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Mitnagdim


A Time Capsule A Time Capsule
Tuesday, May 7, 2013 by Glenn Dynner | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Petitions (kvitlekh) addressed to the 19th-century miracle worker Rabbi Elijah Guttmacher provide something almost never found in hoary Hebrew tomes or official Polish documents: windows into the struggles and secret anxieties of everyday Jews in Eastern Europe.
Where Did the Gaon Go? Where Did the Gaon Go?
Tuesday, December 18, 2012 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Eliyahu Stern's new book portrays the Vilna Gaon as Eastern Europe's Moses Mendelssohn.  But can the ascetic, who backed the persecution of Hasidim, seriously be associated with individualism and democracy?
Max Lilienthal’s Aborted Return Max Lilienthal’s Aborted Return
Wednesday, October 31, 2012 by Allan Arkush | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

In Bruce L. Ruben’s new biography Max Lilienthal: The Making of the American Rabbinate, about one of the pioneers of the American Reform movement, I was surprised to learn that Lilienthal almost made a second trip to Tsarist Russia.