A Precursor To New Square: A Shabbat Story Of Hasidic Violence

People tend to view hasidic history as if it were the movie version of Fiddler on the Roof, full of dancing hasidim, camaraderie and love. Instead, hasidic life was often filled with drunken brawls and mob violence, so much so that the Russian government had to issue a decree to control it – and to control a relative of today's Skvere Rebbe (pictured at right), also named David Twersky.

 

People – especially Jewish Renewal, Reform and kiruv (outreach) rabbis – like to tell hasidic stories, often based on incidents that allegedly happened to various hasidic rabbis when traveling. These stories are arguably more popular in those communities than in some of the hasidic communities themselves.

What  follows is one of those stories told by a left-leaning Modern Orthodox rabbi, followed by the true story behind it this rabbi isn't telling you – a story of blood and violence, or war and greed, of mob violence and mesira (informing) of the worst kind.

Ladies and gentlemen, a hasidic tale followed by its true context to tell at your Shabbat tables and kiddush clubs:

The Tisch: A rebbe on the road
Rabbi David Twersky of Tolne once traveled to spend Shabbat with Rabbi Avraham Yaakov Friedman of Sadigora.
By LEVI COOPER • Jerusalem Post

Rabbi David Twersky of Tolne (1808-1882) once traveled to spend Shabbat with Rabbi Avraham Yaakov Friedman of Sadigora (1820-1883). The Sadigora Rebbe accorded great respect to his older colleague and even invited the Tolne Rebbe to lead the Friday night tisch.

The Tolne Rebbe was known for his unassuming humility, but the hassidim were surprised when the guest turned to them at the tisch and inquired: “How much does a horse cost here?” The rebbe continued with such questions, and the hassidim responded politely while wondering to themselves whether they had gathered for mere idle conversation instead of spiritual inspiration.

The Sadigora Hassidim decided that they would approach their own master in the morning and request that he lead the next tisch, rather than allow the guest to ask senseless questions. Alas, when the Sadigora Rebbe arrived in the morning, he was accompanied by his guest, and the hassidim could hardly broach the topic in such circumstances. After the service it was the same: Some of the more venerable hassidim sought to approach the Sadigora Rebbe, but could not catch him alone.

The hassidim sat down at the next tisch, and as they expected, the Tolne Rebbe began with questions wholly inappropriate for a holy hassidic gathering.

In the middle of the tisch, the Tolne Rebbe suddenly changed his tone: “Sadigora Hassidim! I know that you must be wondering how could it be that your master honored me to lead the tisch, and yet I ask such mundane questions. Is this really the atmosphere of the holy Shabbat?” He continued: “Indeed, King David requested, ‘Hear my voice, O Lord, in my speech; preserve my life from fear of the enemy’ (Psalms 64:2) – why did King David refer to his ‘speech’? Why didn’t he say ‘my prayer’? Could it be that King David spoke mere idle chatter?” The visiting master explained: “King David feared that Satan would hear his lofty songs and diligently and persistently seek King David’s downfall. He therefore chose to clothe his holy words in the garments of the mundane, out of fear of the enemy.

“I, too,” continued the Tolne Rebbe, “have that fear of the enemy, and therefore prefer to avoid lofty talk.”

To what specific fear was the Tolne Rebbe referring? He did not share what pitfall he sought to avoid, but another tale of a visit to Sadigora may shed light on the matter. When the Sadigora Rebbe once invited the Tolne Rebbe to speak publicly to his hassidim, the guest declined, declaring: “Something once happened that I acted as a hassidic master while traveling and I ‘fell’; since then, I have accepted upon myself not to act as a hassidic master while on the road.”

He related the tale: “Once, after traveling for some distance, I reached an inn. I went up to my room to unpack my suitcase, while my attendant went downstairs to speak to the innkeeper and request something to eat. A few minutes later, the attendant reappeared and quickly began to repack our belongings.

“‘What are you doing?’ I enquired.

“‘Rebbe, this is not a place for you.’ “The attendant explained that he had gone to the innkeeper and asked for some food, since his master was in a hurry to continue his journey. The innkeeper replied: ‘If you are in such a hurry, why don’t you go already?’ “I quickly responded to my attendant: ‘If that is the case, this indeed is the place for me.

