The myth of apolitical Hasidism: Chabad-Lubavitch in interwar Poland

• In Event: Eastern European Jewish Politics and Spaces Between the World Wars

Abstract

In the interviews in the Yiddish press of the 1930s, the 6th leader of Chabad-Lubavitch, Yosef Yitshak Schneersohn, presented himself as an apolitical figure, who is opposed to political parties in general, and interested in “[selling] one commodity only: Torah and fear of God.” His movement followed suit, and Chabad Hasidim remained, by and large, disengaged from political parties both in pre-war Poland and in the post-Holocaust USA and Israel, constructing an image of Chabad as a movement, whose spiritual goals transcend political divisions.

In my presentation, I use Hebrew and Yiddish letters, archival documents and press reports to examine the formation of Chabad’s apolitical ethos in interwar Poland. I argue that Schneersohn’s position on political engagement was a result of his failure to carve out a space for himself in the dense Polish-Jewish political scene, dominated by Agudat Israel. Schneersohn, in fact, had been a vocal critic of the Aguda and its modernising efforts, which he had considered to contradict the spirit of the Torah in pair with the efforts of secular Jewish parties. However, when Schneersohn arrived in Poland from the USSR, he quickly understood that the nimb of the uncompromising leader of Soviet Jewry was not enough to gather support for himself or for the weak Chabad structures. To survive, Schneersohn rebranded his estrangement from the Aguda and its patron, the rebbe of Gur, as Chabad’s programmatic disengagement from partisan politics. I explore his failed attempts at a reconciliation with the rebbe of Gur and demonstrate that while on the state level Chabad did not side with a political party, on the local level its members forged ties with representatives of various parties and movements, including their ideological opponents, to further their goals and ensure the survival of Chabad institutions.
In short, I argue that while declarative apoliticality became Chabad’s default position, it developed as a response to Chabad’s political marginalisation in interwar Poland, and the frail condition of its institutions. In so doing, I offer a nuanced perspective on factors that shaped Orthodox Jewish politics beyond the ideological writings of the leaders.

Author

• Wojciech Tworek, Uniwersytet Wrocławski