Marcin Wodzinski and Uriel Gellman, Toward a New Geography of Hasidism, 2013. 

The authors offer a rich history with extensive notes, as well as a detailed set of maps that chart the growth of the movement amid the changing national

boundaries from 1772 to 1914.

Thanks are due for their permission. All rights reserved.

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Jewish History (2013) 27: 171–199 © The Author(s) 2013. This article is published
DOI: 10.1007/s10835-013-9185-7 with open access at Springerlink.com
Toward a New Geography of Hasidism
MARCIN WODZI´NSKI
a
AND URIEL GELLMAN
b
a
University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland
E-mail:wodzinsk@uni.wroc.pl
b
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
E-mail:uriel.gellman@mail.huji.ac.il
AbstractThe geography of Hasidism has long been one of the most contentious issues in the
history of the movement. This article represents an attempt to free hasidic geography from
outmoded preconceptions by proposing a new conceptualization of the hasidic leadership and
its following in Eastern Europe. Based on an original, extensive database of hasidic centers,
the authors drew five maps in sequence showing the development of Hasidism from its in-
ception to the Holocaust. The five periods into which the database is divided are demarcated
by four historically significant landmarks: the years 1772, 1815, 1867, and 1914. The article
offers some possible interpretations of the maps, and draws a number of conclusions arising
from them. The authors examine the dynamics and tendencies of the expansion of the move-
ment within geographical frameworks, including the shift of hasidic centers from Podolia
and Volhynia in the eighteenth century to Galicia and the southeastern provinces of Congress
Poland in the nineteenth century, and subsequently to Hungary and Romania in the twentieth
century; hasidic penetration into Jewish Eastern Europe, reaching its peak in the period be-
tween 1815 and 1867; and the metropolization of the hasidic leadership after 1914. The article
also analyzes the patterns of concentration and diffusion of the hasidic leadership, and the
impact of political factors upon these parameters.
KeywordsHasidism·Eastern Europe·Geography·Demography·Expansion·
Metropolization
The geography of Hasidism has long been one of the central and most con-
tentious issues in the history of the movement. The two most frequently de-
bated questions are the geographical dimension of hasidic expansion and the
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the London conference,Toward a New His-
tory of Hasidism, organized by the Institute of Jewish Studies at University College, London,
in April 2009. We are grateful to the participants of the conference for their criticism and sug-
gestions. We also would like to thank Shaul Stampfer for his valuable remarks on an earlier
draft of this paper and Michael Silber for his assistance in converting from Yiddish several of
the Hungarian and Romanian place names. Many thanks to Gideon Biger for correcting our
use of historical geography technical terms. Last but not least, we are most grateful to Ada
Rapoport-Albert and Moshe Rosman for their extremely helpful assistance in the process of
editing this article.

172	M. WODZI´NSKI AND U. GELLMAN
regional characteristics of various hasidic groups.
1
While certain aspects of
both questions, such as the western border of Hasidism or its regional de-
mography, have been touched on by several historians, the issue as a whole
has never been thoroughly and systematically addressed. This has had far-
reaching consequences for research on the demography of hasidic expansion,
which, in turn, has shaped our notion of the geography of Hasidism. Jewish
historiography has traditionally assumed that Hasidism soon achieved demo-
graphic dominance in most of the eastern European territories. As Simon
Dubnow put it, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, “Hasidism had
conquered almost all the communities of the Ukraine and eastern Galicia,
most of the communities of central Poland, and a considerable number of
communities in Romania and Hungary.”
2
Only in Lithuania and Belarus did
Hasidism fail to achieve an absolute victory. Recent research, however, indi-
cates that these highly inflated estimates are very far from reality and, more
importantly, cannot be traced to any verifiable data or reliable research. While
it is possible that already by the turn of the nineteenth century, the emerging
hasidic movement achieved a certain measure of influence in a few locali-
ties, we have no data to suggest any general observations of this kind, and
certainly not to justify the claim of Hasidism’s sweeping conquest of eastern
Europe. The few reliable data we do possess indicate, for example, that as
late as the 1820s, thehasidimmay have constituted no more than ca. 10 per-
cent of the Jewish population of central Poland.
3
Similar proportions emerge
from the data for the Minsk province in Belarus during the 1850s.
4
Although
1
For the most important publications dealing with hasidic geography see Simon Dubnow,
Toledot hahasidut(Tel Aviv, 1967), 76–7, 107, 215, 325–6, 441–3; Aaron Zeev Aescoly,
Hahasidut bepolin(Jerusalem, 1998), 34–6; Avraham Greenbaum, “Hitpashtut hahasidut
bame’ah ha-19: mabat sotsyo-geografi rishoni,”Hakongres ha‘olami lemada‘ei hayahadut
10:B,1 (1990), 239–43; Adam Teller, “Hasidism and the Challenge of Geography: The Polish
Background to the Spread of the Hasidic Movement,”AJS Review30, no. 1 (2006), 1–29.
For the pitfalls of the dominant concepts of the geography of Hasidism, see David Assaf,
“‘Hasidut Polin’ o ‘Hasidut bepolin’? Leva‘ayat hageografyah hahasidit,”Gal-Ed14 (1995),
197–206. See also David Assaf and Gadi Sagiv, “Hasidism in Tsarist Russia: Historical and
Social Aspects” in the present volume.
2
Simon Dubnow,Toledot hahasidut,3.
3
On the difficulty of interpreting demographic data relating to Hasidism, see Marcin
Wodzi´nski, “How many Hasidim were there in Congress Poland? On the Demographics of
the Hasidic Movement in Poland during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century,”Gal-Ed
19 (2004), 13–49; id., “How Should We Count Hasidim in Congress Poland? A Response to
Glenn Dynner,”Gal-Ed20 (2006), 105–21; Glenn Dynner,Men of Silk: The Hasidic Con-
quest of Polish Jewish Society(Oxford and New York, 2006), 40–53; id. “How ManyHasidim
Were There Really in Congress Poland? A Response to Marcin Wodzi´nski,”Gal-Ed20 (2006),
91–104.
4
Barbara St˛epniewska-Holzer, “Ruch chasydzki na Białorusi w połowie XIX wieku,”
Kwartalnik Historii˙Zydów3 (2003), 511–22.

TOWARD A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF HASIDISM	173
these data do not as yet enable us to produce a more general and dynamic
picture of the demographic expansion of Hasidism, they do provide strong
enough indications to call into question all the existing estimations, high-
lighting the need for fresh research and a new methodological approach to
the subject.
This research weakness underlies all the available maps of Hasidism—
traditionally the most popular mode of presenting hasidic geography. The
majority of these maps, which are largely reliant on each other (if only inas-
much as they share a common conceptual foundation), reflect an impression-
istic view of the territorial scope of Hasidism, marking in only the places of
residence of the most famous hasidic leaders, or the areas in which the major
hasidic dynasties were dominant.
5
The essential defect of all these maps is twofold. First, they depict a static
and synchronic picture, without any consideration for the chronological de-
velopment of Hasidism, merging in one map centers dating from the mid-
eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. This inevitably obscures the histori-
cal dimension of a movement, which has, after all, unfolded over two and a
half centuries, by reducing it to a cluster of timeless personalities, all seem-
ingly active simultaneously.
Second, the criteria for selecting the hasidic centers to be included in such
maps are purely impressionistic, usually based on subjective judgments as to
the importance of this or that hasidic leader or dynasty. Even if one agrees
with the particular selection made in any one of these maps, it is not clear
to what extent it reflects hasidic political and social realities. Does it, for ex-
ample, correlate the places of residence of the hasidic leaders with centers
of hasidic demographic, political, or social dominance? Are the selected lo-
calities hasidic pilgrimage sites or were they densely populated by hasidic
followers? None of the maps addresses these uncertainties, and it is not at all
clear what they actually show.
6
These weaknesses have prompted us to look for an alternative conceptu-
alization of hasidic geography, with the aim of creating a more meaningful—
5
See, e.g., the maps of Hasidism inEncyclopaedia Judaica(Jerusalem, 1971), 7:1392; Yosef
Shapiro,Atlas histori shel am yisra’el(Tel-Aviv, 1966), no. 59; Elie Barnavi,A Historical
Atlas of the Jewish People(New York, 1992), 162–3;Czas chasydów: The Time of the Hasidim,
ed. El˙zbieta Długosz (Kraków, 2005), 10; Anna Walaszczyk,Tajemniczy ´swiat chasydów:
W królestwie mistycyzmu, kabały, ´spiewu, ta´nca i ekstazy(Łód´z, 2009), 29.
6
Sometimes, more sophisticated maps include graphs indicating the alleged directions of
hasidic expansion. See, for example, Marvin I. Herzog,The Yiddish Language in Northern
Poland: Its Geography and History(Bloomington and the Hague, 1965), 22; Evyatar Friesel,
Atlas of Modern Jewish History(Oxford, 1990), 51; Andrzej˙Zbikowski,˙Zydzi(Wrocław,
1997), 162–3. See also Shmuel Ettinger, “The Modern Period,” inA History of the Jewish
People, ed. Hayim Hillel Ben-Sasson (Cambridge, 1976), 771.

