שכנו של הבעל שם טוב בגן עדן: סיפור מ'איש חסיד היה' בסבך הזהות החסידית־ישראלית. (Hebrew)

The play ‘Once There was a Hasidic Man’ (1968) has been noted by many as a milestone in the process of connecting Israeli culture to its Jewish roots, and specifically Hasidic culture and Eastern European shtetl life. Because of this play, the story of Gedalya, an awkward Jew who eats heavily in preparation for martyrdom, and as a result would become the future neighbor of the Baal Shem Tov in the Garden of Eden, became widely known. Upon its inclusion in the play, this story immediately raised concerns regarding its Hasidic roots and its appropriateness to Hasidic values and the Hasidic world. In this article, the Hasidic and pre-Hasidic roots of this story are analyzed from a diachronic and thematological perspective, through examination of the various appearances of versions of this story against the backdrop of their time and place, and the personalities and environments of the different narrators. The comparison of the version of the story in the play to Hasidic versions of it, particularly to that of Eliyahu Ki-Tov, the Hasidic writer, sheds light on the use of power as well as the Jewish body in the cultural landscape of Hasidic society in juxtaposition to the Israeli Zionist culture throughout the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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