We are not going anywhere.’ “I went downstairs and extended my hand: ‘Shalom.’ The innkeeper ignored me.

“‘Why don’t you say shalom to me?’ “‘If I say hello to each guest,’ responded the innkeeper, ‘and inquire about his well-being, where is he coming from and where is he going to, it is entirely possible that a poor, hungry traveler will enter my inn and I won’t be able to attend to him because I am busy talking to the other guests. I therefore took upon myself not to get stuck saying hello.’ “‘But I am a hassidic master!’ I protested.

“‘I don’t say hello to rabbis, either,’ explained the innkeeper.

“‘But I am a great master!’ “‘I am, too,’ said the innkeeper.

“‘You are a great hassidic master?!’ I wondered incredulously. ‘In what way are you a great master?’ “The innkeeper responded with a question: ‘In what way are you a great hassidic master?’ “Without thinking, I responded: ‘I can see on your forehead your entire life story.’ “‘I, too, can see on your forehead your entire life story,’ retorted the innkeeper.

“I lifted my hat. ‘Indeed? What is my story?’ I challenged the innkeeper.

“‘I can see on your forehead that you cannot see on my forehead anything!’” After describing this trying, humbling – perhaps even degrading – experience, the Tolne Rebbe concluded: “That was how I learned that when you are traveling, you don’t act like a hassidic master.”

The writer is on the faculty of Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and is a rabbi in Tzur Hadassah.

The truth is far different than the above story.

Rabbi David Twersky, the Tolne (or Talne) Rebbe, was anything but humble. One of the sons of the Chernobyl Rebbe – along with, among others, Yitzchok of Skvira, the first Skvere Rebbe – the Tolne Rebbe engaged in an active campaign to take over non-hasidic towns (or sometimes towns held by competing hasidic groups).

Mobs of his hasidim would descend into these towns in parade format, riding in wagons and on rental horses paid for by the Tolne Rebbe's court or by his big financial backers. At the head of this parade was the Tolne Rebbe, riding in his elegant coach.

The Rebbe would first hold a tisch. Then he or his assistants would visit the wealthy merchants of the town, collecting donations. After several days of this peppered with extreme shows of piety in prayer and certain ascetic behavior meant to instill awe, the Tolne hasidim would make a huge party where vodka would flow like water, and where singing, dancing and revelry ruled.

And then, at the height of the celebration, the Tolne Rebbe's assistants would ask the townspeople to sign a proclamation declaring the Tolne Rebbe the 'ruler' of the town.

And what happened to those who would not sign?

The Tolne hasidim would make another parade. Riding through town singing "Dovid Melech Yisrael Chai V'kayam," "David King of Israel is Alive and Enduring" – a reference to both the biblical King David and the Tolne Rebbe, David Twersky. And then the Tolne hasidim would smash the windows of the homes of those townspeople who would not sign the proclamation. They would break into the homes and beat the recalcitrant townspeople. They would capture the local rabbi and force him to flee town. In at least one case, they made up false allegations about a local rabbi who refused to accept David Twersky as his leader and turned him in to the Russian government.

This orgy of drunken mob violence and blood was repeated in village after village, town after town, by Tolne hasidim and by other hasidim of the Chernobyl dynasty until the Russian government issued a decree forbidding hasidic rebbe from traveling.

But that isn't all.

In Uman, the burial place of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, Tolne hasidim who controlled the town, Skvere hasidim who had a sizable presence there and hasidim from other parts of the Chernobyl dynasty would stone Breslover hasidim who came to town for Rosh HaShana, as Nachman of Breslov had commanded them to before his death.

Breslov hasidim were beaten in the streets, at the mikva (ritual bath) and at Nachman's grave.

The Tolne hasidim would break into the Beslov kloiz (shteibel) and beat Breslover hasidim at prayer.

You can read about this in David Assaf's well regarded book, Untold Tales of the Hasidim: Crisis and Discontent in the History of Hasidism, which documents all of this and more about the Tolne and other Chernobyl rebbes, along with chapters on the suicide of the Chozeh of Lublin, the apostacy of Moshe, th son of the first Chabad Rebbe Schneur Zalman of Liadi. and many other hasidic tales your rabbis don't tell you.

