Hasidism after 1772: Structural Continuity and Change

This chapter addresses hasidism after 1772. The year 1772 is generally regarded as a critical one, or at least an important turning point, in the history of hasidism. Three decisive events took place in that year which altered both the ideological and the organizational course on which the movement had originally embarked. The spring brought with it the first outbreak of bitter hostilities between the mitnaggedim and the hasidim in Vilna, whence the dispute quickly spread to other Jewish communities in Lithuania and Galicia. During the summer months, Belorussia was annexed to Russia, and Galicia to Austria, in the first partition of the disintegrating kingdom of Poland; as a result, parts of the Jewish (and hasidic) community in Poland which until then had formed a single cultural and political entity found themselves arbitrarily separated. At the end of the year, in December, the supreme leader of hasidism, R. Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezhirech, died without leaving an ‘heir’ to take charge of the movement in his place.