Shimon Engel

Max Weinreich Fellowship Lecture in Polish Jewish Studies Prior to the interwar period, yeshivas were virtually unknown among Polish Hasidim, who preferred a less formal educational paradigm centered on a shtibl (a small house of study). Following the First World War and an increase in secularization, however, the shtiblekh emptied out and Hasidic yeshivas were designed as an emergency measure to retain the young…