non‐democratic political system such as the Kingdom of Poland? The article discusses an episode from Będzin, a medium‐sized town in the south of the Congress Kingdom, where the local Hasidic group clashed with the communal rabbi‐informer, Hersz Rozynes. The detailed analysis of the case demonstrates that in a highly bureaucratised and centralised state, there were no political undertakings that could be classified as purely local. Every intervention in a local matter required state‐level competences and triggered administrative procedures reaching far into the central government. This made local, communal politics dependent upon state‐level professional intercessors, and so paved the way to the increasing professionalisation of Hasidic – and more generally Jewish – politics in the course of the nineteenth century.

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