Hagiography in the Age of Mass Publishing

Taking an innovative approach to the study of religious literature and literary modernity, this book examines an overlooked body of texts – collections of Hasidic hagiographic stories about pious leaders, which were mass-produced during the nineteenth century – and makes a compelling argument for reading these works as a crucial part of modern Jewish literature. Despite criticism from members of the Jewish Enlightenment, who dismissed the leisure reading of these Hasidic booklets as lowbrow, the texts found a thriving audience in Eastern European Jewish society. In a nuanced study, Chen Mandel-Edrei challenges the conventional view of Hasidic literature as inherently anti-modern, and demonstrates how these popular stories presented a unique alternative path for Jewish modernity.Placing Hasidic storytelling and publishing in sociopolitical context, Mandel-Edrei centers the reading and writing practices of the ordinary people who drove the success of the hagiographic genre, particularly in Galicia following the 1848 revolutions. She analyzes how Hasidic writers actively engaged with modern political, philosophical, and aesthetic ideas, adapting them to their traditional way of life and reimagining concepts like individuality and communal identity. Deftly combining literary analysis and cultural history, this book illuminates the interplay between religion, mysticism, and the emergence of mass print culture, shedding new light on the history of Hasidism, Jewish literature, and modernity itself.

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