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Editors’ Pick

June 5, 2025

The Man Who Founded Hasidism

The search for the Ba’al Shem Tov.

Most Jews know of Hasidim only as black-clad religious extremists. Those who know a little more about the hasidic movement, based perhaps on vaguely remembered snippets from Elie Wiesel, Martin Buber, or Chaim Potok, have a picture of a group that criticized the scholarly elite, appealed to the common man, and rejected abstruse talmudic legalism.

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