Buy the book. Read it.

And then tell the stories from it at your Shabbat tables and on the golf course.

Make sure your family, your friends and anyone else who will listen knows the truth about the history of the hasidic movement.

Comments

[jancsipista]

the apple doesnt fall far from its tree:)

[Leah]

We have to thank g-d that most shabbosim go by without any violence among the frum shabbos observing people! In my 50+ years I fortunately don't recall one shabbos go by with any hint of violence. Maybe I was lucky but I will pray that this continues.

[ah-pee-chorus]

this book looks amazing. i cant wait to read it.
its interesting that even in the hagiographic version of the story , the tolne rebbe is an arrogant, pompous jerk. he is also a liar, having told the innkeeper he could see his life on his forehead. the innkeeper knew he was full of crap. its too bad the innkeeper wasnt a leader and the tolne a nobody. rottenburg wouldnt have been burned, and new square might have been a great tourist town with nice hotels run by decent, honest, rational descendants of the innkeeper instead of being the totalitarian north korea of the jewish world.

[masortiman]

Most Reform, Renewal, and Conservative rabbis, when speaking of the weeks parsha, speak of the part that supports a point they want to make. Not usually the most morally difficult to accept parts of the parsha. Similarly we tend to quote the midrashim we like.

If a Reform, or Renewal or C rabbi - or for that matter, a Jewish existentialist philosopher, or an impressionistic writer on things Jewish who happens to be a holocaust survivor, picks and chooses tales that help them make THEIR point, I see nothing wrong with that. The danger comes if and when some young person comes to idolize rebbes, and to become a follower based on a distorted picture. Each person must judge whether the picture of premodern hasidim being presented in his community is creating that danger.

At this point in time, the hasidim themselves are doing a pretty good job of reminding us what is wrong with their communities. Other than Chabad, and maybe Brezlov, they dont seem to do a very job of kiruv.

Whether leftwing MO is having issues due to distorted views of hassidism, is something I cannot speak to.

[martin nerl]

without having seen the book, i assume the author is quoting other books.who were the authors of these books? are they biased? what happens when 100 years from now someone writes a book about rubashkin and uses the yated as his source? that was a newspaper published during rabashkin's time.yet you wouldn't rely on that. why should we rely on sources who may be just as biased?

[masortiman]

by the way are all left wing MO types so unable to pick a really good story out of the mass of boring stuff?

[Shmarya]

without having seen the book, i assume the author is quoting other books.who were the authors of these books? are they biased? what happens when 100 years from now someone writes a book about rubashkin and uses the yated as his source? that was a newspaper published during rabashkin's time.yet you wouldn't rely on that. why should we rely on sources who may be just as biased?

Posted by: martin nerl | June 24, 2011 at 01:35 PM

It's a scholarly book – you know, peer reviewed, unlike anything published in ultra-Orthodoxy. So Assaf cites multiple sources, explains who those sources are, and explains the various biases of those sources.

[Robert Wisler]

Perhaps some of these shenanigans were enough to incite the "Cossaks" etc to pogroms? Or were the Jews generally innocent victims?

[Shmarya]

Perhaps some of these shenanigans were enough to incite the "Cossaks" etc to pogroms? Or were the Jews generally innocent victims?

Posted by: Robert Wisler | June 24, 2011 at 03:11 PM

While the former may be possible I believe the latter is true.

[masortiman]

The cossacks engaged in pogroms in the 1880s and after largely at the best, overt or not, of the Russian state.

If what is being referred to is cossack participation in the pogroms of the mid 17th century, that not only predated the baal shem tov, but is widely held to be part of the causal chain that led to the hasidism.

[masortiman]

"at the behest of"

[seymour]

why does the book not tell real stories

when i was in yeshiva they said that the ball shem tov needed to go somewhere so instead of going through the valley the mountain just moved together so he could get there in time.

