Are there Hasidic Jews in rural America?

By the yearbook's count, about 5,700 Jews live there -- only 1 percent of the state's population but double the number of Jews there two decades ago. Congregation Shir Shalom belongs to Judaism's liberal Reform movement. read more

a brief introduction to hasidism The Hasidim, or "pious ones" in Hebrew, belong to a special movement within Orthodox Judaism, a movement that, at its height in the first half of the nineteenth century, claimed the allegiance of millions in Eastern and Central Europe--perhaps a majority of East European Jews. read more