174	M. WODZI´NSKI AND U. GELLMAN
dynamic-diachronic rather than static-synchronic—representation of the pro-
cess of hasidic expansion. To this end we have set out our data in a sequence
of chronological maps, for which there was some precedent in the more ad-
vanced of the existing maps of Hasidism.
7
It was more difficult, however,
to decide which hasidic centers to include in our maps, as this required not
only a new source-base but also a new conceptual paradigm, one that would
do justice to the hundreds of thousands of rank-and-filehasidimrather than
maintaining the elitist focus on their leaders. In other words, we felt that an
ideal map of Hasidism should represent the distribution of ordinary hasidic
followers rather than simply noting their leaders’ places of residence. How-
ever, given the limitations of the available sources, such a map must remain
an unrealized desideratum for the foreseeable future. We have therefore de-
cided to turn to source materials which, even though they do not enable us
to overcome the elitist bias of the traditional historiography, still allow us
to feature many more hasidic centers in our maps, and to base our selec-
tion on more rigorous criteria than the impressionistic category of important
tsadikim.
In searching for a more objective and broader source-base for our maps,
we have chosen the largest existing list of hasidic leaders, drawn from volume
two of theEncyclopedia of Hasidism, published in three parts in 1986–2004
by Yitshak Alfasi.
8
This encyclopedia is based on hasidic homiletic literature,
hasidic hagiography,yizkorbooks, the Jewish periodical press, and occasion-
ally (albeit too seldom) on modern academic historical research. Admittedly,
the work is by no means free of deficiencies: many important details are
missing, legendary tales are accepted uncritically as historical evidence, and
factual errors are legion. Moreover, the social structure and cultural expres-
sions of Hasidism are presented anachronistically, on the basis of outdated
assumptions that are no longer tenable today.
9
Nevertheless, what was im-
portant for us was the all-inclusive character of the work. Alfasi intended
it to be a comprehensive collection of biographies, coveringallknown ha-
sidic leaders, regardless of their relative importance. This is precisely what
qualified hisEncyclopediato serve as our database source (even if it some-
times led him to include such figures as Shlomo Efrayim, the infant son
7
For examples of such maps see, e.g., Dan Cohn-Sherbok,Atlas of Jewish History(London
and New York, 1994), 126–31; Glenn Dynner,Men of Silk, 50–51;YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews
in Eastern Europe(New Haven and London, 2008), 1:662, 665; 2:1183. All these maps still
represent an impressionistic selection of hasidic centers, and, in most cases, no more than two
maps are provided consecutively to cover Hasidism’s full chronological span.
8
Yitshak Alfasi,Ishim, vol. 2 ofEntsiklopedyah lahasidut, 3 parts (Jerusalem, 1986–2004).
9
Examples of this include the notion that hasidic memory and tradition are invariably and ab-
solutely reliable, or that the hasidic leadership had always been hereditary and uncontroversial,
and many other such anachronistic projections.

TOWARD A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF HASIDISM	175
of Nahman of Bratslav [Bracław], who died at the age of one). Despite all
these lapses of academic rigor, theEncyclopedia, with its indiscriminate—
and thus, egalitarian—list of hasidic leaders, covering the movement’s full
chronological span, provided us with a source-base that was best suited for
our purpose.
On that basis, we have built a database that is chronologically divided
into five periods in the history of Hasidism. It includes the names of 1,786
hasidic leaders whose geographic locations we determined according to their
main places of residence and/or activity.
10
There are many more entries in
Alfasi’sEncyclopedia, but for the purpose of our project, we excluded indi-
viduals who did not function either as hasidic rebbes or as hasidic communal
rabbis,
11
as well as anyone whom the data did not identify clearly as ha-
sidic.
12
In addition, we have not listed thetsadikimwho spent most of their
careers outside of eastern Europe, that is, in western Europe, North America
or Palestine. Our map focuses exclusively on Hasidism in its eastern Euro-
pean birthplace.
The five periods into which our database is divided are demarcated by four
historically significant landmarks: the years 1772, 1815, 1867, and 1914.
13
This has resulted in five consecutive maps (Maps.1,2,3,4,and5) showing
the development of Hasidism from its inception to the Holocaust.
14
In all five
10
We have managed to identify more than 98 percent of the localities mentioned in theEn-
cyclopedia. Since the number oftsadikimlisted in it is large, the margin of error that may
ensue from such mistakes as it contains, or from our own mistaken identification of some of
the localities it mentions (which are often difficult to reconstruct from the purely consonantal
or wrongly vocalized Hebrew spelling of theEncyclopedia) is relatively negligible. When a
hasidic leader was active in more than one locality, we have listed only the place in which most
of his activities occurred. When the duration of atsadik’s activity straddled two of our periods,
we have listed only the longer of the two, unless the shorter one constituted more than a third
of the duration of his career, in which case we listed him in both periods. However, such cases
are so rare and statistically insignificant that they fall within the acceptable range of statistical
error and have no effect on the overall interpretation of the data.
11
We use the term hasidic rebbe ortsadikloosely, as referring to all hasidic leaders regardless
of whether they functioned astsadikimor only as communal rabbis who were known for or
had declared their allegiance to Hasidism.
12
This is the case with many pre-hasidic or non-hasidic rabbis listed in theEncyclopedia,as
well as various others who never functioned as hasidic leaders, such as Nahman of Bratslav’s
infant son mentioned above, Edel, the Besht’s daughter, or Nahman Tsvi of Kołomyja, who
qualified for inclusion only due to the fact that according to a legendary source, the Besht
himself had tested him as a child, which, according to Alfasi, granted him “the privilege of
appearing in the glow of Hasidism” (Alfasi,Entsiklopedyah, Ishim, 3:465).
13
This follows the periodization suggested by the editorial team of the projectedNew History
of Hasidism, which convened as a research group of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2007–2008.
14
The maps themselves were created by Dr. Witold Sienkiewicz, editor and cartographer of
the Demart SA publishing house, in cooperation with the Museum of the History of Polish

176	M. WODZI´NSKI AND U. GELLMAN
Map 1.Concentration of hasidic leaders by county, before 1772

TOWARD A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF HASIDISM	177
Map 2.Concentration of hasidic leaders by county, 1772–1815

178	M. WODZI´NSKI AND U. GELLMAN
Map 3.Concentration of hasidic leaders by county, 1815–67

TOWARD A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF HASIDISM	179
Map 4.Concentration of hasidic leaders by county, 1867–1914