Now that is a story let see you top that

[Yochanan Lavie]

Apologies to the Rolling Stones:

Ev'rywhere I hear the sound of dancing chassidim, oy
'Cause the rebbe's here and the time is right for fighting in the street,oy
But what can a poor Yid do
Except to sing for a chassidic band
'Cause in sleepy shtetl town
There's just no place for a street fighting man
Nu

Hey! Think the time is right for a Jewish revolution
'Cause where I live the game to play is spiritual pollution
Well, then what can a poor Yid do
Except to sing for a chassidic band
'Cause in sleepy shtetl town
There's just no place for a street fighting man
Nu

Hey! Said my name is called Chernobyl
I'll shout and scream, I'll kill the Gaon, I'll attack all the locals
Well, what can a poor Yid do
Except to sing for a chassidic band
'Cause in sleepy shtetl town
There's just no place for a street fighting man
Nu

[netflix]

@Shmarya:

I read the book. There is also another book on The first tolner rebbe:

Paul Radensky's “Hasidism in the Age of Reform: A Biography of Rabbi Duvid ben Mordkhe Twersky of Tal'noye”

Check it out. You can order it through UMI Dissertation Services.

[martin nerl]

shmarya.are the peer reviews available on line? the book sounds interesting. googling assaf gets too many blogs and t.a.u. where he teaches and brandeis who published it. any history prof. (peer) review available? (not that being a prof. makes you unbiased) the forward review is by an anti-haredi prof. and commentary review is by an orthodox (non haredi) publisher. any orthodox peers (if such exist) review (even a con review) that you know of?

[Yechiel]

Jancipista:
You mean 'the tree doesn't grow far from where the apple falls...'

[effie]

There is old pre war documentary footage of some town/city square in europe where there is a large crowd of hassids being lectured by a rabbi. The rabbi tells the crowd that it is a sin to immigrate to the US, the US is evil, etc.

Any one see it? Do you know where it was and the name of the rabbi? Wish I could reach back in time and slap the guy.

[Shlomo]

There is a famous scholarly book called hachasidim which was published in German in the nineteenth century which compiled many stories about chasidim including stories that weren't always complimentary when it was translated into Hebrew the book was heavily censored leading out any criticism and this was before the days of artscroll

[anuran]

I'd love to read it, but not at $35 for the cheapest available used paperback.

[ah-pee-chorus]

the first 28 pages are here:
http://www.brandeis.edu/tauber/publications/excerpts/Assaf_UNTOLD_sample.pdf

[anuran]

a-p-c, thanks

[seymour]

the first 28 pages are here:
http://www.brandeis.edu/tauber/publications/excerpts/Assaf_UNTOLD_sample.pdf

Posted by: ah-pee-chorus | June 25, 2011 at 01:07 PM
anuran

a-p-c, thanks

Posted by: anuran | June 25, 2011 at 01:53 PM

you can read many pages at

http://books.google.com/books?id=P8nMaLWaJRoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Untold+Tales+of+the+Hasidim:&hl=en&ei=_n8GTrrpGen20gHawumCCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

[netflix]

There is old pre war documentary footage of some town/city square in europe where there is a large crowd of hassids being lectured by a rabbi. The rabbi tells the crowd that it is a sin to immigrate to the US, the US is evil, etc.

Any one see it? Do you know where it was and the name of the rabbi? Wish I could reach back in time and slap the guy.

Posted by: effie | June 24, 2011 at 07:01 PM

you've got it wrong. it was the muncatcher rebbe, and he didnt say anything about nor moving to the USA, he just said that america Jews should continue to keep shabbos.

[Shlomo]

The sad thing that emerges from what I have so far read in this book is that not only are they banning and also censoring books they are now starting to censor the fact that they are doing censoring. Introductions which used to say that the author is only going to publish positive surprise in the biography is now being removed in the newer editions. Has anyone heard of the prohibition of gnaivus daas, fooling people

[Friar Yid]

Martin- I have the book. While a fair amount of Assaf's sources come from members of the Haskalah, he is also honest enough to address these issues of bias head-on and is a good enough detective to keep looking for more corroborating data to sift truth from polemic-- which is a lot more work than the hagiographists do. He also makes use of secular sources like Russian and Ukranian archival data, town histories, even Hasidic sources and memoirs. Yes, the issue of bias is always tricky, but the good news is that Assaf is a serious academic who seems more interested in examining the process of how historical events become transformed (and distorted) into legend as opposed to merely digging up dirt.

