Abstract
Hasidism has often been defined and viewed as a sect. By implication, if Hasidism was indeed a sect, then membership would have encompassed all the social ties of the “sectarians,” including their family ties, thus forcing us to consider their mothers, wives, and daughters as full-fledged female hasidim. In reality, however, women did not become hasidim in their own right, at least not in terms of the categories implied by the definition of Hasidism as a sect. Reconsideration of the logical implications of the identification of Hasidism as a sect leads to a radical re-evaluation of the relationship between the hasidic movement and its female constituency, and, by extension, of larger issues concerning the boundaries of Hasidism.
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An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the conference “Is Yiddishkait Feminine?” in Warsaw in 2008 and published in Polish as “O bocianach z żabiej perspektywy, czyli Kobiety i chasydyzm,” in Nieme dusze? Kobiety w kulturze jidysz, ed. Joanna Lisek (Wrocław, 2010), 77–104. The present version has been significantly modified and enriched. I would like to thank Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, Ada Rapoport-Albert, Moshe Rosman, and Chava Weissler for their thought-provoking comments and criticism. Even if I did not always follow their suggestions, their comments have helped me to reconsider and clarify my position.
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Wodziński, M. Women and Hasidism: A “Non-Sectarian” Perspective. Jew History 27, 399–434 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10835-013-9190-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10835-013-9190-x
Keywords
- Hasidism
- Eastern Europe
- Gender
- Women
- Sectarianism
- Family