he average Jew. It succeeded due to the charisma of its early teachers; and where it continues to succeed today, it is still due to charismatic central leaders who are known as rebbes (a Yiddish term used instead of the term, rabbis). Like many other reactionary movements, the main idea of Hasidic Judaism is that Jews should stop living in the modern world and return to the good old days. On close inspection, however, the good old days (that is, the eighteenth-century world which Hasidism represents in both dress and practice) were really days of oppression and ignorance for the average Jew. It was only in such a world that Jews could have given credence to the claims that their rebbes worked miracles, cured illnesses, and exorcised demons.One group of modern Hasidimthe followers of the Lubavitch rebbe who call themselves Habad (often spelled, Chabad) Hasidimhave proven very canny in the use of modern media to get attention. Their persistent and growing presence on the Internet, for example, makes it seem like they number in the millions while quite the opposite is the case. Despite their outward look of modernity, their medieval roots were recently exposed when their rebbe died. He was soon proclaimed by his followers to be either the messiah or a harbinger of the messiah. Huge billboards called for the dead rebbes resurrection. It is easy to see that such a call for the resurrection of a charismatic leader is outside the character of mainstream Judaism and has been so since at least the first century, C.E.In terms of belief, the Hasidic movement hardly differs from the Orthodox movement, except that it is consistently more stringent and less modern. While study is encouraged for men and boys, women are accorded a lower place in Hasidic Judaism than they are in any other Jewish religious group. Unlike the vast majority of Jews in this or any other age, the Hasidim read the Bible as the literal word of God believing, for example, that t...
