1. In this essay, I adhere to the Polish spellings of eastern European place-names, in some cases followed by a transcription of the standard Yiddish form.

2. On Agudes Yisroel, see Bacon, Gershon, The Politics of Tradition. Agudat Yisrael in Poland, 1916–1939 (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996Google Scholar). On Makhzikey Hadas, see Manekin, Rachel, “Ẓemiḥutah vegibushah shel ha'ortodoksiyah hayehudit begalitsiyah: Ḥevrat ‘Maḥzikei Ha-dat,’ 1867–1883,” (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2000Google Scholar). See also other interesting studies of this type, e.g., Ravitzky, Aviezer, “Munkács and Jerusalem: Ultra-Orthodox Opposition to Zionism and Agudaism,” in Zionism and Religion, ed. Almog, Shmuel, Reinharz, Jehuda, and Shapira, Anita (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1998), 67–89Google Scholar; and Salmon, Yosef, Religion and Zionism: First Encounters (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2002)Google Scholar, index.

3. This concept found its best articulation in a magisterial study by Frankel, Jonathan, Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism and the Russian Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. The events have been described in the literature many times, the best-known literary version being a novel by Buber, Martin, For the Sake of Heaven, trans. Loewinson, L. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1945)Google Scholar. A collection of hasidic stories related to Napoleon and his times can be found in Mevoraḥ, Baruch, ed., Napoleon utekufato: Reshimot ve'eduyot ‘ivriyot benei hador (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1968), 181–89Google Scholar. For a good introduction to the historical literature on the subject, see Hillel Levine, “‘Should Napoleon Be Victorious…’: Politics and Spirituality in Early Modern Messianism,”, Jewish; in The Sabbatian Movement and Its Aftermath: Messianism, Sabbatianism and Frankism, ed. Elior, Rachel (Jerusalem: Institute of Jewish Studies/Gershom Scholem Center for the Study of Jewish Mysticism and Kabbala, Hebrew University, 2001), 2:65–83Google Scholar.

5. See Assaf, David and Bartal, Israel, “Shtadlanut ve'ortodoksiya: Tsadikei Polin bemifgash ‘im hazemanim haḥadashim,” in Ẓadikim ve'anshei ma‘aseh: Meḥkarim beḥasidut Polin, ed. Elior, Rachel, Bartal, Israel, and Shmeruk, Chone (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute/Center for Research on the History and Culture of Polish Jews, Hebrew University, 1994) 65–90Google Scholar; and Rabinowicz, Harry M., “Sir Moses Montefiore and Chasidism,” Le'ela 36 (1993): 35–38Google Scholar.

6. See Stanislawski, Michael, Tsar Nicholas I and the Jews: The Transformation of Jewish Society in Russia 1825–1855 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1983), 78–81Google Scholar; a hasidic version of the events is included in Schneersohn, Joseph, The “Tzemach Tzedek” and the Haskala Movement, trans. Posner, Zalman I. (New York: Kehot Publication Society, 1969)Google Scholar. For more on hasidic historiography (mainly generated by the Schneersohns) and its characteristics, see Rapoport-Albert, Ada, “Hagiography with Footnotes: Edifying Tales and the Writing of History in Hasidism,” in Essays in Jewish Historiography, ed. Rapoport-Albert, Ada (Ottawa: Scholars Press, 1991), 119–59Google Scholar.

7. The most notorious is the equating of Jewish political activity with bribery; see Levine, “‘Should Napoleon Be Victorious…,’” 14.

8. Still worse is when historians use a narrative of their own design to impress their own ideological and political vision on others. Raphael Mahler proved a master of this technique. His vision of “hasidic leadership of Jewish passive resistance,” inspired both by Zionism and by Marxist ideology, still remains surprisingly influential today. See Mahler's, Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment: Their Confrontation in Galicia and Poland in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century, Yiddish trans. Orenstein, E., Hebrew trans. Klein, A. and Klein, J. Machlowitz (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1985)Google Scholar.

9. Weber, Max, On Law, Economy and Society, ed. Rheinstein, M. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), 354Google Scholar. A broad discussion of the political parameters of modernity, including Weber's influential opinions on the subject, is presented in Sztompka, Piotr, The Sociology of Social Change (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1993), chap. 5Google Scholar.