Robert- There is a generally large amount of disinformation about Cossacks and pogroms in Eastern Europe. The heyday of the Cossacks as independent operators was before Hasidim even came into the picture. By the 1800s the Cossacks were used as army and police proxies to enforce "law & order" or government policies. While intra-Jewish conflict may have attracted the attention of the authorities and possibly led to some community crackdowns or sending some soldiers to pay some rabbis a call to tell them to knock it off, I highly doubt it specifically led to pogroms.

Effie- it is the Munkatcher rebbe at the wedding of his daughter in 1933, in Hungary: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1622609518319953327&pr=goog-sl#

The rebbe died in 1937 and was spared seeing the devastation his advice caused his followers. His daughter and son-in-law spent some time in some European deportation camps but (in a recurring trope) managed to escape and make it to safety in Palestine. (The daughter promptly died in 1945 after years of ill-health and stress). Like Belz, Ger and Satmar, the only reason there is still a Munkatcher rebbe is because when push came to shove, most of the rebbes decided they were above their own myopic orders, and their grandsons today reap the benefit of their ancestors' hypocrisy.

No word on how many Munktacher Hasidim were murdered for following the rebbe's advice to stay put in the Alter Heim.

[marrtin nerl]

friar yid.
thanks for the info.i guess its hard to tell how much he relied on which sources and how much is his own views without actually reading the book. in the commentary review, it is pointed out the his view on the death of the chozeh is speculation (even though he claims corroborating evidence). even if some sources are the russian gvt archives, if one group didn't like what the tolne rebbe/chassidim were doing and filed false claims with the gvt, that might make its way into the official archives just like the palestinian claims about the israeli response to the flotilla to gaza is THE official version of what happened. i am a little turned off to history prof. in general due to a bad experience i recently had. a prof and author wrote about a 19th century beisdin and when i emailed him asking about members of the beisdin he responded that he knew of only 1 member of the beisdin and based his writings on that. i told of another member that i knew of (based on the intro to his sefer) and the prof again replied that he knew of no other members. then a week later a local paper mentioned the yartzeit of another member of the beisdin.i'm not saying that every prof has to know every detail of every bit of history but if u emailed assaf about the tolne chassidim story(his area of expertise) and he was missing some easily known facts that even non-academics knew, it might change your view on his reliability. thanks to every1 who linked to parts of the book

[Robert Wisler]

Love Shneur Zalman's will and the financial and power disputes that these "tzaddikim" (his offspring) engaged themselves in. Apparently, Shneur Zalman didn't do too badly as the "alter rebbe".

[Shmarya]

if one group didn't like what the tolne rebbe/chassidim were doing and filed false claims with the gvt, that might make its way into the official archives just like the palestinian claims about the israeli response to the flotilla to gaza is THE official version of what happened.

Please.

Again you show that any reference you make to secular norms is simply a ruse to make your co-religionists look better that they really are or were.

If you actually read Assaf – which I doubt you will ever do – you'll see that he has multiple sources for what happened, and those sources include hasidic sources. And you'll also see that Assaf is completely transparant about which sources he believe, why he believes them and what any potential biases might be.

Any person who asks as you did the following question is not educated and shows that any acquaintance he has with academia is at a very low level – if it exists at all: "shmarya.are the peer reviews available on line?"

Peer review means that a set number of scholars independent from the author(s) review the manuscript. They request clarifications, more documentation, etc., if they find weak areas of the book, and they have the ability to withhold publication until the book meets academic standards. Some books have little or no such recommendations and others have significant recommended changes.

In the same way, academic journals put what they publish through a similar review process as do scientific journals. In rare cases, a paper will be published but the journal, a member of its editorial boars or even a peer reviewer will simultaneously publish a rebuttal or an editorial.

As for your remark about that particular beit din, someone educated in Jewish history and conversant with rabbinic behavior would know that mavos to shu"t literature, while informative, contain many rabbinic short cuts to history. Great-great-great-grandsons are described as grandsons. A second cousins non-blood-related grandparent is described as a relative by marriage. Scholars of no real note become my grandfather the great gadol, etc., etc.