180	M. WODZI´NSKI AND U. GELLMAN
Map 5.Concentration of hasidic leaders by county, after 1914

TOWARD A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF HASIDISM	181
maps our data relate to the lowest administrative level of “county”—the only
level that was common to all the national territories involved.
15
This was
done in order to capture the circulation of hasidic leaders within the larger
territorial units without cluttering the maps with numerous names of villages
or towns, which would have been overwhelming. Each of the counties is
color-coded to reflect the number oftsadikimresiding in it: the darker the
color the more numerous thetsadikim.
What Do the Maps Show?
At first glance, the maps reflect—as reliably as possible, given the limitations
of the data at our disposal—no more than variations in the concentration of
hasidic leaders by county during five distinct periods in the history of Ha-
sidism. But how should these maps be interpreted? May we draw from them
any conclusions that go beyond the changing geographic distribution of the
leaders’ courts over time? The problem is that there is not a simple corre-
spondence between the density of the courts and the demographic strength or
cultural influence of Hasidim in the same area.
16
For example, Lubawicze,
the seat of the Habad dynasty for virtually the whole of the nineteenth cen-
tury, was the only hasidic court in the Mohylew province (with some sporadic
competition from Starosiele and Kopy´s), but there is every reason to believe
that its demographic and cultural presence was rather strong.
17
This suggests
Jews. They were designed to meet the requirements for publication inAtlas historii˙Zydów
polskich(Warsaw, 2010) and will eventually be displayed in the Museum of the History of
PolishJewsinWarsaw.
15
In order to avoid confusion, the term “county” will be used consistently for the lowest level
of geographical administrative units, and the term “province” for the next level up, encom-
passing several “counties.” “County” corresponds to the Polishpowiat,Russianuyezd,Ger-
manKreis, Hungarianvármegye, and Romanianjude¸t, while “province,” which has no directly
corresponding level in the Austrian, Hungarian, and Romanian administrations; corresponds
to the Russianguberniaand Polishwojewództwo.
16
The category of “density” is used here as shorthand to denote the number of tsadikim per
administrative unit and not per given area.
17
The Lubavitcher rebbes reportedly attracted hundreds of thousands of followers, but this
should be treated as somewhat hyperbolic figurative language. Nevertheless, an abundance
of anecdotal material suggests that the dynasty did command mass support in its region. On
the difficulty of interpreting demographic data relating to Hasidism, see Marcin Wodzi´nski,
“How manyHasidimwere there in Congress Poland?”; id., “How Should We Count Hasidim
in Congress Poland?”; Glenn Dynner,Men of Silk, 40–53; id. “How Many Hasidim Were
There Really in Congress Poland?” For the best estimates of the number of Shneur Zalman of
Liady’s followers, see, e.g., Immanuel Etkes, “Darko shel rabi shneur zalman milady keman-
hig shel hasidim,”Zion50 (1995), 334–41; Naftali Loewenthal,Communicating the Infinite:
The Emergence of the Habad School(Chicago, 1990), 47–8.

182	M. WODZI´NSKI AND U. GELLMAN
that at least some powerful hasidic leaders may have dominated their imme-
diate environment so exclusively as to create an effective power vacuum all
round them (the towns in which such well-known hasidic leaders resided are
identified on our maps by name). Still, it seems that with a few isolated ex-
ceptions, the vast majority of hasidic leaders neither managed nor attempted
to gain exclusive control over their regions or even their immediate neighbor-
hoods. Rather, they typically shared the geographic space with a number of
competitors. The dominant model, therefore, was of a large number of closely
clustered centers, with several hasidic leaders active at the same time, either
in the same town or, more often, in a number of neighboringshtetlekh.The
general assumption underlying our maps is that the density of such centers
reflects, however indirectly, the relative demographic strength of Hasidism in
a given region, even if some or perhaps all of the leaders clustered in it had
comparatively few followers. Moreover, we believe that the relative insignif-
icance of such leaders does not weaken but, to the contrary, strengthens the
close correlation between the number oftsadikimand the strength of hasidic
influence in a region. The fact that many such minortsadikimwere function-
ing simultaneously would suggest that there was intense demand for hasidic
leadership in that area, and that people were flocking to these minortsadikim
despite their relatively humble status. We are, of course, aware that this may
not always have been the case, as the influence of a single dominant leader
could significantly blur or skew the picture. Nevertheless, even if we allow
for a certain measure of error on this score, our maps still provide the best
approximation, based on the best available data, of the geographical distri-
bution and relative strength of the hasidic movement. Religious leaders are
generally located in the midst of their followers, namely, those who are most
receptive to their influence and who choose to live in their close proximity.
We assume this should apply to the case of the hasidic leaders and their fol-
lowers as well. What is more, we believe that our maps, and the database
they draw on, can facilitate further studies of both the workings of hasidic
leadership and the nature of the wider hasidic constituency across eastern
Europe.
In the following pages we offer some possible interpretations of our maps,
and draw a number of preliminary conclusions from them. We begin with a
topic that has always been closely linked to the maps of Hasidism: the param-
eters (both borders and dynamics) of hasidic expansion in eastern Europe.
This is followed by two topics that are less directly related to the maps: the
correlation between certain political conditions and the development of Ha-
sidism, and the interrelation between Hasidism and the processes of urban-
ization and metropolization that eastern European Jewry underwent during
the period of hasidic expansion. It should be emphasized that these are only
opening gambits that might lead to further research utilizing our data and
methodology as a point of departure.

TOWARD A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF HASIDISM	183
Borders
At first glance, the statistical results, divided by country and period, demon-
strate growth in terms of a clear rise in the numbers oftsadikimthroughout
(with the single exception of Russia after 1914, to be discussed below), al-
though this growth is by no means linear, and its dynamics are not the same
in every period and region. Our analysis of the variations might thus reveal
some inherent characteristics of the “hasidic conquest of Eastern Europe”—
one of the most commonly observed and yet least understood processes in
the history of the movement. What, indeed, were the parameters of the ha-
sidic “conquest”? The maps confirm some common assumptions while re-
vealing new and unexpected realities. Let us start with the issue of borders.
The maps clearly confirm the persistence of the eastern border of Hasidism
along the eastern frontier of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (as of
1772), with relatively weak and late incursions into the territories of New
Russia and Bessarabia during the second half of the nineteenth century (see
Map4). The maps also confirm the well-established notion that Hasidism did
not penetrate the territories that lay beyond the western frontier of Congress
Poland and Galicia. There were a few exceptions: the singular case of the
tsadikEliyahu Guttmacher of Grodzisk Wielkopolski (1796–1874), several
hasidic émigrés in Germany (Berlin, Magdeburg, Leipzig), and—during the
interwar period—Prague and Vienna. This remained true even after 1918,
when the nineteenth-century political border ceased to exist and the terri-
tories of Pozna´n province were incorporated in the Second Polish Republic
(see Map5).
18
What is more, throughout the period under consideration,
hardly any hasidic leaders ever resided in the western provinces of Congress
Poland, such as Kalisz and Płock.
19
The Płock province is an especially in-
teresting case, because a period of successful hasidic development there in
the first half of the nineteenth century (fivetsadikimbetween 1815 and 1866;
see Map3)
20
was followed by a sudden and persistent drop (twotsadikimin
the period 1867–1914 and only onetsadikafter 1914; see Maps4and5).
21
18
On the western border of Hasidism, see Shaul Stampfer, “How and Why Did Hasidism
Spread?” in the present volume.
19
Until 1914, there were no hasidic leaders in Kalisz province, while after 1918 there were
only six minor figures residing in this area, in Wielu´n (3), Kalisz (2), and Turek (1). By con-
trast, at the same time 59 hasidic leaders were active in the territories of the former province
of Warsaw.
20
In 1818 the state authorities in Płock reported that thehasidim“are so numerous that in al-
most all the towns of the province they have their separate prayer houses” (Archiwum Główne
Akt Dawnych, Centralne Władze Wyznaniowe 1869, pp. 8–9).
21
The small number ofhasidimin the region was confirmed in Florian Sokołów’s memoir
of his father, Nachum Sokołów. See Florian Sokołów,Nahum Sokołów.˙Zycie i legenda,ed.
Andrzej Zi˛eba (Kraków, 2006), 22.

