Ahad ha-am - Asher Ginzberg

 biography of Asher Ginzberg, known as Ahad ha-am: The Furnace of Iron; Escape to Odessa; The Wrong Way; First Visits to Palestine; Sons of Moses; At the Crossroads; The Editorial Chair; Mission to Paris; Jewish Humanism; Political Zionism; Last Years in Russia; London Exile; World War and National Home; Tel Aviv; Philosophy of Judaism and the Spiritual Center; His Personality and Influence.

348 pages, hardcover, no dust jacket, good condition: yellowing pages, pencil underlines.

In the middle of the eighteenth century a new religious movement came to birth among the Jews of the Carpathian mountains on the borders of Poland. Its founder, one Israel ben Eliezer, reputed a wonder-worker, was known as the Baal-Shem, "Master of the (divine) Name," and became the central figure of a host of legends. Its adherents called themselves Hasidim ("Pious ones").