In the same way, membership on beit dins is made to sound fixed when it was often dilute, meaning, for example, that a set beit did exist in a town, but the members of the beit din were far more than three. There was the av beit and then there were a series of other judges who sat, depending on schedules and cases, etc.

So a beit could have three primary members but many more members if those others are counted.

On top of that, if the beit din was in a hasidic community, decisions were often overruled by the rebbe – or the makeup of the court was determined by the rebbe for a particular case.

The question scholars ask is who sat on the beit din when a particular ruling was issued.

But Marrtin Nerl knows none of this. All MArrtin Nerl knows is that there must be some way to through doubt on the guilt of his community.

[Jeff]

Update on the Talner legacy (in case anyone is interested):

The last Talner Rebbe, Isadore Twersky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isadore_Twersky), was an interesting character. His parents gave him a secular education; he graduated from Boston Latin (a public school operated much like a private one) and Harvard, went on to teach at the latter and founded its Center for Jewish Studies. He befriended secular scholars and married Rav Soloveitchik's daughter (who is still alive). He was ambivalent about being called "Rebbe"; he hesitated to take the title after his father's death and although he was persuaded to, he was quoted later as saying, "If people consider me a rebbe and consult me as a rebbe, then I'm a rebbe." He and his wife ran the Talner Shul out of their home in Brighton, a section of Boston, for decades.

He died in 1997, and until recently, the shul was kept going by a somewhat eclectic (for Orthodoxy) group of MO and quasi-Hasidic congregants. My friend, the MO rabbi I sometimes mention here (who is a scholar of Hasidism and is particularly enamored of the Chernobler and his legacy and who is also, unfortunately, one of the chief culprits in the romanticization of Hasidism about which I keep complaining), lived nearby. In recent years, when I was making an attempt to become more observant and more Jewishly connected (an illness from which I have mercifully recovered, Baruch HaShem!), I attended it with him (bored out of my mind, but that's another story). Several times a year, the Rebbe's son, Rabbi Mayer Twersky, a Rosh Yeshiva at YU and a rather fearsome character (he certainly made me uncomfortable), would show up and sort of take charge. During the past year (perhaps it was longer, but this was the period in which I was made aware of it), he began to complain about the manner in which they did things - didn't approve of this, didn't approve of that. Even though he's a grandson of the Rav and was educated at the MO day school founded by his grandfather, he appears to embody the sharp move to the right characterizing the orthodoxies of all religions in recent years. He even countermanded decisions previously made by his mother, who had sort of ruled the roost quietly for thirteen years, and she allowed it, because she's elderly and because, even though she's Rav S.'s daughter and has a doctorate in Jewish studies in her own right, it is, after all, a patriarchy.

He began to drive people away, but some of those who remained actually had the temerity to stand up to him a bit, so he took the position, "Really? All right, if that's your attitude, my mother will sell the house, close up shop and come to live with me." And that's precisely what they did. They put up a congenial front - had a "farewell" dinner, thanked everyone for their devotion (but rather disgracefully gave short shrift to another MO rabbi who actually had served more or less as the rabbi-pro-temp for all of those years) - then they shut up the house and that was that. Good-bye everyone, thanks for coming.

The congregation, which had been closely-knit for decades, is now scattered among other shuls in the area. The Sephardi shul across the street has very kindly allowed some of the refugees, including MO rabbi, to form an Ashkenazi minyan on Saturday mornings (he wouldn't care much anyway, as he's very ecumenical within the boundaries of Orthodoxy), but that leaves Friday nights. His wife is very upset; she hasn't been able to find a good fit there or elsewhere. Although I don't have contact with them, I imagine others are feeling similarly forlorn.

I understand Rabbi Mayer has started his own congregation in Riverside, is now calling it the Talner Shul and has assumed the mantle of "Talner Rebbe". Apparently, the autocracy may skip a generation or two, but it continues to rear its head.

[seymour]

Posted by: Friar Yid | June 26, 2011 at 02:27 AM

i think it maight be a fake film I saw some men working
with a woman only a few feet away

[effie]

netflix: I saw in years ago and since I don't speak yiddish, I am dependent on subtitles.

