The Light of Learning: Hasidism in Poland on the Eve of the Holocaust

The Light of Learning tells the story of an unexpected Hasidic revival in Poland on the eve of the Holocaust. In the aftermath of World War I, the Jewish mystical movement appeared to be in shambles. Hasidic leaders had dispersed, Hasidic courts lay in ruins, and the youth seemed swept up in secularist trends as a result of mandatory public schooling and new Jewish movements like Zionism and Socialism. Author Glenn Dynner shows that in response to this, Hasidic leaders reinvented themselves as educators devoted to rescuing the youth by means of thriving networks of heders (primary schools), Bais Yaakov schools for girls and women, and world-renowned yeshivas.
During the ensuing pedagogical revolution, Hasidic yeshivas soon overshadowed courts, and Hasidic leaders became known more for scholarship than miracle-working. By mobilizing Torah study, Hasidic leaders were able to subvert the "civilizing" projects of the Polish state, successfully rival Zionists and Socialists, and create clandestine yeshiva bunkers in ghettos during the Holocaust. Torah study was thus not only a spiritual-intellectual endeavor but a political practice that fueled a formidable culture of resistance. The Light of Learning belies notions of late Hasidic decadence and decline and transforms our understanding of Polish Jewry during its final hour.
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Glenn Dynner Professor of Religion, Sarah Lawrence College. BA, Brandeis University. MA, McGill University. PhD, Brandeis University. Scholar of East European Jewry with a focus on the social history of Hasidism and the Haskalah. Author of the book Men of Silk: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society (Koret Publication Award; finalist for the National Jewish Book Award); and Yankel's Tavern: Jews, Liquor and Life in the Kingdom of Poland. Interests include Polish-Jewish relations, Jewish economic history, and popular religion. Recipient of the Fulbright Award. Member (2009) of Katz Center, University of Pennsylvania; and (2010-11) Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University; Senior NEH Fellow at the Center for Jewish History.
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Anna Cichopek-Gajraj, a native of Kraków, Poland, joined School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies in 2011 at Arizona State University. Dr. Cichopek-Gajraj is the author of two books on postwar Polish-Jewish history. Her recent publication, "Beyond Violence: Jewish Survivors in Poland and Slovakia in 1944-1948" (Cambridge University Press, 2014), is a comparative study of the non-Jewish/Jewish relations in Poland and Slovakia after the Second World War. The book was the 2016 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award Finalist (2nd place) and a recipient of the 2015 Barbara Heldt Prize Honorable Mention. Her first book "Pogrom Żydów w Krakowie 11 sierpnia 1945 r," a case study of the pogrom in Kraków in August 1945, was based She will be the interlocutor for Dr. Glenn Dynner.
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*This webinar was carried out in Polish and English simultaneously.
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This webinar aired originally on 04-07-24
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