184	M. WODZI´NSKI AND U. GELLMAN
This is an intriguing example not only of the failure of Hasidism to expand
but of actual hasidic regression, which—in contrast to the case of hasidic
decline in Soviet Russia—was unrelated to external political circumstances.
The northern border of hasidic expansion in Congress Poland was demar-
cated by the province of Płock, where—as we have seen—hasidic leaders
failed to establish themselves permanently, and by the southern counties of
the province of Łom˙za (Maków Mazowiecki, Ostrów Mazowiecka). In the
greater part of the province of Łom˙za, to the north of these counties, and in
the whole province of Suwałki, there were never anytsadikimor any other
prominent hasidic figures (for instance communal rabbis claiming allegiance
to Hasidism). The same demarcation line continued into the Pale of Settle-
ment in Russia. Hasidic leaders resided in an area bordered by the south-
eastern counties of the province of Grodno (Brze´s´c, Kobry´n, and Słonim),
stretching to the southern border of the province of Wilno and the south-
ern counties of the province of Witebsk.
22
North of this line, hasidic leaders
resided only sporadically (see Maps2and4).
There may be many reasons for the impenetrability of this northern bor-
derline. Undoubtedly, the cultural impact of the Litvak heritage was one
of them. Both the northeastern provinces of Congress Poland (Łom˙za and
Suwałki) and all the northwestern provinces of the Pale of Settlement in
Russia historically belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and in the
nineteenth century they remained under the influence of the Lithuanian
yeshivot, a cultural alternative to Hasidism. Marvin Herzog’s study of the
linguistic and cultural boundary between Polish and Litvak Jews convinc-
ingly proved the correlation between areas of Litvak tradition and resistance
to Hasidism.
23
However, the origins and nature of this correlation are not ob-
vious (the cultural impact of the Vilna Gaon, usually offered as a self-evident
explanation, is certainly not sufficient to account for the Litvak resistance to
Hasidism, as it may well have been its product rather than its cause). More-
over, the correlation is not consistent. The territories south of this borderline
(the provinces of Mohylew and Mi´nsk, the southern reaches of the provinces
of Grodno and Witebsk) also belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and
remained in the same cultural milieu, and yet a relatively large number of
hasidic leaders were active there. The factor that might have been at least par-
tially responsible for this difference was the German cultural influence in the
22
Interestingly, the location of the followers of Hasidism in the southern counties of the
province of Witebsk is confirmed, with slightly different borderlines, in a Russian official
report from 1853. See Ia[kov] I[zraelson], “Borba pravitelstva s khasidizmom (1834–53 g.),”
Evreyskaya Starina7 (1914), 100. We are grateful to Vladimir Levin for his assistance in
deciphering the author’s name.
23
See Herzog,The Yiddish Language, 18–27.

TOWARD A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF HASIDISM	185
territories bordering the German state. A detailed study of the limited hasidic
penetration into Lithuania suggests the importance of the German factor in
preventing the expansion of Hasidism into the northern and western regions
of Lithuania.
24
As already hinted by several scholars, areas bordering on
German territories and under the cultural influences of German Jewry might
have been less receptive to Hasidism. The same explanation may account for
the failure of hasidic expansion in the province of Płock. Even if the concept
of “Litvak,” and especially the notion of German cultural influence are not
much more than cultural stereotypes, they may well have had their effect, as
the microhistorical analysis of at least one test case would suggest. This is the
case of the “German” Jews of Bielsko/Bielitz in Austrian Silesia, whose self-
perception as belonging to the sphere of German cultural influence prompted
them to resist the settlement of a hasidic leader in their midst.
25
Cultural
stereotypes can be as real as any other factors shaping reality.
Equally intriguing, and more difficult to account for, is the southern border
of hasidic expansion. Until 1815 (see Maps1and2) it ran along the southern
frontier of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the southern border
of Galicia after its annexation to Austria in 1772). Prior to 1815, only three
hasidic leaders are known to have been active south of this border: Shalom
Teomim (d. 1819) in ¸Stef˘ane¸sti, Moldavia, and Hayim Tirer in Czerniowce,
Bukowina (which he left in 1807)—both relatively minortsadikim,and
Yitshak Taub of Nagykallo (1744–1821), anenfant terribleamong the ha-
sidic leaders of his time, known for indulging in Hungarian folk-dances and
feasting with the Hungarian gentry. After 1815, several hasidic leaders fol-
lowed in Yitshak’s footsteps and crossed the border into Bukowina (at that
time formally part of Galicia) and the Hungarian counties of Maramaros,
Szabolcs, Bereg, and Zemplen (see Map3). To be sure, the region remained
a marginal area of hasidic expansion, despite the importance of several of
its residenttsadikim, especially Israel of Ruzhin in Sadagóra, Bukowina, and
Moshe Teitelbaum (1759–1841) in Sátoraljaújhely in the county of Zemplen,
Hungary. The 29tsadikimresident in Hungary, Bukowina, and the Romanian
territories constituted no more than 7.1 percent of the hasidic leaders active
in that period, but in relation to the size of the Jewish population in the whole
of that region, these 29tsadikimsignify a sudden increase. Similarly, the 14
tsadikimactive in Hungary represented an average spread of 0.35tsadikim
24
See Mordechai Zalkin, “‘Mekomot shelo matse’ah adayin hahasidut ken lah kelal?’ bein ha-
sidim lemitnagedim belita bame’ah ha-19,” inBema‘agelei hasidim: kovets mehkarim lezikhro
shel profesor mordekhai vilenski, ed. Immanuel Etkes et al. (Jerusalem, 1999), 21–50.
25
For a case study of the failed attempt by a hasidic leader, Aron Halberstam of Biała
(1865–1942), to cross the cultural border between Galicia and Austrian Silesia, see Marcin
Wodzi´nski, “Aron Halberstam z Białej. O wpływach chasydyzmu na pograniczu galicyjsko-
´sl ˛askim,” in˙Zydzi w Bielsku, Białej i okolicy.Materiały z sesji naukowej odbytej w dniu 19
stycznia 1996 r., ed. Janusz Polak and Janusz Spyra (Bielsko-Biała, 1996), 106–10.

186	M. WODZI´NSKI AND U. GELLMAN
per 10,000 Jews in the population, a sudden rise from 0.08 in the previous
period. This trend became even more pronounced in the second half of the
nineteenth century (see Map4). Between 1867 and 1914 as many as 16 ha-
sidic leaders were recorded in Bukowina, 37 in Hungary (mainly Maramaros)
and 19 in Romania, which constituted 12.7 percent of all thetsadikimactive
in this period. Although the relative numbers of hasidic leaders per capita
in the Hungarian, Romanian, and Bukowinian Jewish populations were still
unimpressive (0.44tsadikimper 10,000 Jews ca. 1850 and 0.6, ca. 1900), one
should remember that the hasidic movement was active only in a relatively
small area of Hungary, that is, in the Unterland, and this reduces Hasidism’s
per capita demographic strength in the whole of Hungary. In the interwar pe-
riod, the relative importance of Hungarian and Romanian Hasidism became
even more apparent, with as many as 193tsadikimliving in the territories
of prewar Hungary, Romania, and Bukowina, constituting 20.1 percent of all
the hasidic leaders of the period, or, in relative numbers, 1.17tsadikimper
10,000 Jews living in these regions (see Table2). By this time, the hasidic
movement had not only crossed the southern border of the former Polish-
Lithuanian Commonwealth, but it actually established a new stronghold in
these territories.
26
The Dynamics of Expansion
As with other parameters, the chronological dynamics of the expansion of
Hasidism must be studied with caution, given the limitations of our maps,
which are based on data extracted from an encyclopedia drawing, in part, on
the collective memory of Hasidism. Collective memory tends to preserve a
more precise record of recent events than of the distant past. Consequently, a
greater proportion of early hasidic leaders than of those belonging to recent
generations is likely to have been forgotten. To take account of this, the data
for our five consecutive periods would need to be adjusted, as the number of
tsadikimin the earlier periods was probably somewhat higher than these data
suggest, and at the very least, it cannot be compared on a one-to-one basis
to the number oftsadikimin more recent times. This is especially evident in
26
On hasidic expansion in Hungary and Romania, see, e.g., Michael K. Silber, “The Limits
of Rapprochement: The Anatomy of an Anti-Hasidic Controversy in Hungary,”Studia Ju-
daica3 (1994), 124–47; Lucian-Zeev Herscovici, “An Outline of the History of Hasidism in
Romania,” inThe History of the Jews in Romania, ed. Liviu Rotman and Carol Iancu (Tel Aviv,
2005), 2:209–29.

