Hasidic Warsaw: Reb Zalmen and the Aleksander Shtibl (Yiddish Voices)

This book provides the first English translation of Yechiel Hofer’s book, Reb Zalmen.Centering on a particular denizen of the Aleksander Hasidim’s shtibl (prayer house), it offers a unique and intimate portrait of the lives of those who went inside to pray, eat, study, and argue there in the early 20th century.It is hard to imagine that Reb Zalmen was not an actual figure - someone the young Yechiel Hofer actually knew and loved - although finding any trace of him today would be a daunting task.Reb Zalmen was that rare thing, a traditional Jew without a family.His last name is never given; all we are told is that he had originally come to Warsaw from the town of Siedlec. Regardless of Reb Zalmen’s historical existence, Hasidic Warsaw provides rich material for the ethnography of Polish Hasidism in the early 20th century.It reveals what it was like to experience ‘Gentile’ Warsaw for someone who spends all his time in the Jewish quarter; to confront the new waves of doubt and fashion tha