Founder of Hasidism

by Murray Jay Rosman

This book goes farther than any previous work in uncovering the historical Israel ben Eliezer—known as the Ba’al Shem Tov, or the Besht—the eighteenth-century Polish-Jewish mystic who profoundly influenced the shape of modern Judaism. As the progenitor of Hasidism, the Ba’al Shem Tov is one of the key figures in Jewish history; to understand him is to understand an essential element of modern Jewish life and religion.