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Author Unger, Menashe

Title A fire burns in kotsk : a tale of Hasidism in the kingdom of Poland / Menashe Unger, Translated by Jonathan Boyarin
Published Detroit, MI : Wayne State University Press, 2015

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Description 1 online resource
Series UPCC book collections on Project MUSE. History
Contents Cover; Half-title; Title; Copyright; Contents; Translator's Preface; Introduction; 1 Traveling to the Wedding; 2 At a Tavern Outside Ostilye; 3 Hasidic Cossacks; 4 In an Attic in Ostilye; 5 The Dispute in Lublin on Account of a Shirt; 6 The Fall of the Rebbe of Lublin; 7 The Paupers' Feast; 8 The Groom Holds Court Before the Ceremony; 9 The Ceremony; 10 The Apter Rebbe Presides; 11 The Trial; 12 The Passing of the Rebbe Reb Bunem; 13 A Fire Burns in Tomashov; 14 Starting School All Over Again; 15 The Vurker Rebbe Goes to Tomashov; 16 The Hasidic Commune in Tomashov
17 Court Intrigues at Kotsk18 The Kotsker Rebbe Forgets to Go to His Own Wedding Ceremony; 19 The Kotsker Rebbe and the Polish Uprising of 1830; 20 The Council at Moshe Khalfan's House; 21 Reb Itshe Meirl Is Arrested as a Spy; 22 The Kotsker Rebbe Issues a Call to Support the Polish Rebellion; 23 The Battle Between Maskilim and Hasidim in Warsaw; 24 "Minister" Montefiore and the Vurker Rebbe; 25 The Kotsker Rebbe after His Second Marriage; 26 The Izhbitser Rebbe in Kotsk; 27 The Contentious Conversation; 28 The Kotsker Rebbe in His Private Room
29 The Society of "Watchers" at the Court of Kotsk30 The Watchers Are Driven Out; 31 The Kotsker Rebbe Agrees to Open the Door; 32 The Terrible Friday Night; 33 The Rebbe of Gostinin Doesn't Know to Whom to Go; 34 The Kotsker Rebbe Escapes from His Private Room; 35 The Passing of the Kotsker Rebbe
Summary Half a century after Hasidism blossomed in Eastern Europe, its members were making deep inroads into the institutional structure of Polish Jewish communities, but some devotees believed that the movement had drifted away from its revolutionary ideals. Menashe Unger's "A Fire Burns in Kotsk" dramatizes this moment of division among Polish Hasidim in a historical account that reads like a novel, though the book was never billed as such. Originally published in Buenos Aires in 1949 and translated for the first time from Yiddish by Jonathan Boyarin, this volume captures an important period in the evolution of the Hasidic movement, and is itself a missing link to Hasidic oral traditions. A non-observant journalist who had grown up as the son of a prominent Hasidic rabbi, Unger incorporates stories that were told by his family into his historical account. "A Fire Burns in Kotsk" begins with a threat to the new, rebellious movement within Hasidism known as "the school of Pshiskhe," led by the good-humored Reb Simkhe Bunim. When Bunim is succeeded by the fiery and forbidding Rebbe of Kotsk, Menachem Mendl Morgenstern, the new leader's disdain for the vast majority of his followers will lead to a crisis in his court. Around this core narrative of reform and crisis in Hasidic leadership, Unger offers a rich account of the everyday Hasidic court life-filled with plenty of alcohol, stolen geese, and wives pleading with their husbands to come back home. Unger's volume reflects a period when Eastern European Jewish immigrants enjoyed reading about Hasidic culture in Yiddish articles and books, even as they themselves were rapidly assimilating into American culture. Historians of literature, Polish culture, and Jewish studies will welcome this lively translation
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Hasidism -- Poland -- Fiction
LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- German.
Hasidism
Poland
Genre/Form Fiction
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2014936559
ISBN 9780814338148
0814338143
0814338135
9780814338131