10. The term was introduced by Wehler, Hans Ulrich, Deutsche Gesellschaftgeschichte, vol. 1, Vom Feudalismus des Alten Reiches bis zur defensiven Modernisierung der Reformaera, 1700–1815 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1987)Google Scholar.

11. See Halperin, Israel, “Rabbi Levi-Yiẓḥak mi Berditshev ugezerot hamalkhut beyamav,” in Halperin, Israel, Yehudim veyahadut bemizraḥ 'eiropaḥ (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1968), 340–47Google Scholar. The information, besides hasidic sources, emerges from a remark by Menahem Mendel Lefin mentioning a hasidic leader who had arrived in Warsaw from Ukraine; see Lefin, , “Essai d'un plan de réforme ayant pour objet d’éclairer la nation Juive en Pologne et de redresser par lá ses moeurs,” in Materiały do dziejów Sejmu Czteroletniego, ed. Eisenbach, Artur et al. . (Wrocław: Zakład Nardowy imienia Ossolińskich, 1969), 6:419–20Google Scholar. For more, see Ringelblum, Emanuel, “Khsides un haskole in Varshe in 18-tn yorhundert,” YIVO-Bletter 13 (1938): 125–26Google Scholar; Dresner, Samuel H., Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev: Portrait of a Hasidic Master (New York: Hartmore House, 1974), 67–69Google Scholar.

12. A methodological discussion of the ways to use hasidic stories as historical evidence is provided in a pathbreaking publication by Rosman, Moshe, Founder of Hasidism: A Quest for the Historical Baal Shem Tov (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996)Google Scholar. For the most articulate reactions to Rosman's positions, see Etkes, Immanuel, “The Historical Besht: Reconstruction or Deconstruction?” Polin 12 (1999): 297–306Google Scholar; idem, Ba‘al hashem: Habesh″t—magiyah, mistikah, hanhagah (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2000); Pedaya, Ḥaviva, “Bikoret ‘al M. Rosman Habesht: Meḥadesh haḥasidut,” Ẓion 69 (2004): 515–24Google Scholar; and idem, “Bikoret ‘al E. Etkes Ba‘al hashem: Habesh“t—magiyah, mistikah, hanhagah,” Ẓion 70 (2005): 248–65. See also the exchange between Rosman and Pedaya in Rosman, Moshe, “Lemeḥkar bikorti ‘al habesh“t hahistori—teguvah,” Ẓion 70 (2005): 537–45Google Scholar; and Pedaya, Ḥaviva, “Teguvah leteguvato shel Moshe Rosman,” Ẓion 70 (2005): 546–51Google Scholar.

13. On the conflict in Vilna, see esp. Klausner, Israel, Vilna bitekufat haga'on (Jerusalem: Sinai, 1942), 30–36Google Scholar; see also Lederhendler, Eli, The Road to Modern Jewish Politics: Political Tradition and Political Reconstruction in the Jewish Community of Tsarist Russia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 43–44Google Scholar; and Dubnow, Simon, “Vmeshatelstvo russkogo pravitelstva v antichasidskuyu borbu (1800–1801),” Evreyska Starina 2 (1910): 84–109, 253–82Google Scholar.

14. On Pinḥas of Korzec and his ideas on the role of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, see Heschel, Abraham Joshua, The Circle of the Baal Shem Tov: Studies in Hasidism, ed. Dresner, Samuel H. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 40–43Google Scholar. For an analysis of the hasidic political manifestations from the Napoleonic period, see Levine, “‘Should Napoleon Be Victorious…’”

15. For more on the most important government investigations in the matter of Hasidism, see my essay “Rząd Królestwa Polskiego wobec chasydyzmu: Początki ‘polityki chasydzkiej’ w Królestwie Kongresowym (1817–1818),” in Żydzi i judaizm we współczesnych badaniach polskich, ed. Krzysztof Pilarczyk (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Antykwa, 2003), 3:65–77.

