Breslov (Hasidic dynasty)
Hasidic movement founded by Nachman of Breslov, with no hereditary rebbe, large Israeli following and an annual pilgrimage to Uman
| Breslov | |
|---|---|
| Founded | c. 1802 (residence in Bratslav) Bratslav (Breslov), Ukraine |
| Founder | Nachman of Breslov (1772–1810) |
| Leader | |
| Headquarters | No single seat; historic centres in Uman and Jerusalem (Mea Shearim) |
| Type | Hasidic movement (non-dynastic) |
| Website | |
Breslov (also Bratslav, Breslev) is a branch of Hasidic Judaism founded by Nachman of Breslov (1772–1810), a great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov. Adherents seek a joyous, personal bond with God through his teachings, especially daily hitbodedut (solitary spoken prayer) and the annual Rosh Hashanah gathering at his grave in Uman, Ukraine.[1]
Nachman named no successor. Followers are therefore sometimes called the “dead Hasidim” (טויטע חסידים). Distinct groups still style their own rabbis “rebbe.”[2] Unlike closed hereditary courts such as Satmar or Ger, Breslov is a cluster of networks, many built by baalei teshuvah (returnees), including large numbers of Mizrahi and Yemenite Jews.
Marcin Wodziński put fully committed Breslov households at about 7,000 in the mid-2010s, while noting that affiliation is looser than in other courts and that admirers and occasional pilgrims far outnumber core Hasidim. Popular Israeli estimates of “100,000 or more” mix committed Hasidim with a wider cultural following.[3]
History
Nachman settled in Bratslav in 1802. His scribe Noson Sternhartz (Reb Noson) preserved Likutei Moharan and organised the first Rosh Hashanah kibbutz at the Uman grave in 1811 after Nachman’s death.[2] Other Hasidic courts in Ukraine attacked Breslovers through the nineteenth century.
By the First World War there were thousands of Breslovers in Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Poland. Yitzchok Breiter spread the teaching in interwar Poland and was murdered at Treblinka. Soviet rule drove the movement underground; Michel Dorfman later coordinated clandestine Uman visits. Nazis and Stalinist purges destroyed most East European communities.[1] Survivors rebuilt in the United Kingdom, the United States and Israel.
Eliyahu Chaim Rosen founded a Jerusalem yeshiva in the 1950s. Levi Yitzchok Bender (1897–1989) headed the Mea Shearim synagogue and drew thousands of returnees. Zvi Aryeh Rosenfeld (1922–1978) planted Breslov in America and began English translation. Chaim Kramer has directed the Breslov Research Institute since 1979.[2][4]
Factions and leaders
There is no single hierarchy. Main contemporary clusters include:
- Vaad HaOlami Chasidei Breslov – the older Jerusalem/Mea Shearim stream; figures include Yaakov Meir Shechter.
- Tzfat / Koenig line – Gedaliah Aharon Koenig rebuilt a community in Safed; Elazar Mordechai Kenig continues it.
- Shuvu Banim / Eliezer Berland – yeshiva founded 1978 in Bnei Brak, from 1980–82 also in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City (Hebron Road). Berland drew mass teshuvah; he has faced criminal conviction in Israel and the group has been described as a cult by the Israeli Centre for Cult Victims. A student, Shalom Arush, founded Chut Shel Chessed in Jerusalem.[5]
- Na Nach – followers of Yisroel Ber Odesser (c. 1888–1994) and the mantra Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman. Visible street vans and dancing; rejected by much of mainstream Breslov. Odesser lived for periods in Meron, Safed, Tiberias, Beitar Illit, Mevaseret Zion and Jerusalem neighbourhoods including Neve Yaakov.
- Heichal Hakodesh / Eliezer Shlomo Schick (Mohorosh) – “Breslov City” in Yavne'el in the Lower Galilee from the mid-1980s; about 400 families by 2015 (around 30 per cent of the town). Schick also ran halls in Borough Park, Monroe, Monsey and Williamsburg. After his death in 2015 a family court assigned communal assets to his son Moshe Schick. A 2023 BBC Storyville film alleged systematic abuse in the Yavne'el community.[6][7]
- Breslov Research Institute – translation and publishing house, Jerusalem and Monsey, directed by Chaim Kramer.
