XGH: "Guest Post this NOW!"

The recently retired XGodol Hador checks in from the 16th hole with a missive: "Guest Post this NOW!"

What is it?

Only the latest in a series of slanderous attacks by Alan Nadler on our friends the trute and pure Hassidim. The best bit

".. there seems to me to be something unique about the Spinka case. Many other sects of Polish and Russian origin have found themselves mired in financial and legal scandals. But I believe their shady activities pale, both in magnitude and frequency, next to those of the Rumanian and Hungarian Hasidim. Why?

The answer can be found mainly in a failure of historical and theological evolution among these groups, despite the dramatic evolution of their circumstances since arriving in America. The mind-set of numerous smaller, mostly Rumanian and Hungarian Hasidic sects is typically mired in a romance with the "glory days" of their respective founding Rebbes. In the case of Spinka, this harkens back to the distinctly inglorious late 19th century era of what Jewish historians have dubbed "decadent Hasidism" in the loosely Austrian-ruled district of Bukovina, in the infamously lawless land of Rumania.

Indeed, it may all go back to the father of "decadent Hasidism," Rabbi Israel of Ruzhin — who, you'll recall, was also the very man suspected of putting out the hit on Oksman and Shvartzman in the Mayseh Ushits. Following his release from prison in February 1840, Rabbi Israel fled Tsarist Russia to the Austrian-ruled Rumanian district of Bukovina, there to establish the wealthiest and most unabashedly materialistic dynasty in Hasidic history. As the Israeli scholar David Assaf has richly documented in his magisterial biography of Rabbi Israel, this Rebbe inaugurated a uniquely opulent style of Hasidic leadership that spread like prairie fire to Hasidic courts all across Rumania, modeling itself after the decadent lifestyle of Central Europe's most debauched royal families. Rabbi Israel unabashedly demanded enormous sums of money from his Hasidim (presumably without offering kickbacks or illegally inflated tax-receipts). He wore outrageously lavish, silver and gold-laced outfits, favored royally decorative walking-sticks, was serenaded to sleep by his personal orchestra and was transported in a gilded chariot said to have been drawn by a dozen white stallions (some say six Arabians, while others argue three Rumanian nags). And he infamously was fond of declaring, as a kind of personal motto, "All the money in the world belongs to me."

Historians of Hasidism have long considered the establishment of R. Israel of Ruzhin's palatial headquarters, and those of his followers such as the Rebbes of Sadigora and Buhush in Bukovina and Tchortkov in Galicia, as the inception of a period not only of material decadence but also severe theological and intellectual decline within Rumanian Hasidism. For alongside the amassing of considerable fortunes by these Hasidic Rebbes of Rumania, there was a discernable descent in learning and a steep rise in superstitious gullibility on the part of their Hasidim, particularly relating to the Rebbes' alleged supernatural abilities and personal immaculateness.

Alleged? What does he mean alleged? I don't think I like that....