16. It should be noted, however, that term “Hussite” had nothing to do with any supposed analogy to Protestant Christianity. In central Poland, the a sound of kamats gadol was pronounced in both Yiddish and Hebrew as u, whereas consonants in final sounds became voiceless, hence khusit or khusyt instead of ḥasid in contemporary standard Hebrew or khosid in YIVO standard Yiddish. Because the Polish language lost phonematical opposition between voiced kh and voiceless ḥ and eventually lost voiced kh altogether, for the Polish-speaking interlocutor, the Yiddish (or Hebrew) word khusit/khusyt was identical with the Polish husyt (Hussite). The form was frequently recorded in Polish literature in the nineteenth century, and today this is the most common name for hasidim in Polish folk culture. See Brzezina, Maria, Polszczyzna Żydów (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1986), 72, 336Google Scholar; Cała, Alina, Wizerunek Żyda w polskiej kulturze ludowej (Warsaw: Uniwersytet Warszawski, Instytut Socjologii, 1988), 18, 25, 36, 45, 56–57, 59, 68–72Google Scholar (an English translation of the book loses this linguistic feature; see Cała, , The Image of the Jew in Polish Folk Culture [Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1995], passim)Google Scholar.

17. The investigation in Płock has been analyzed in my Haskalah and Hasidism in the Kingdom of Poland: A History of Conflict, trans. Sarah Cozens (Oxford, UK, and Portland, OR: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2005), 88–90; the most extensive description can be found in my “Rząd Królestwa Polskiego wobec chasydyzmu,” 69–77. See also Dynner, Glenn, “Men of Silk”: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 60–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, “The Hasidic Conquest of Small-Town Central Poland, 1754–1818,” Polin 17 (2004): 63–66.

18. Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych w Warszawie (AGAD), Centralne Władze Wyznaniowe Królestwa Polskiego (CWW), 1869, p. 9.

19. AGAD, Komisja Województwa Kaliskiego, 702, pp. 15–87, AGAD, CWW, 1542, pp. 4–10. See also my “Chasydzi w Częstochowie: Źródła do dziejów chasydyzmu w centralnej Polsce,” Studia Judaica 8 (2005): 279–301.

20. Moreover, summoned for an interrogation during one of the most important antihasidic investigations in Poland in 1824, Simha Bunim did not show up at the ministerial committee meeting, claiming illness. See AGAD, CWW, 1871, pp. 168–69.

21. For more on Berek Sonnenberg and his support for the hasidic movement, see Dynner, “Men of Silk,” 99–104; idem, “Merchant Princes and Tsadikim: The Patronage of Polish Hasidism,” Jewish Social Studies 12/1 (2005): 64–110; see also Schiper, Ignacy, Przyczynki do dziejów chasydyzmu w Polsce, ed. Targielski, Zbigniew (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1992), 86–88Google Scholar.

22. On Berek Sonnenberg's negotiations in regard to the salt monopoly, see AGAD, Protokoły posiedzeń Rady Administracyjnej Królestwa Polskiego, 1:156–61, 181–84; 7:501–6; 8:8; 9:2–3, 54–57, 72–77; 10:254, 257; on Sonnenberg's last will, see my “Legat Berka Sonnenberga czyli O zaskakującej karierze mimowolnego dobroczyńcy,” Studia Judaica 7 (2004): 183–206.

23. For essential information on Kahana, see Grynszpan, Shlomo, “Rabanim: Kovets masot al rabanei plotsk,” in Plotsk: Toldot kehilah ‘atikat-yomin bepolin, ed. Eizenberg, Eliahu (Tel Aviv: World Committee for the Plotsk Memorial Book, 1967), 93–96Google Scholar; and Boim, Yehuda Menahem, Harabi rebe bunem mipeshishah: Toldot ḥayav, sipurim, minhagim, siḥot (Benei Brak: Mekhon “Torat Simhah,”; 1997), i. 275–82Google Scholar.

24. See Mandelbaum, David Abraham, ed., Mikhtavim ve'igerot kodesh (New York, 2003), 215Google Scholar.

25. For an interesting testimony that reveals the degree of hasidic unawareness of the nature of their leaders’ political activities, see Sefer me'ir ‘einei hagolah (Brooklyn: Pe'er, 1970), 1:100, no. 206.

