Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk
A leading disciple of Dov Ber, the Magid of Mezritsh, Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk was instrumental in spreading Hasidism in Lithuania and Russia, and also in Palestine. In 1772, when opposition to Hasidism first appeared, he visited Vilna twice, accompanied during the second visit by Shneur Zalman of Liady, in order to reconcile with the Vilna Gaon, but neither encounter succeeded. The next year, along with Abraham of Kalisk, he left Minsk because of persecutions by opponents of Hasidim (Misnagdim). In 1777, with Abraham as his deputy, he led a group of three hundred followers (many of them Hasidim) to Palestine; they first settled in Safed but relocated to Tiberias a few years later.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
Primary Source
Peri ha-arets (Fruit of the Earth)
Related Guide
Rabbinic Scholarship, 1750–1880
Despite the challenges of the early modern period, rabbinic scholarship flourished in Central and Eastern Europe in the latter half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century.