Hasidic_Judaism

Hasidic Judaism The Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in the late 17th and early 18th Centuries were devastated. From 1648 – 1654, “the greatest Jewish suffering since the Crusades [Porath, 33]” occurred which have been misleadingly coined the Ukrainian uprisings. This period, in Hebrew, is known as the Tach v’Tacht (the phrase represents all eight of the years, but is actually an acronym for the two worst years, the beginning years of the uprisings, 1648-49). Cossack anti-Semite Bogdan Chmelnicki led his fellow Cossacks, who were also Ukrainian peasants, throughout Europe to slaughter Jews. Historians say that anywhere from 100,000 to 125,000 Jews were slain: twenty to twenty-five percent of the Jewish population of Europe at that time [http://www.webinfonet.net/heritage/history.html, 10/29/01]. Many leaders attempted to arise from the occasion as Jewish leaders, but none of the flames could endure; no one could truly captivate the people enough to make his/her movement credible in the mind of the public. Then, in the early 18th Century, enters Israel Ben Eliezer, the man known as the Ba’al Shem Tov, Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, or Besht, the founder of Hasidism. He truly captivated the public as a strong, able leader whose philosophies were consistent with that of the jews, jewish, tov, shem, ba’al, one, hasidism, besht, time, polish, israel, been, years, uprisings, ukrainian, truly, talmudic, talmud, religious, merchants, g-d, faith, europe, education, century, age, able, [sachar, 18th, zevi, working, understand, unable, true