"A pathbreaking book in Jewish Studies. Etkes is careful to separate the man himself from the mythic role he later came to occupy in the modern Jewish landscape. This emphasis upon 'image, ' and not only upon the 'man, ' gives the Etkes volume a unique and broad flavor."--David Ellenson, author of "Between Tradition and Culture" "Etkes probes the image and reception of the Vilna Gaon in the movements he spawned (Haskalah) and opposed (Hasidism) and provides a sophisticated sense of the dynamism and power of historical ...
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"A pathbreaking book in Jewish Studies. Etkes is careful to separate the man himself from the mythic role he later came to occupy in the modern Jewish landscape. This emphasis upon 'image, ' and not only upon the 'man, ' gives the Etkes volume a unique and broad flavor."--David Ellenson, author of "Between Tradition and Culture" "Etkes probes the image and reception of the Vilna Gaon in the movements he spawned (Haskalah) and opposed (Hasidism) and provides a sophisticated sense of the dynamism and power of historical images in forging battle lines in the highly fractious world of nineteenth-century Eastern European Jewish culture."--David N. Myers, author of "Re-Inventing the Jewish Past"
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