Talk:Hassidism

This will take a bit of work.

First, there are several possible spellings, at least "Hassid*" and "Chassid*", and maybe "Hasid*" and "Chasid*".

Second, there have been three separate Chassidic movements in Jewish history (the first figures in the Hanukkah story). However, "Hassidic Jew" refers only to the modern movement, and other terms generally mean the modern Hassidim unless otherwise noted.

Third, there is not really any single entity one could call "the Hassidic movement". Each community is autonomous, generally centered around a Rebbe. There are at least two major branches of Hassidism, Lubavitscher (sp?) and Breslaver, and many less prominent ones.

Fourth, while Hassidim tend to be more strictly observant than many Jews, and tend to interpret Torah literally, "ultra-Orthodox" is an oversimplification at best. Certainly there are strictly observant Orthodox jews who are not Hassidim. Frankly, I'm not sure what "ultra-Orthodox" might mean anyway. It's not a term Hassidim use to describe themselves. -dmh 22:13, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)