THE first waves of hasidic immigration to Erets Yisrael have attracted the attention both of scholars of hasidism and of historians of the Jewish yishuv in Erets Yisrael. Hasidic scholarship has viewed the subject as an interesting and somewhat obscure chapter in the history of hasidism, while the historians of the yishuv, most of whom were associated with either the Zionist or the Orthodox currents in Jewish historiography, have perceived the hasidic immigration as an important element of the ‘proto Zionist’ trend which proved the centrality of Erets Yisrael to Diaspora Jews even before Zionism. While the scholars of hasidism have set the issue in the context of the overall history of the hasidic movement, historians of the yishuv, under the impact of various trends within the Zionist movement and orthodox Jewry, have treated it primarily as an ideological issue.

The present chapter is an attempt to survey and evaluate these two distinct traditions in the historiography of the subject.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, after a long period of prosperity during the sixteenth century, the Galilean towns, especially Safed and Tiberias, were depleted of their Jewish populations. The Jews of these towns (mostly Sefardim, with some Mustarabians-Jews native to the Land of Israel who had adopted the language and lifestyle of their Arab neighbours-and Ashkenazim) dispersed throughout the Ottoman Empire, and some of them settled in Jerusalem. Among the new settlers were a few Ashkenazim from Safed whose move to Jerusalem was carefully recorded in a minute-book (pinkas), still unpublished, which listed their names and communal institutions.

By the beginning of the eighteenth century the tide had changed. Economic hardship and pressure from the authorities led to a mass exodus of Jews from Jerusalem. The Ashkenazi community collapsed and its membership dispersed. A few returned to the Galilee, which at this time was being redeveloped by Sheikh Dahir Al Umar.

During the eighteenth century there was a continuous influx of eastern European immigrants to Erets Yisrael, and most of them settled in the Galilee. Many had come from Brody and its vicinity, where the Besht and his followers were active and where the hasidic movement began. Indeed, some of the immigrants belonged to the Besht's immediate circle of associates. They came during the period when hasidism was only just beginning and long before it became a mass movement.