26. See Niemcewicz, Julian Ursyn, Lejbe i Sióra czyli Listy dwóch kochanków, vols. 1–2 (Warszawa, 1821)Google Scholar. Stern's report has been published more than once; see Mahler, Raphael, Haḥasidut vehahaskalah (begaliẓiyah uvepolin hakongresa'it bamaḥaẓit harishonah shel hame'ah hatesha-‘esrei, hayesodot hasoẓiyaliyim vehamediniyim) (Merhavia: Sifriat Poalim, 1961), 477–81Google Scholar, English translation in my Haskalah and Hasidism in the Kingdom of Poland, 260–63.

27. The only regulation of this kind was the Habsburg law on the minianim in Western Galicia issued in 1799 (see Zweite, Franz der, Sr. k.k. Majestät Franz des Zweyten politische Gesetze und Verordnungen für Oesterreichischen, Böhmischen und Galizischen Erbländer [Vienna, 1816], 13:101–3Google Scholar; see also AGAD, Komisja Rządowa Spraw Wewnętrznych [KRSW], 6628, folio 198–201), it should be noted, however, that the relation of the law to Hasidism was not clear.

28. On the Jewish regulations forbidding suing a Jew in a non-Jewish court, see Lederhendler, The Road to Modern Jewish Politics, 12–14.

29. This investigation has been described in the literature more than once; of the most important publications on the subject, see Mahler, Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment, 317–37. The most comprehensive description is included in my “Sprawa chasydymów. Z materiałów do dziejów chasydyzmu w Królestwie Polskim,” in Z historii ludności żydowskiej w Polsce i na Śląsku, ed. Krystyn Matwijowski (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 1994), 227–42, French translation without the knowledge and consent of the author in Tsafon: Revue d'études juives du Nord 29 (1997): 35–58.

30. AGAD, CWW, 1871, pp. 187–90.

31. AGAD, CWW, 1871, p. 213; AGAD, KRSW, 6635, folio 6.

32. R. Meir's petition has not been preserved; its content is known to us thanks to the official correspondence it engendered. See AGAD, KRSW, 6635, folio 9–22; CWW, 1871, pp. 214–18. Some documents related to R. Meir's intervention have been published in Mahler, Haḥasidut vehahaskalah, 492–501. Unfortunately, Mahler's reconstruction of the events is incomplete and biased. For another view of R. Meir's activities and contacts with the government, see Dynner, “Men of Silk,” 79–81, 112–13.

33. AGAD, KRSW, 6635, folio 18–22.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid., folio 16–17.

36. AGAD, CWW, 1411, pp. 66–81; AGAD, Komisja Województwa Kaliskiego, 702, p. 171. The regulation in the matter of shtiblekh, issued in 1827, turned out to be the essential regulation in the matter, remaining valid until the end of the Congress Kingdom.

37. On the Rozynes affair and consecutive attempts by the hasidim to dismiss him from the rabbinical office, see AGAD, CWW, 1481, pp. 6–307, 347–418; AGAD, CWW, 1474, pp. 40–326; AGAD, CWW, 1445, pp. 223–32. On the campaign in the matter of the electoral law, see AGAD, CWW, 1727–29; see also Guesnet, François, Polnische Juden im 19. Jahrhundert: Lebensbedingungen, Rechtsnormen und Organisation im Wandel (Köln-Weimar-Wien: Boehlau Verlag, 1998), 403–10Google Scholar.

38. During another interrogation run by Stanisław Staszic in 1824, Jakub Bereksohn served as an interpreter for R. Meir of Opatów, who “because of lack of knowledge of Polish or even understandable German, was assisted by Jakób Bereksohn Sonnenberg, a businessman of the local factories.” See AGAD, CWW, 1871, pp. 168–79.

39. See AGAD, CWW, 1871, pp. 114–17, 119–21; see also Boim, Harabi rebe bunem mipeshisha, ii. 633–40 (copy and the Hebrew translation). Alexander Zusya Kahana was also a hasidic religious leader, in the broad meaning of the term; he was not, however, a zaddik but only a communal rabbi in Siedlce and Płock, as well as an intimate associate of Simha Bunim of Przysucha.