TOWARD A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF HASIDISM	187
the case of the interwar years: although many reliable historical records from
all over eastern Europe testify to a significant decline in hasidic influence,
measured by the number of hasidic followers, during those years, the large
number oftsadikimfeatured in theEncyclopediaas being active at that time
is completely at odds with the notion that the influence of Hasidism was
declining.
27
And yet, despite these obvious limitations, our data do reveal
some genuinely significant long-term trends.
Unfortunately, very little can be said about the dynamics of expansion in
the early years of Hasidism’s development, until 1772. Although this first
period may be the most important for understanding the reality of expan-
sion, the data available are too scarce for a detailed picture of the process to
be drawn. TheEncyclopediacontains only a few reliable entries relating to
this period, indiscriminately listing dozens of supposed adherents of the pu-
tative founder of Hasidism, Israel Besht (1700–1760) and his first “apostle,”
Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezerich [Mi˛edzyrzec Korecki] (d. 1772). Unfor-
tunately, it draws nearly all their names from hagiographic sources, mainly
the nineteenth-century collection of tales,Shivhei habesht, and it lists them
regardless of their actual relationship to Hasidism.
If we eliminate these unreliable biographical entries, our findings confirm
the conventional view of Podolia and Volhynia as the cradles of Hasidism.
The largest concentration of recorded leaders appears in the area of
Mi˛edzybó˙z in Podolia, with somewhat fewer in Volhynia (Połonne, Korzec,
Ostróg, Miedzyrzec Korecki), fewer still in the eastern territories of Red
Ruthenia (which became Eastern Galicia in 1772), and only a handful out-
side of this area (see Map1).
This concentration of hasidic leaders in Podolia and Volhynia held sway
for some time after 1772, but it is worth noting that the number oftsadikim
did not increase as rapidly there as it did in Galicia or central Poland. This
would seem to suggest a substantial shift in the center of gravity of the hasidic
movement, with the newly emergent centers achieving predominance after
1815. Table1displays this shift in numerical terms, with southwest Russia
standing for the Ukrainian provinces of Podolia, Volhynia, Kijów [Kiev],
Połtawa and Czernihów (the latter three still being marginal in this period).
27
The distortion in the numbers for theinterbellumyears might have resulted from yet another
factor, namely, the fact that this period was significantly shorter than the other four featured
in the maps. A certain time lag between the drop in the number of hasidic leaders on the one
hand, and the consequent drop in the number of hasidic followers on the other, may explain
why the decline was not captured by the number oftsadikimper capita.

188	M. WODZI´NSKI AND U. GELLMAN
Table 1.The number of hasidic leaders by country
28Region 1700–72 1772–1815 1815–67 1867–1914 1914–45
Russia
29
13 65 97 139 89
Including:
Northwest (Lithuania and
Belarus)
211 2941 21
Southwest (Ukraine) 11 54 62 90 57
South Russia 0 1 6 8 10
Central Poland
30
1 23 96 165 216
Galicia
31
8 33 120 190 247
Bukowina 0 1 5 16 18
Hungary
32
0 1 14 37 144
Romania
33
01 519 31
The shift becomes even more evident when it is compared to the estimated
size of the Jewish population in each of the six regions. An approximation of
the relative number of hasidic leaders per 10,000 Jews is provided in Table2.
To be sure, the data are imprecise and must be read with caution, but even
with this reservation, they point to patterns of development that are suffi-
ciently consistent to be considered as reflecting actual trends.
The first of these is the predominance of Galicia over Russia in terms
of the number of hasidic leaders per capita in the Jewish population of the
province. This seemed apparent already in the first period (though, as men-
tioned above, the data for this period are too scarce and imprecise to allow
for any firm conclusions) and became very noticeable in the period between
1772 and 1815. It has to be remembered, however, that the overall figures for
Russia include the Lithuanian-Belarussian territories (known as the north-
west), where the hasidic presence was sparse, together with the Ukrainian
territories (the southwest), where there were many more hasidic communi-
ties. If we break down the Russian territories into their three constituent ma-
jor regions, we obtain a more realistic picture, with the number of hasidic
leaders per capita in the southwestern provinces (Podolia, Volhynia, Kijów
28
For the sake of consistency and comparability, the table anachronistically applies the politi-
cal divisions of 1815–1914 to other periods, too.
29
Excluding the territories of Congress Poland, and after 1918, referring to the territories of
Soviet Russia as well as the former Russian voivodships of the Second Polish Republic (again,
without Congress Poland), in addition to Lithuania, Latvia, and Romanian Bessarabia.
30
The territories of Congress Poland.
31
Without Bukowina.
32
Including territories annexed in 1918 to Czechoslovakia and Romania.
33
Before 1878, the territories of Moldavia, Transylvania, and Wallachia. After 1918, without
the territories annexed from Austro-Hungary and Russia.

TOWARD A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF HASIDISM	189
Table 2.The approximate number of hasidic leaders per 10,000 Jewish inhabitants by
country
34
Region 1700–72 1772–1815 1815–67 1867–1914 1914–45
(ca. 1764) (ca. 1800) (ca. 1850) (ca. 1900) (ca. 1930)
Russia 0.46 0.87 0.57 0.39 0.28
Including:
Northwest (Lithuania and
Belarus)
0.1 0.33 0.39 0.29
Southwest (Ukraine) 0.65 2.40 0.81 0.63
South Russia 0 0.29 0.30 0.11
Central Poland 0.05 0.64 1.68 1.25 1.31
Galicia 0.59 1.65 3.60 2.34 3.13
Bukowina 0 3.33 3.33 1.67 1.96
Hungary 0 0.08 0.35 0.45 1.08
Romania 0 0.33 0.37 0.71 1.19
[Kiev], Połtawa, and Czernihów) being higher than their number per capita in
Galicia during the 1772–1815 period. Very soon afterwards, however, Galicia
reached numbers that far exceeded not only the numbers for Russia in general
but also for the cradle of Hasidism in the southwestern Russian provinces of
Podolia and Volhynia.
In central Poland, the number of hasidic leaders was still smaller than
in Russia, and far lower than in Galicia, but it was growing rapidly, while
in Bukowina, Hungary, and the Romanian territories of Moldavia and
Wallachia, there were hardly any hasidic leaders at this point, which confirms
the presumption of a relatively late hasidic expansion into these territories.
The period after 1815 is distinguished by the most remarkable transfor-
mations in the internal geography of Hasidism, and may be considered the
heyday of hasidic expansion in eastern Europe. A new center was emerging
in Hungary and Romania (see the discussion above), and the absolute dom-
inance of Galicia had become firmly established, with many moretsadikim
than in any other area. These two factors together made for a southwestern
shift, from the Ukrainian provinces of the Russian Empire, which had been
Hasidism’s center of gravity during the eighteenth century, to Galicia in the
34
As in Table1, political divisions dating from the period 1815–1914 are applied anachro-
nistically to all the other periods, too. Since there are no reliable demographic data for the
period prior to the end of the nineteenth century, the calculations here are based on various es-
timations and are to be treated as mere approximations. For the period 1700–72, see Raphael
Mahler,Yidn in amolikn Poyln in likht fun tsifrn(Warsaw, 1958); for the 1930s, see Ezra
Mendelsohn,The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars(Bloomington, 1983)
andMaterialy i issledovaniya, vol 4:Evrei v SSSR(Moscow, 1929). We are grateful to David
Rechter for his assistance in gathering demographic estimations for Bukowina.