Friar Yid: Thank you for the link. It lead me to numerous new videos, including the heart-wrenching, A Visit to Munkács in 1938.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHJGOK_7sLc

[netflix]

Update on the Talner legacy (in case anyone is interested):

cont... While Isidore Twersky, was Talner Rebbe of Boston and Harvard Professor, his first cousin, Yochonon Twersky was Tolner Rebbe in Jerusalem, and earlier in Montreal. His father was Tolner Rebbe of of New York, on the lower East side at 9 Attorney Street.

He died in 1998 i believe, and only had a daughter. Today one of her son's is the Tolner rebbe of Jerusalem and one of her grandsons is Tolner rebbe in Ashdod.

the Jerusalem Tolner was also a rosh yeshiva at Gur until he found a new job.

The talner of Ashdod whose last name was Malkiel, changed his name to Twersky at the behest of various other Twersky rebbe's.

[Jeff]

This business of having multiple rebbes per lineage has gotten way out of hand.

[george]

Here I go again. While some of what is in the book is probably historical, is there real context given?

Seeing as page 6 mentions Brandeis, how many people know (or knew before wikipedia, where I take this from) that "In 1927, [Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Oliver Wendell] Holmes wrote the majority opinion in the Buck v. Bell case that upheld the forced sterilization of a woman who was claimed to be of below average intelligence." And that Louis Brandeis concurred (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell) The point is that it has to be understood in relation to the times they lived in.

[george]

On page 12 there is the strange assertion that "the Gaon’s antihasidic campaign" was "generally suppressed matter and cast aspersions
on great hasidic leaders". Where is that idea from? I learned about it openly in heder, as did all my classmates.

[george]

In fact, here is a challenge. Which hassidic leader wrote in which of his works a de facto thanks to the Gaon et al for their opposition? Seeing the background of some of these posters, that should be easy.

[george]

page 19 has a line "And, here too,
it turned out after the fact that the leader of the campaign had erred in his
assessment of the danger and failed to achieve his aims."

It reminds me of the Y2K publicity some 10 years ago. I actual saw a supposedly reputable journalist argue that all the money spent on it was for nothing because no disaster actually happened and so the money was a waste (implying a scam). Never occurred to that writer that maybe it was because of the money spent that disaster was avoided?

[martin nerl]

shmarya
thanks for the info.i'm still not clear on peer review.is the publisher (brandeis) responsible for checking out what it publishes or does the author (assaf) submit it to peer review? does the book state who reviewed it? or is there some independent society that reviews historical books? when it comes to medicine, i assume if a submission comes into jama, the ama has their own peer review group. this book is not an article submitted to a journal, but does it wok the same way? is it only college publishers? what happens at simon@schuster etc..? recently, someone came out with a book that abraham lincoln was gay based on some research the author did. was that also peer reviewed?

[Shmarya]

You whine about your history professor but you don't know what peer review is or how academic scholarship works.

I don't think you're telling the truth. I think you're doing what you've done before – lying to protect your community.

As for how peer review works, you are completely clueless – laughably so.

Instead of worrying what passes for your mind about how peer review works, buy the book and read it.

Then you'll see how scholarship is done, and you'll see how truly disgusting some of your community's predecessors were.

And, again, university presses and scholarly journals use peer review.

Simon and Schuster does not.

[ZIY]

Re violence in Hasidic circles:

Read the very same David Assaf's "Derech haMalchut," printed in English as "The Regal Way," about R' Yisrael of Ruzhin. Assaf delves at length into the background that led to the Ruzhiner Rebbe needing to flee Russia.

It had to do with the deliberate murders of mosrim [informants], some say at the direct behest of the Ruzhiner Rebbe. (In one account, they stuffed the moser into the burning furnace of a mikvah!)

At one point, after the spring thawed the nearby river, the body of a moser was found by fishermen. After this was reported to the authorities & they started investigating, the Ruzhiner Rebbe spearheaded a cover-up of the murder. It was when the authorities found out about the Ruzhiner's involvement & started coming after him, that he had to flee.