Description

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Leadership issues are subject to much discussion and interest yet too little is known of their internal dynamics. Leadership and succession of authority has been a constant theme in Jewish literature and life from biblical days until today. The present work studies questions relating to authority in general and hasidic authority in particular. It uses the various HaBaD hasidic dynasties as a case study to illustrate how authority was transferred from one generation to another and how a leader emerges as a leader despite opposition. The rise to eminence of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson is the third major subject discussed therein. He is the focus of careful analysis. Through such illustrations, leadership characteristics peculiar to that movement as well as general leadership theory are better understood. In this work, leadership criteria are analyzed and discussed to properly ascertain what brought one person to a position of supreme leadership and what brought another to become a subordinate.

About the Author

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Avrum M. Ehrlich is a political philosopher and researcher into religion, mass movements and leadership. He is presently a fellow at Cambridge University's Department of Social and Political Science, and at Clare Hall, Cambridge. He divides his time between Jerusalem and Cambridge, researching the general relationship between religion and government, particularly in the Jewish world. Leadership in the HaBaD Movement is his first book.