190	M. WODZI´NSKI AND U. GELLMAN
course of the nineteenth century, and to Hungary and Romania in the interwar
period.
The data for Galicia are especially revealing, as the per capita calculation
for ca. 1850 yields as many as 3.6tsadikimper 10,000 Jews in the popula-
tion. This amounts to approximately onetsadikfor each seven hundred adult
Jewish men. Admittedly, the calculation is misleading in some respects and
has to be corrected accordingly,
35
but even when all the necessary adjust-
ments have been made, the number of adult Jewish men pertsadikliving in
Galicia ca. 1850 appears to have been no more than 1,500—a surprisingly
low figure, which might force us to revise our long-held assumptions about
the nature and functioning of the hasidic leadership, and its relation to the
hasidic community, at least during this period in Galicia (on which see the
discussion below). The data are especially striking if we take it into account
that not all the Galician Jews at the time were hasidic; that there were some
tsadikimin Galicia (for instance the Bełz and Nowy S ˛acz dynasties) whose
influence, which exceeded that of many others, left little scope for their com-
petitors to recruit their own adherents; and that the distribution oftsadikim
in Galicia had always been uneven, with high concentrations in some ar-
eas and virtually notsadikimin others.
36
All this raises the question of the
size of the hasidic following affiliated to an average hasidic court in Galicia.
If it was as small as is suggested by the calculations above, one wonders
what the economic and social standing of such a court might have been, and
whether a minortsadik, who had no more than one or two hundred followers
traveling to him once or twice a year, could have been sustained by the do-
nations (pidyonot,ma‘amadot, and other contributions) he received from his
35
For example, the demographic value for ca. 1850 gives the false impression that all the
hasidic leaders who were active at various times throughout the whole period from 1815 to
1867—more than fifty years encompassing approximately two generations—were operating
at one and the same time. To correct this distortion and obtain a more realistic estimate, this
value should be reduced by a factor of two. Moreover, as was noted above, we have counted
as hasidic leaders not only full-fledgedtsadikimbut also communal rabbis affiliated with Ha-
sidism, who constitute approximately 10 percent of our database. Consequently, with respect
to the number of potential followers per actualtsadik, the demographic values we present must
be further reduced by 10 percent.
36
Compare, for example, the almost total absence oftsadikimin the counties south of
Kraków (˙Zywiec, Biała, Limanowa, My´slenice, Wieliczka, and Nowy Targ), and their rela-
tively weak presence in the counties situated along the eastern frontier of Galicia (Zbara˙z,
Skałat, Borszczów, Zaleszczyki) and west of Lwów (˙Zółkiew, Gródek, Jaworów), with the
areas of high concentration of hasidic leaders, especially along the frontier between West-
ern and Eastern Galicia (in Dzików, Le˙zajsk, Ła´ncut, Przeworsk, Jarosław, Sieniawa, Beł˙zec,
Cieszanów, Lubaczów, Narol, Przemy´sl, Dynów, Rymanów, Krosno, Dukla, Ustrzyki, Lesko,
and Lutowiska), in Pokucie (Kosów, Nadwórna, Horodenka), and along the central Dniestr
River (Komarno,˙Zydaczów, Strzeliska, Buczacz).

TOWARD A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF HASIDISM	191
hasidim. Indeed, what political influence might such atsadikhave exerted on
his followers and, more importantly, on the community in which he lived?
We should remember that under the impact of hasidic hagiography, where all
thetsadikimare glorified indiscriminately, and on the basis of the reputations
of a few particularly illustrioustsadikim, historians have often assumed that
every hasidic leader exercised absolute control over his community. While
this may have been the case with sometsadikimin the major courts, espe-
cially those located in small towns such as Bełz or Góra Kalwaria, is it right
to attribute the same powers to hundreds of lesser hasidic leaders?
The data presented above further raise the question of the nature of ha-
sidic organization at the local community level. Since the followers of many
minortsadikimwere unlikely to be in a position to establish their own lo-
calshtiblekh, which would be dedicated exclusively to their own rebbe, we
should consider the possibility that hasidic prayer houses regularly accom-
modated the adherents of more than onerebbe.
37
If this was the case then
theshtiblmust have been a far more diversified institution than is commonly
assumed.
38
Finally, the figure of approximately 1,500 adult Jews pertsadik
in mid-nineteenth century Galicia raises the question of the real parameters
of hasidic dominance. It seems reasonable to assume that the lower the num-
ber ofhasidimper rebbe, the greater the extent of hasidic penetration and
thus dominance. If the number of adult Jewish men pertsadikcould be as
low as about 1,500, then we should ask what level of penetration by hasidic
leaders is required for Jewish society in a given territory to be considered
as having come under hasidic domination. Would approximately 8,000 adult
Jewish men pertsadikin early nineteenth-century central Poland, or about
13,000 pertsadikin Russia at the turn of the twentieth century be enough to
claim hasidic dominance in these territories?
The data also reveal a dramatic increase in the number of hasidic leaders
in central Poland, which after 1815 was officially named the Kingdom of
Poland but became better known as Congress or Russian Poland. With 96
tsadikimamounting to 1.68 per 10,000 Jews, Congress Poland in this period
37
This assumption finds strong support in memoir literature (see, e.g., Yekhezkel Kotik,
A Journey to a Nineteenth-Century Shtetl: The Memoirs of Yekhezkel Kotik, ed. David Assaf,
trans. Margaret Birstein [Detroit, 2002], 203) and numerousyizkorbooks (see, e.g., Yaakov
Gorali [Gruzhelko], “Pirkei historyah vezikhronot,” inKartuz-bereza: sefer zikaron ve‘edut
likehilah shehushmedah hi”d, ed. Hayim Ben Israel [Tel Aviv, 1993], 15; Dov Brukash,
“Khsidim-shtiblekh un khsidim in Tshizheve,” inIzker-bukh nokh der khorev-gevorener
yidisher kehile Tshizheve, ed. Shimon Kants [Tel Aviv, 1961], 185–6).
38
For initial research on theshtibl, see Marcin Wodzi´nski,Hasidism and Politics: The King-
dom of Poland 1815–1864, trans. Sean Martin (Oxford and Portland, 2013), chap. 6; Shaul
Stampfer, “How and Why Did Hasidism Spread?” in the present volume.

192	M. WODZI´NSKI AND U. GELLMAN
achieved a degree of penetration that was almost three times higher than in
the previous period.
In Russia during the same period, the absolute number oftsadikimwent
up from 65 to 97. This moderate rise, together with the much higher rate of
demographic growth in the Jewish population, accounts for the decline in the
relative number oftsadikim, from 0.87 to 0.57 per 10,000 Jews living in the
Pale of Settlement. For the first time since the beginning of Hasidism, the
constant rise in the number of hasidic leaders in Russia appears to have been
arrested. By the next period represented on our maps, this stagnation was to
turn into a steep decline, highlighting the emergence of Galicia as the region
showing the highest degree of hasidic penetration.
Most importantly, and despite the evident stagnation in Russia, when the
data for 1815–67 are compared with the data for both the preceding and the
subsequent periods, they suggest that the expansion of the hasidic leadership
in eastern Europe reached its peak around the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury. At no other time, either before or after, did the hasidic movement as
represented by the presence oftsadikimachieve such a high degree of pen-
etration into Jewish society. Although absolute numbers continued to rise in
the later period, the number oftsadikimrelative to the size of the total Jewish
population never reached and, in fact, fell much below what it had been in
1815–67.
The changes reflected in the data for our next two maps are fewer and
not as significant as those for the period ending in 1867. The decline in the
relative number of hasidic leaders per capita in all major areas of hasidic dif-
fusion between 1867 and 1914 was important, but most other trends marking
the previous periods seem to have persisted unchanged. The relatively pre-
cise demographic data for the period around 1900 allow us to sketch sev-
eral of these in some greater detail. The concentration of hasidic leaders
in Galicia was somewhat lower than in the previous period (possibly as a
result of especially dynamic demographic growth in this period), but still
reached the very high value of 2.34tsadikimper 10,000 Jewish inhabitants.
As many as 33.6 percent of all thetsadikimof the period lived in Galicia.
At the same time, proportions per capita in the Russian Pale of Settlement
fell much below the average Galician figures, with 0.63tsadikimper 10,000
Jewish inhabitants in the Southwest, and as little as 0.29 in the Northwest
(see Table3). Of all the Russian territories, the highest concentration was
recorded in the province of Volhynia, with 0.88tsadikimper 10,000 Jewish
inhabitants, amounting to only one-third of the Galician value. In Podolia
there were as few as 0.49tsadikimper 10,000 Jews, with not a single one
of them sufficiently influential to create a power vacuum around him. It thus
seems certain that in the course of the nineteenth century, Podolia ceased to
be the stronghold of the hasidic movement, at least in terms of the number of
hasidic leaders residing in the province (see Map4).