40. Lederhendler, The Road to Modern Jewish Politics, 74; for more, see ibid., 68–83.

41. AGAD, KRSW, 6635, folio 18–22; and Mahler, Haḥasidut vehahaskalah, 498–501.

42. See, e.g., Assaf and Bartal, “Shtadlanut ve'ortodoksiyah”; and Marcin Wodziński, “Hasidism, Shtadlanut, and Jewish Politics in Nineteenth Century Poland: The Case of Isaac of Warka,”, ; Jewish Quarterly Review 96, no. 2 (2005): 290–320Google Scholar. On hasidic historiography, see Bromberg, Abraham, Migedolei haḥasidut, vol. 3 (Jerusalem: Hamakhon leḥasidut, 1952)Google Scholar; Zalmanov, Shraga, Sefer shemu'at yiẓḥak: Likutei ’imrot tehorot … maran rabenu yisra'el yiẓḥak ’admor hazaken mivarka (Bene Berak: Makhon lev arie dehasidei opole, 5766 [2006]), 369–85Google Scholar.

43. AGAD, CWW, 1409, pp. 221–41; 1412, p. 228.

44. See Assaf and Bartal, “Shtadlanut ve'ortodoksiyah”; and Rabinowicz, “Sir Moses Montefiore and Chasidism.” For some important details, see also Kandel, Dawid, “Montefiore w Warszawie,” Kwartalnik poświęcony badaniu przeszłości Żydów w Polsce 1 (1912): 74–94Google Scholar; Shatzky, Yaakov, Geshikhte fun Yidn in Varshe (New York: YIVO, 1948), ii. 86–89Google Scholar; Walden, Menahem Mendel, Ohel Yitshak (Piotrków: Benjamin Libeskind, 1914), 14–16, n. 27–28Google Scholar; and Unger, M., “Der sar Montefiore un der Vurker rebe,” in Vurke. Sefer zikaron—Vurke yizkor bukh (Tel Aviv: Vurka Societies, 1976), 28–35Google Scholar.

45. AGAD, KRSW, 6643, folio 1–102. For a more general account of the state regulations regarding Jewish dress in Poland and Russia, see Klausner, Israel, “Hagezerah ‘al tilboshet hayehudim, 1844–1850,” Gal-‘Ed 6 (1982): 11–26Google Scholar.

46. The socioeconomic standing of Hasidism in the nineteenth century is still to be investigated. However, the once dominant claim of Raphael Mahler (Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment, 7–10) that nineteenth-century Hasidism was a movement of the oppressed masses is often challenged today. My claim is based on the yet unpublished sample analysis of the prospographic materials from Aleksandrów (Alexander), Częstochowa, and Włocławek from the years 1820–37. See AGAD, CWW, 1734, p. 224; Archiwum Państwowe w Toruniu, Oddział we Włocławku, Naczelnik Powiatu Włocławskiego, 438, pp. 178–79; and Akta miasta Włocławka, 319.

47. All these interventions are discussed in my “Hasidism, Shtadlanut, and Jewish Politics.”

48. AGAD, CWW, 1457, p. 575.

49. See Walden, Ohel Yiẓḥak, 6–8, no. 64; Ẓevi M. Rabinowicz, Bein peshishah lelublin: ’Ishim veshitot beḥasidut polin (Jerusalem: Kesharim, 5757), 521; and Mikhelzon, Mordekhai Motel, Ma'amar Mordekhai (Piotrków: Natan Note Kronenberg, 5667 [1907]), 9, 16–17Google Scholar. For more on Michelson, see Arieh, Sh., “Rabonim, rabeim un parneysim in der kehile Kalushin,” in Sefer Kalushin: Geheylikt der khorev gevorener kehile, ed. Shamri, Arieh et al. . (Tel Aviv: Former Residents of Kaluszyn in Israel, 1962), 85–90Google Scholar. Evidence of Michelson's relationship with the provincial authorities can be found in AGAD, CWW, 1706, pp. 32–34; Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem, PL/82, Archives of Jakub Tugendhold [no pagination]: 8/20 January 1844: Do współwyznawców naszych.

50. Buber, Martin, Tales of the Hasidim, vol. 2, The Later Masters (New York: Schocken Books, 1975), 29Google Scholar.