A recently published history of the ḥasidic movement, composed by a number of prominent scholars, has been attacked in academic circles for having an insufficient number of female contributors. By contrast, Glenn Dynner offers a far more substantive critique: that the book’s authors vastly understate women’s role in Ḥasidism. Yes, most East European ḥasidic synagogues had seating for men only, and the crucial gatherings around the rebbe’s table were male-only affairs. But the book’s assertions that “female members of ḥasidic households did not historically define themselves as Ḥasidim, nor were they defined as such by others,” and that there were no specifically ḥasidic rituals in which women participated are wrong:

Many ḥasidic women cultivated (and still do cultivate) a distinctive lifestyle and worldview: their household customs and foodways differ [from those of traditional non-ḥasidic women, as well as from one ḥasidic sect to another]; their celebration of certain Jewish holidays are affected by the absence of their husbands [who would often spend the entire holiday in the company of the rebbe]; they follow ḥasidic liturgical changes; their clothing is distinctive; and their marriages and wedding ceremonies hold special meanings.

Since the early 19th century, ḥasidic women have made pilgrimages to tsaddikim [the “righteous men” or rebbes who lead individual ḥasidic sects] during times of crisis, with or without the accompaniment of a man, bearing petitions that requested the tsaddik’s blessing, advice, and divine intercession. Early tsaddikim like Israel of Kozienice (d. 1815) were attacked by non-ḥasidic opponents for their popularity among women and their willingness to grant “a hundred blessings” for fertility.

Certain ḥasidic women emerged as activists and major patrons of the movement, influencing its very course. Part of my research has focused on Temerel Sonenberg-Bergson, a major 19th-century patron of Ḥasidism whose spectacular financial successes during the Kingdom of Poland’s incipient industrial revolution enabled her to groom, promote, and support tsaddikim, finance ḥasidic institutions, and intervene with officials on behalf of the movement. Not surprisingly, ḥasidic sources refer to Temerel as a “Ḥasidah” [i.e., a ḥasidic woman].

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”