TOWARD A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF HASIDISM	193
At the same time, in the Russian provinces of Kijów [Kiev] and Mi´nsk, the
number oftsadikimin relation to the size of the Jewish population reached
0.81 and 0.74 respectively per 10,000 Jews. This easily overtook the figures
for the province of Podolia, and approached the figures for the province of
Volhynia. The high values for Kijów and Mi´nsk, together with the corrobo-
rative evidence of the memoir literature, suggest that the hasidic movement
had indeed achieved a relatively strong position in this area.
39
The domi-
nance of the Chernobyl [Czarnobyl] dynasty and its numerous offshoots may
have contributed to the success of Hasidism in this region, but other factors
may have been at play, and the phenomenon needs to be investigated much
more carefully.
40
In terms of the proportion of hasidic leaders, Congress Poland around
1900 was much closer to the Galician than the Russian model. The provinces
of Radom and Kielce had 2.21 and 2.19tsadikimper 10,000 Jews respec-
tively, values which are close to the average for Galicia (2.34), and much
higher than any of the values for the provinces of the Pale of Settlement.
Other central-Polish provinces had far lower values (to be discussed below),
but the average figure for Congress Poland (1.25) was still far higher than for
the Pale (0.39), indicating the growing importance of this area for the hasidic
movement. It is also interesting to note that some memoir sources confirm
that at the beginning of the twentieth century, Podolia and Volhynia were
much less hasidic than Congress Poland.
41
The data for individual provinces (gubernias) are presented in Table3.
The data for the fifth period, 1914–45, testify to the large scale migration
taking place, both internally, within Eastern Europe, and overseas, where new
hasidic centers (excluded from the present discussion) were being established
in the United States, Great Britain, and elsewhere in western Europe. For the
eastern European territories under consideration, the data also demonstrate a
significant shift in the regions under dominant hasidic influence. The number
oftsadikimin Romania, and especially in Hungary, rose significantly and
turned both territories into principal areas of hasidic domination, ranking
39
About Konotop, see, e.g., Pauline Wengeroff,Rememberings: The World of a Russian-
Jewish Woman in the Nineteenth Century, trans. Henny Wenkart, ed. Bernard D. Cooperman
(Bethesda, 2000), 154. About Vasilkov, see Yekhezkel Kotik,Na venad: zikhronotav shel
yekhezkel kotik, trans. David Assaf (Tel Aviv, 2005), 2:230. Both were in the province of
Kijów and, according to both memoirists, they were nearly entirely hasidic.
40
For the Chernobyl dynasty’s geographical dimensions, see Gad Sagiv, “Hasidut chernobil:
toledoteiha vetoroteiha mereshitah ve‘ad erev milhemet ha‘olam harishonah” (PhD diss., Tel
Aviv University, 2009), chap. 3.
41
See, e.g., Israel Joshua Singer,Of a World That Is No More, trans. Joseph Singer (New York,
1970), 16–7.

194	M. WODZI´NSKI AND U. GELLMAN
Table 3.Hasidic leaders per capita by province of Russian Empire, ca. 1900
Region Number of Jewish
inhabitants, 1897
42
Number of hasidic
leaders active in the
province between
1867 and 1914
Number of hasidic
leaders per 10,000
Jewish inhabitants
in 1897
Bessarabia 226,000 5 0.22	Cherson 337,000 3 0.09	Jekaterynosław 101,000 0 0
Crimea 66,000 0 0
Total for
South Russia 730,000 8 0.11
Grodno 277,000 10 0.36
Kowno 212,000 0 0
Mi´nsk 339,000 25 0.74
Mohylew 201,000 5 0.25
Witebsk 176,000 1 0.06
Wilno 205,000 0 0
Total for the
Northwest 1,410,000 42 0.30
Czernihów 115,000 2 0.17
Kijów 428,000 35 0.81
Połtawa 111,000 0 0
Podolia 367,000 18 0.49
Wolhynia 398,000 35 0.88
Total for the
Southwest 1,418,000 87 0.61
Kalisz 72,000 0 0
Kielce 82,000 18 2.19
Lublin 154,000 25 1.62
Łom˙za 91,000 4 0.44
Piotrków 222,000 34 1.53
Płock 50,000 2 0.4
Radom 113,000 25 2.21
Siedlce 122,000 18 1.47
Suwałki 59,000 0 0
Warszawa 350,000 39 1.11
Total for
Congress Poland 1,316,000 165 1.25
just below the leading position of Poland. This accounts for the somewhat
Hungarian flavor of Hasidism’s impressive rehabilitation in its new centers
42
Based on B. Goldberg, “Zur Statistik der jüdischen Bevölkerung in Russland laut der
Volkszählung von 1897,” inJüdische Statistik, hrsg. vom Verein für Jüdische Statistik unter
der Redaktion von Dr. Alfred Nossig (Berlin, 1903), 259–86.

TOWARD A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF HASIDISM	195
in Israel, the United States, and western Europe after World War II and the
Holocaust.
43
The most striking phenomenon in the interwar period was, however, the
dramatic drop in the number oftsadikimin Russia, especially during the third
decade of the century (see below), which reflected the virtual extinction of
the movement in this region, and anticipated similar developments in other
eastern European territories, brought on by the Holocaust. The map for this
period demonstrates clearly the hasidic leadership’s move out of the Soviet
territories of the former Pale of Settlement and its concentration in the Second
Republic of Poland (see Map5).
Politics and the Geography of Expansion
Careful examination of the maps reveals a close correlation between the
boundaries of the hasidic conquest and the shifting political borders of the
eastern European states. Let us examine two striking cases.
The first and most obvious is the abrupt decline in the number of hasidic
leaders in the territories of Russia after 1914 (see Map5and Table1). This
was a result not only of the massive dislocation that occurred during World
War I and its aftermath (including the pogroms that erupted toward the end
of the second decade of the century), but especially of the anti-religious poli-
cies adopted by the new Soviet regime after 1918, when religious authori-
ties and institutions were being hounded and suppressed. Although little of
these events, other than the odyssey of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Yosef Yitshak
Schneersohn (1880–1950), has attracted scholarly attention,
44
the map testi-
fies to the consistency, large scale, and ultimate effect of this persecution.
Another interesting correlation between the dynamics of hasidic expan-
sion and the legal-political framework can be observed in the territories of
central and western Poland. In the period until 1772 there were hardly any
hasidic leaders in this territory (see Map1), but during the 1772–1815 period,
there emerged a concentration of hasidic leaders in the territories east of the
Pilica River (see Map2; for instance, Kozienice, Przysucha, Opatów). This
43
On the prominence of the Hungarian courts in post-Holocaust Hasidism, see, e.g., Janet S.
Belcove-Shalin, ed.,New World Hasidim: Ethnographic Studies of Hasidic Jews in America
(New York, 1995); Jerome R. Mintz,Hasidic People: A Place in the New World(Cambridge,
1992).
44
On the fate of the hasidic movement, especially its leadership, under the Soviet regime,
see, e.g., David E. Fishman, “Preserving Tradition in the Land of Revolution: The Religious
Leadership of Soviet Jewry, 1917–30,” inThe Uses of Tradition, ed. Jack Wertheimer (New
York, 1992), 85–118; Shalom D. Levin,Toledot habad berusyah hasovyetit: 1918–1950(New
York, 1989).

