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A Saint Against the State? The Contemporary Revival of a Hasidic Miracle Worker
08 May 2025, 6:30 pm–7:30 pm
This lecture explores the transnational Hasidic revival centered around the Kerestirer Rebbe, Yeshaya Steiner, highlighting his broader populist appeal beyond his mystical protection against rodents
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All | UCL staff | UCL students | UCL alumni
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
Tamara Gleason Freidberg
This lecture focuses on an emergent, transnational Hasidic revival movement centered around the Kerestirer Rebbe, Yeshaya Steiner (“Shayele”), a Hungarian “miracle-worker” who lived in Hungary from 1851-1925. His iconic portrait is commonly associated with mystical protection against the infestation of rodents in Jewish homes and businesses. Shuman reveals how this is only one small piece of Shayele’s broader populist appeal, however. They do this by interweaving hagiographic texts, Hasidic social media, and ethnography with anthropological theory and political theology on hospitality, sovereignty, and patronage.
Please contact Tamara Gleason Freidberg tamara.freidberg.19@ucl.ac.uk for the event location.
About the Speaker
Sam Shuman
Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies at University of Virginia
Sam Shuman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and a core faculty member in the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Virginia (UVA). Shuman researches Hasidic Judaism within a global context to rethink larger questions about race and religion, global capitalism, gender and sexuality, sovereignty and empire. They are currently working on their first book, Of Mice and Hasidic Men, which explores the various forms of saintly mediation performed by Reb Shayele, a Hasidic miracleworker (1851-1925). Shuman’s work has appeared in the Jewish Quarterly Review, Shofar, Les Cahiers de la Mémoire Contemporaine, Images: A Journal of Jewish Art & Visual Culture and Religions, and as chapters in two forthcoming edited volumes (Critical Jewish Studies Now: The Relational Politics of Memory and How Transparency Works: Ethnographies of Global Value).
More about Sam Shuman