Editing Hasidic Judaism (section)

===Calamity and renaissance===
[[File:Drohobycz, Rebe Aharon Rokach.jpg|thumb|right|[[Belz (Hasidic dynasty)|Belzer]] Rebbe [[Aharon Rokeach]] (depicted 1934), of the [[Belz (Hasidic dynasty)|Belz Hasidic dynasty]], who was hidden from the Nazis and smuggled out of Europe]]
Outside pressure was mounting in the early 20th century. In 1912, many Hasidic leaders partook in the creation of the [[World Agudath Israel|Agudas Israel]] party, a political instrument intended to safeguard what was now named [[Orthodox Judaism]] even in the relatively traditional East; the more hardline dynasties, mainly Galician and Hungarian, opposed the Aguda as "too lenient". Mass immigration to America, urbanization, [[World War I]], and the subsequent [[Russian Civil War]] uprooted the ''[[shtetl]]s'' in which the local Jews had lived for centuries, and which were the bedrock of Hasidism. In the new [[Soviet Union]], civil equality first achieved and a harsh repression of religion caused a rapid secularization. Few remaining Hasidim, especially of [[Chabad]], continued to practice underground for decades. In the new states of the [[Interbellum]] era, the process was only somewhat slower. On the eve of [[World War II]], strictly observant Jews were estimated to constitute no more than a third of the total Jewish population in Poland, the world's most Orthodox country.<ref>Jaff Schatz, ''Jews and the Communist Movement in Interwar Poland'', in: ''Dark Times, Dire Decisions: Jews and Communism''. Oxford University Press (2005). p. 36.</ref> While the Rebbes still had a vast base of support, it was aging and declining.

The [[Holocaust]] hit the Hasidim particularly hard because they were easily identifiable and because they were almost unable to disguise themselves among the larger populace due to cultural insularity. Hundreds of leaders perished with their flocks, while the flight of many notable ones as their followers were being exterminated – especially [[Aharon Rokeach]] of Belz and [[Joel Teitelbaum]] of Satmar – elicited bitter recrimination. In the immediate post-war years, the entire movement seemed to teeter on the precipice of oblivion. In Israel, the United States, and Western Europe, the survivors' children were at best becoming [[Modern Orthodox]]. While a century earlier, the ''Haskalah'' depicted it as a medieval, malicious power, now, it was so weakened that the popular cultural image was sentimental and romantic, what [[Joseph Dan]] termed "Frumkinian Hasidism", for it began with the short stories of [[Michael Levi Rodkinson]] (Frumkin). [[Martin Buber]] was the major contributor to this trend, portraying the sect as a model of a healthy folk consciousness. "Frumkinian" style was very influential, later inspiring the so-called "[[Neo-Hasidism]]", and also utterly ahistorical.<ref name="Dan">Joseph Dan, ''[https://www.jstor.org/stable/1396266 A Bow to Frumkinian Hasidism]'', Modern Judaism, Volume 11, pp. 175–193.</ref>

Yet, the movement proved resilient. Talented and charismatic Hasidic masters emerged, who reinvigorated their following and drew new crowds. In New York, the Satmar Rebbe [[Joel Teitelbaum]] formulated a fiercely anti-Zionist [[Holocaust theology]] and founded an insular, self-sufficient community which attracted many immigrants from Greater Hungary. By 1961, 40% of families were newcomers.<ref>Israel Rubin. ''Satmar: Two Generations of an Urban Island''. P. Lang (1997). p. 42</ref> [[Yisrael Alter]] of [[Ger (Hasidic dynasty)|Ger]] created robust institutions, fortified his court's standing in ''Agudas Israel'', and held ''tisch'' every week for 29 years. He halted the hemorrhage of his followers, and retrieved many Litvaks (the contemporary, less adverse epithet for ''Misnagdim'') and [[Religious Zionists]] whose parents were Gerrer Hasidim before the war. Chaim Meir Hager similarly restored [[Vizhnitz (Hasidic dynasty)|Vizhnitz]]. Moses Isaac Gewirtzman founded the new [[Pshevorsk (Hasidic dynasty)]] in [[Antwerp]].

The most explosive growth was experienced in [[Chabad-Lubavitch]], whose head, [[Menachem Mendel Schneerson]], adopted a modern (he and his disciples ceased wearing the customary [[Shtreimel]]) and outreach-centered orientation. At a time when most Orthodox Jews, and Hasidim in particular, rejected proselytization, he turned his sect into a mechanism devoted almost solely to it, blurring the difference between actual Hasidim and loosely affiliated supporters until researchers could scarcely define it as a regular Hasidic group. Another phenomenon was the revival of [[Breslov (Hasidic group)|Breslov]], which remained without an acting ''Tzaddiq'' since the rebellious [[Rebbe Nachman]]'s 1810 death. Its complex, existentialist philosophy drew many to it.

High fertility rates, increasing tolerance and [[multiculturalism]] on the part of surrounding society, and the great wave of [[Baal teshuva movement|newcomers to Orthodox Judaism]] which began in the 1970s all cemented the movement's status as very much alive and thriving. The clearest indication for that, noted Joseph Dan, was the disappearance of the "Frumkinian" narrative which inspired much sympathy towards it from non-Orthodox Jews and others, as actual Hasidism returned to the fore. It was replaced by apprehension and concern due to the growing presence of the reclusive, strictly religious Hasidic lifestyle in the public sphere, especially in Israel.<ref name="Dan"/> As numbers grew, "courts" were again torn apart by schisms between Rebbes' sons vying for power, a common occurrence during the golden age of the 19th century.