196	M. WODZI´NSKI AND U. GELLMAN
can be partly explained by the cultural borders of Hasidism: much of the terri-
tories west of this area belonged to Wielkopolska (Greater Poland), where the
small size of the Jewish population, its concentration in the cities and larger
towns rather than inshtetlekh, which did not exist in this region, together with
the strong cultural influences of German Jewry, dictated a significantly lower
pace of hasidic infiltration. Similarly, the northeastern territories (Suwałki)
dominated by Lithuanian Jewry were closer to the mitnagdic than the hasidic
way of life. But these social, demographic, and cultural factors cannot fully
account for the striking difference between the high number of hasidic lead-
ers in the region east of the Pilica River and the significantly lower number in
several other areas of central Poland, which were socially, demographically,
and culturally identical with the area east of the Pilica River, such as eastern
and western Mazovia or northern and southern Podlasie.
Why was Hasidism more successful in the territories east of the Pilica
River? The only factor that seems to be relevant is politics. In 1793–95,
central Poland was divided between Prussia and Austria. Wielkopolska, part
of Mazovia, northern Podlasie, and the western borderlands of Małopolska
(Lesser Poland) west of the Pilica River, as well as the Siewierz principal-
ity, fell to Prussia in the second (1793) and third (1795) partitions. Austria,
which did not participate in the second partition of 1793, acquired part of
Mazovia, the Sandomierz region, southern Podlasie, and the Lublin region,
which in 1795 constituted the territory known as Western Galicia. It seems
that Austrian rule was the factor that facilitated the success of Hasidism in
these territories.
45
The density of hasidic leaders in Western Galicia distin-
guished it from other regions of central Poland and put it on a par with cen-
tral areas of Eastern Galicia, which had already come under Austrian rule
in 1772. What is more, the high concentration of hasidic leaders in all these
territories remained in force during the subsequent periods, when Western
Galicia ceased to exist, and they were incorporated into Congress Poland.
The dissolution of the older phantom cultural-political borders was a long-
drawn process, which was not completed until the twentieth century (see Ta-
ble3above). As late as 1900, the concentration of hasidic leaders per 10,000
Jews in the former Austrian territories of Congress Poland (for instance, 2.21
in the province of Radom, 2.19 in the province of Kielce, and 1.62 in the
province of Lublin) was far higher than in the former Prussian territories (for
instance, 0.4 in the province of Płock and 1.11 in the province of Warsaw).
It seems that the political and/or legal conditions prevailing under Austrian
45
It is not our intention to dwell here on the specific features of Austrian rule that might have
been conducive to the development of Hasidism, or at least to the settlement of numerous
hasidic leaders within its borders. For more on this, see Rachel Manekin, “Hasidism and the
Habsburg Empire, 1788–1867” in the present volume.

TOWARD A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF HASIDISM	197
rule may have continued to shape the geography of Hasidism even after the
geopolitical circumstances changed at the turn of the nineteenth century, with
Prussian rule over these territories ending in 1807, and Austrian rule ending
in 1809.
Hasidism and Urbanization
Another remarkable phenomenon highlighted by the maps is the urbanization
of the hasidic leadership. There had always been a fewtsadikimwho set-
tled in large Jewish communities, for example, in Czerniowce [Czernowitz],
Lwów, and Kraków; but until the end of the nineteenth century, these were
isolated cases, which sparked heated debate and comment in hasidic litera-
ture, as in the case of Yaakov Yitshak Horowitz, the Seer of Lublin (1745–
1815), or else ended with thetsadik’s withdrawal into a smallershtetl,asin
case of Yitshak Meir Alter of Ger [Góra Kalwaria] (d. 1866).
46
Until 1914
semi-urbanshtetlekhand, to a lesser degree, middle-size towns (often with
shtetl-like Jewish districts) were clearly the settlements of choice for hasidic
leaders. Only after 1914 did numeroustsadikimbegin to settle in the great
modern urban centers of eastern Europe (see map 5). The most spectacular
case was Warsaw, where as many as 26 hasidic leaders resided during the
interwar period, with Łód´z showing a somewhat smaller but still impressive
concentration of 13 leaders.
Hasidic leaders moved not only to the metropolitan cities of central
Poland, such as Warsaw and Łód´z, but also to many provincial cities,
especially in Galicia, where there were no major metropolitan centers.
Stanisławów (with 12 hasidic leaders), Lwów (11), Rzeszów (11), Tarnów
(10), and Kraków (9) were especially popular in this respect. Undoubtedly,
this massive resettlement was largely a response to the atrocities of World
War I, which had left a particularly painful mark on Galicia. Twice occu-
pied by the Russians, the local population, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, was
forced to flee persecution by the military authorities. Some Jews (includ-
ing manytsadikim) fled as far as Vienna; many others found shelter in the
large urban Jewish communities of Galicia, where they remained even after
World War I and the subsequent Polish-Ukrainian, Polish-Soviet, and Soviet-
Ukrainian wars were over. The same war-time hardships may have drawn
46
For such comments on the settlement of Yaakov Yitshak Horowitz in Lublin, see e.g., Moshe
Menahem Walden,Nifle’ot harabi(Warsaw, 1911), 13, 75, 86; Tsvi Meir Rabinowicz,Bein
pshyskha lelublin(Jerusalem, 1997), 110–2. For documents on the opposition to Yitshak Meir
Alter’s activities in Warsaw, see Zofia Borzymi´nska, “Sprawa Rabiego Icchaka Meira Altera,”
Biuletyn˙Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego52 (2001), 3:367–77; Marcin Wodzi´nski,Ha-
sidism in the Kingdom of Poland, 1815–1867: Historical Sources in the Polish State Archives
(Kraków, 2011), chap. 36.

198	M. WODZI´NSKI AND U. GELLMAN
many refugees into Warsaw and Łód´z, where Jews felt relatively safer than
in their small home communities, where they had been exposed to the whims
and ill-will of local military commanders and their under-fed and unremu-
nerated troops.
The persistent phenomenon of thetsadikim’s urban resettlement after
the wars suggests that it resulted from other factors in addition to the war-
induced difficulties. Was it a side-effect of the generally shifting settlement
patterns of the Jewish population in an age of industrialization and urban-
ization? Were the hasidic leaders merely following their adherents who, in
search of new economic opportunities, migrated in their tens of thousands
from small nineteenth-centuryshtetlekhto the newly emergent, large, urban
centers of the early twentieth century? Jacob Shatzky, attempting to explain
how Warsaw came to be dominated by Hasidism, once suggested that in re-
ality, Warsaw Jews never becamehasidimbut rather manyhasidimbecame
residents of Warsaw.
47
The settlement pattern of the hasidic leadership seems
to support the validity of this observation not only for Warsaw but also for
many other east European cities. However, it seems that the shift in the settle-
ment pattern of the hasidic leadership occurred later than that of the hasidic
rank and file. Hasidic leaders tended to move to the big city during World
War I and the interwar period, long after hasidic dominance in Warsaw and
elsewhere had been established.
Conclusions
The geography of Hasidism has always attracted the attention of both histo-
rians and adherents of the movement. The notions of the hasidic map devel-
oped by these two constituencies have had much in common, as they were
derived primarily from hagiographical sources reflecting the apologetic ten-
dencies of their hasidic authors. Our own maps represent an attempt to free
hasidic geography from this tradition. As already noted, they do not alto-
gether overcome the elitist bias of the available research on the social history
of Hasidism, which focuses on the hasidic leaders to the virtual exclusion of
the rank-and-file followers of the movement. Ideally, the geography of Ha-
sidism should be reconstructed on the basis of a much wider range of sources,
including not only hasidic materials but also official reports, memoirs,yizkor
books, the Jewish press, andprenumerantenlists for hasidic publications
printed in Europe, although even this may not be sufficient to capture the
complex dynamics of hasidic expansion. For the time being, however, we
have expanded the relevant database, eliminated the subjective judgment that
47
See Yaakov Shatzky,Geshikhte fun Yidn in Varshe, vol. 3 (New York, 1953), 352.

TOWARD A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF HASIDISM	199
had traditionally determined its scope, and proposed a new conceptualization
of the hasidic leadership and its following in eastern Europe. Though some of
our observations, such as the failure of Hasidism to spread beyond its west-
ern borders, might be common knowledge (albeit hitherto unverified), others
provide new insights into the history of the hasidic movement and point in
the direction of new research agendas. These include, for example, the ap-
parent shift of hasidic centers from Podolia and Volhynia in the eighteenth
century to Galicia and the southeastern provinces of Congress Poland in the
nineteenth century, and subsequently to Hungary and Romania in the twen-
tieth century; the hasidic penetration into Jewish eastern Europe reaching its
peak specifically in the period between 1815 and 1867; or the metropoliza-
tion of the hasidic leadership after 1914. We hope that our maps will stimulate
others to pursue this field of investigation, propose additional new insights,
and—where necessary—refine or correct our findings.