Hasidic Warsaw

This book provides a contextualised English translation of Yechiel Hofer’s book, Reb Zalmen, for the first time. Centering on a particular denizen of the Alexander Hasidim's shtibl (prayer house), it offers a unique and intimate portrait of the lives of those who went inside to pray, eat, study, and argue there in the early 20th century. Though almost certainly fictionalized, Reb Zalmen is not labeled a novel. It is hard to imagine that Reb Zalmen was not an actual figure - someone the young Yechiel Hofer actually knew and loved - although finding any trace of him today would be a daunting task. This is especially so since Reb Zalmen was that rare thing, a traditional Jew without a family. His last name is never given; in fact, all we are told, and all that his fellow characters in the book are given to know, is that he had originally come to Warsaw from the town of Siedlec.Regardless of Reb Zalmen’s historical existence, Hasidic Warsaw provides rich material for the ethnography of Polish Hasidism in the early 20th century. It reveals what it was like to experience ‘Gentile’ Warsaw for someone who spends all his time in the Jewish quarter; to confront the new waves of doubt and fashion that threatened the folkways followed in that quarter; the rivalries and alliances between different Hasidic courts and their myriad followers; the bitterness of poverty and the struggle to transcend the hunger it brought.The editor’s introduction orients the reader toward the changing demographic and political situation of Polish Hasidim in the early 20th century. It points to the distinct facets of Warsaw Hasidic life and law that structure the chapters of Reb Zalmen, guiding the reader towards their own contemplation of the interplay between fiction and memorialization in the process.