Hasidism, Leadership and Gender: The Case of Malka Shapiro

• In Event: Women in Hasidism: New Perspectives Beyond the Debate

Abstract

This study examines new questions regarding female leadership in the Hasidic courts, both in Poland and Israel, during the first half of the 20th century, from the unique perspective of the Hebrew writer and poet Malka Shapiro (1894-1971). Shapiro was the daughter of the Admor of Kozienice, Rabbi Yerachmiel Moshe Hapstein (1860–1909) and the wife of Rabbi Avraham Elimelech Shapiro of Grodzisk (1896–1967), who served as the Admor of the Grodzisk Hasidim in Israel after the Holocaust. Shapiro immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1925 and published Hebrew prose and poetry from the 1930s until her death in 1971. She published most of her writings while fulfilling her duties as the wife of the Admor of the Grodzisk court in Jerusalem. Some of her writings may be considered memoirs of the courts of Kozienice and Grodzisk in Poland, as well as memoirs of life in the Land of Israel. In this way, her writings serve as a unique historical source for delving into questions concerning the lives of women in the Hasidic community both in Poland and in the Land of Israel.
By pointing out recurring concepts and motifs in various sources from the archives and from Shapiro's writings, I will endeavor to show that Shapiro presents a clear conception of female leadership in the Kozienice and Grodzisk courts in Poland, a leadership that earned legitimization by the Admorim of these Hasidic courts. I will also claim that Shapiro describes in her writings the special social status of the children of the Admorim, both women and men, a social status that was preserved after they left the Hasidic courts in Poland. This status was manifested by them serving as unofficial local leaders of Kozienice and Grodzisk Hasidim in the Land of Israel before the destruction of these courts in the Holocaust. In this way, this study will contribute to the examination of the relationship between Hasidism, leadership and gender from perspectives that have not yet been discussed in research to date.

Author

• Dorit Peretz, The Open University of Israel and Bar-Ilan University