MIRACLE MEN: Tales of the Chassidim

A book for a wide Jewish market, and for anyone interested in folk material. The title is somewhat misleading, for -- rather than the story of a succession of miracle men of the Chassidim, this is primarily the life story, legendary, factual, of the founder, Israel Baal Shem Tov. The legends are a part of the history of the race, and imaginative as they are -- their spiritual quality fulfills a need of an oppressed and persecuted people, now as then. For this reason, there is a timeliness in this retelling of the founding of the Chassidic movement.