Hasidei Ashkenaz: A Circle, Not a Movement

Talk for the World Congress of Jewish Studies Jerusalem 2017 on Ashkenaz Forum for Alfred Haverkamp

“Hasidei Ashkenaz: A Circle, not a Movement”

Ivan G. Marcus, Yale University

On the seven hundredth anniversary of Judah he-hasid’s death in 1917, Y. N. Simhoni objected to Moritz Güdemann’s interpretation of German Hasidism as a reformist program of German Jewry and noted that the extremist demands of Sefer Hasidim were designed for the few. As we reach the eight hundredth anniversary of Judah’s death in 2017, we should acknowledge the merit of Simhoni’s conclusions. The writing of Sefer Hasidim and related German pietistic traditions was the work of a small group of pietists, written at the time for a small circle of followers.

Three Qalonimos family authors are part of the circle of Judah he-hasid and his family and students: R. Samuel b. Qalonimos the Elder; Judah b. Samuel, he-hasid; Eleazar b. Judah of Worms. Others connected to this circle include Judah’s slow son, R. Moses Zaltman; Judah’s student, R. Isaac b. Moses author of Sefer Or Zarua and R. Avraham b. Azriel, author of Sefer ‘Arugat ha-Bosem, among a few others. These individuals are the people others referred to as hasidei ashkenaz. They are family and close students who combined an appreciation for hasidut and charismatic or prophetic authority with halakhic knowledge and authority. Altogether, they were about a half dozen men, not a movement.