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Mitnagdim (also: misnagdim) is a Hebrew word meaning "opponents"; this term was coined by Hasidic Jews to those European religious Jews who opposed Hasidic Judaism. Today the term mitnagdim is used to to refer to religious Jews who are not Hasidic; they are not necessarily opposed to Hasidic Judaism.

Origins

The rapid spread of Hasidic Judaism in the second half of the eighteenth century greatly troubled many traditional Jewish rabbis; many saw it as a potentially dangerous enemy.

The doctrine of the movement's founder, Israel ben Eliezer (the Besht), claiming that man is saved through faith and not through mere religious knowledge, was strongly opposed to the principal dogma of traditional rabbinic Judaism, which measures man's religious value by the extent of his Talmudic learning.

The Orthodox Judaism of its day could not reconcile itself to modifications in the customary arrangement of the prayers and in the performance of some of the rites. Moreover, the Hasidic dogma of the necessity of maintaining a cheerful disposition, and the peculiar manner of awakening religious exaltation at the meetings of the sectarians — as, for instance, by the excessive use of spirituous liquors — inspired the ascetic rabbis with the belief that the new teachings induced moral laxity or coarse epicureanism. Still under the fear of the Shabbethaians and the Frankists, the rabbis suspected Hasidism of an intimate connection with these movements so dangerous to Judaism.

A bitter struggle soon arose between rabbinical Orthodoxy and the Hasidim. At the head of the Orthodox party stood Elijah ben Solomon, the stern guardian of traditional Judaism. In 1772, when the first secret circles of Hasidim appeared in Lithuania, the rabbinic "Kahal" (council) of Wilna, with the approval of Elijah, arrested the local leaders of the sect, and excommunicated its adherents. Circulars were sent from Wilna to the rabbis of other communities calling upon them to make war upon the "godless sect." In many places cruel persecutions were instituted against the Hasidim. The appearance in 1780 of the first works of Hasidic literature (e.g., the above-named book of Jacob Joseph Cohen, which was filled with attacks on rabbinism) created alarm among the Orthodox. At the council of rabbis held in the village of Zelva, government of Grodno, in 1781, it was resolved to uproot the destructive teachings of Besht. In the circulars issued by the council the faithful were ordered to expel the Hasidim from every Jewish community, to regard them as members of another faith, to hold no intercourse with them, not to intermarry with them, and not to bury their dead.

The antagonists of Hasidism called themselves "Mitnaggedim" (Opponents); and to the present day this appellation still clings to those who have not joined the ranks of the Hasidim.

Hasidism in the south of eastern Europe had established itself so firmly in the various communities that it had no fear of persecution. The main sufferers were the northern Hasidim. Their leader, Rabbi Zalman, attempted, but unsuccessfully, to allay the anger of the Mitnaggedim and of Elijah Gaon. On the death of the latter in 1797 the exasperation of the Mitnaggedim became so great that they resolved to denounce the leaders of the Hasidim to the Russian government as dangerous agitators and teachers of heresy. In consequence twenty-two representatives of the sect were arrested in Wilna and other places. Zalman himself was arrested at his court in Liozna and brought to St. Petersburg (1798). There he was kept in the fortress and was examined by a secret commission, but he and the other leaders were soon released by order of Paul I. The Hasidim remained, however, under "strong suspicion." Two years later Zalman was again transported to St. Petersburg, through the further denunciation of his antagonists, particularly of Abigdor, formerly rabbi of Pinsk. Immediately after the accession to the throne of Alexander I., however, the leader of the Hasidim wasreleased, and was given full liberty to proclaim his religious teachings, which from the standpoint of the government were found to be utterly harmless (1801). Thereafter Zalman openly led the White-Russian or Chabad Hasidim until his death, toward the end of 1812. He had fled from the government of Moghilef to that of Poltava, in consequence of the French invasion.

The struggle of rabbinism with Hasidism in Lithuania and White Russia led only to the formation of the latter sect in those regions into separate religious organizations; these existing in many towns alongside of those of the Mitnaggedim. In the south-western region, on the other hand, the Ḥasidim almost completely crowded out the Mitnaggedim, and the Ẓaddiḳim possessed themselves of that spiritual power over the people which formerly belonged to the rabbis.

Organization.

In the first half of the nineteenth century Ḥasidism spread unmolested, and reached its maximum development. About half of the Jewish population of Russia, as well as of Poland, Galicia, Rumania, and Hungary, professes Ḥasidic teachings and acknowledges the power of the Ẓaddiḳim. In Russia the existence of the Ḥasidim as a separate religious organization was legalized by the "Enactment Concerning the Jews" of 1804 (See Russia).

The Ḥasidim had no central spiritual government. With the multiplication of the ẓaddiḳim their dioceses constantly diminished. Some ẓaddiḳim, however, gained a wide reputation, and attracted people from distant places. To the most important dynasties belonged that of Chernobyl (consisting of the descendants of Nahum of Chernobyl) in Little Russia; that of Ruzhin-Sadagura (including the descendants of Bär of Meseritz) in Podolia, Volhynia, and Galicia; that of Lyubavich (composed of the descendants of Zalman, bearing the family name Schneersohn") in White Russia; and that of Lublin and Kotzk in the kingdom of Poland. There were also individual ẓaddiḳim not associated with the dynasties. In the first half of the nineteenth century there were well known among them: Motel of Chernobyl, Nachman of Bratzlav, Jacob Isaac of Lublin, Mendel of Lyubavich, and Israel of Luzhin. The last-named had such unlimited power over the Ḥasidim of the southwestern region that the government found it necessary to send him out of Russia (1850). He established himself in the Galician village of Sadagura on the Austrian frontier, whither the Ḥasidim continued to make pilgrimages to him and his successors.

Rabbinical Orthodoxy at this time had discontinued its struggle with Ḥasidism and had reconciled itself to the establishment of the latter as an accomplished fact. Gradually the Mitnaggedim and the Ḥasidim began to intermarry, which practise had formerly been strictly forbidden.

See also: Hasidic Judaism