Uman pilgrimage
Nachman said his “entire mission is Rosh Hashanah.” The Uman kibbutz grew from a few dozen visitors in the early 1990s to tens of thousands, overwhelmingly Israeli men.[8] Organisers have spoken of more than 35,000 in peacetime years.[1] An Israel Democracy Institute survey reported that 8 per cent of adult Jewish Israelis have visited the grave at least once (13 per cent of Mizrahi Jews).[9]
Ukraine has refused Israeli requests (including from Chaim Herzog and Tzipi Hotovely) to move the remains, calling the grave a cultural asset.[8] During the Russia–Ukraine war the pilgrimage continued. In 2025–26 Israeli coverage focused on wartime state funding (reports of 10 million shekels) and on arrests of draft-age Haredi men at Ben Gurion Airport. Arutz Sheva reported about 70 Breslov Hasidim among those jailed as alleged deserters while trying to fly to Uman in September 2026; legal desks were set up at the Ashkenazi Kloiz in Uman for men fearing arrest on return.[10] Parallel Rosh Hashanah gatherings have been held at Adama V’Shamayim farm in Yavne'el.[11]
Israel, occupied territory and settlements
Breslov is unusually embedded in Israeli public life for a Haredi stream: street outreach, Mizrahi teshuvah, and the Uman airlift from Ben Gurion. Stance toward Zionism and the IDF varies by faction. Core Haredi circles generally do not send sons to the army; other Breslov-influenced returnees and “hilltop” youth do serve. Shalom Arush’s Chut Shel Chessed / Breslev.co.il has run campaigns of “spiritual iron swords” and prayer with IDF soldiers.[12]
Inside the Green Line
Historic centres: Mea Shearim and the Old City (Shuvu Banim on Hebron Road in the Muslim Quarter — a settler-yeshiva footprint inside occupied East Jerusalem); Bnei Brak; Safed; Meron (Rosh Hashanah at the grave of Shimon bar Yochai); Yavne'el (“Breslov City”); Ramat Beit Shemesh (Kehillas Chen Hanachal / Breslov shul appeal); Ashdod, Bat Yam, Netivot, Tel Aviv, Beersheba.[7][13]
Occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank
Shuvu Banim’s Old City campus sits in occupied East Jerusalem. Na Nach activity has included Beitar Illit and Neve Yaakov. Chaim Kramer’s family correspondence from the Breslov Research Institute has described rockets over Beitar Illit, “the city where I live, south of Jerusalem.”[14] Beitar Illit is a large Haredi settlement built from the late 1980s on land taken from Palestinian villages in the Gush Etzion bloc; it is illegal under international law.
David Biale and colleagues noted Hasidim or “quasi-Hasidim,” especially tied to Chabad-Lubavitch and Bratslav, on illegal West Bank “hilltop” outposts — mostly Religious-Zionist youth not recognised as Hasidim by mainstream courts. That hilltop Breslov current is politically closer to the settlement movement than to Mea Shearim quietism.
Published UK and US charity filings name “Israel” (and often Ukraine) as fields of operation. They do not publish a split between activity inside the 1949 Armistice lines, East Jerusalem, Beitar Illit, or outposts.
United Kingdom, United States and money flows
The Breslov Research Institute raises funds as US EIN 11-2524542, Israeli amuta 58-009-223-7, and through the UK Rabbi Nachman of Breslov Charitable Foundation (280174), Binyomin Moss-Barclay, 362 Lower Broughton Road, Salford M7 2HW. Addresses include 8 Avinadav Street, Jerusalem, and POB 587, Monsey, New York.[4]
| Charity | Number | Office | Stated overseas areas |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rabbi Nachman of Breslov Charitable Foundation | 280174 | Salford M7 | Channel for Breslov Research Institute / Israel |
| Breslov Shul Trust | 1184303 | 38 Braydon Road, London N16 | Belgium, Israel, Ukraine, United States; objects include relief of poverty in England and Wales, the USA, Israel and Europe[15] |
US donors also fund a Breslov synagogue appeal in Ramat Beit Shemesh via DEJ International Heritage Foundation (Tax ID 51-0541244) and Israeli amuta 58-041-556-9.[13] Canadian Friends of Chasidei Breslov collect in Ontario for the same network.[4]
Locations
- Ukraine: Uman (grave and kloiz); Bratslav (grave of Nathan of Breslov).
- Israel / occupied territory: Jerusalem (Mea Shearim; Old City / Muslim Quarter); Bnei Brak; Safed; Meron; Yavne'el; Ramat Beit Shemesh; Beitar Illit; Neve Yaakov; Ashdod; Bat Yam; Netivot; Tel Aviv; Beersheba; hilltop outposts (quasi-Breslov).
- United States: Monsey; Borough Park; Williamsburg; Monroe.
- United Kingdom: Stamford Hill (Breslov Shul Trust); Salford (280174).
- France: substantial teshuvah following around Odesser and later rabbis.
See also
- Nachman of Breslov
- Nathan of Breslov
- Yisroel Ber Odesser
- Eliezer Berland
- Shalom Arush
- Eliezer Shlomo Schick
- Hasidic dynasties
- Beitar Illit
- Chabad-Lubavitch
- Yitzchak Ginsburgh
External links
- Breslov Research Institute
- BRI donation pages (US, Israel, UK, Canada)
- Breslov Shul Trust (UK 1184303)
- Chut Shel Chessed / Breslev.co.il
- Ramat Beit Shemesh Breslov shul appeal
Resources
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Breslov Research Institute, Getting to Uman Breslov.org, accessed September 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Otzar Breslov, A Treasury of Breslov Torah, Stories & Advice Otzar Breslov, accessed September 2026.
- ↑ Shlomi Rosenfeld, The Breslovers: Joy, Uman, and Hasidism in Israeli Culture accessed September 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Breslov Research Institute, Donate Breslov.org, accessed September 2026.
- ↑ Haaretz, Upheaval in a Breslav Hasidic Court Haaretz, 15 December 2010.
- ↑ Jenni Frazer, The doc that shocked Israel Jewish News, 24 May 2023.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Hidabroot, Remembering the Tzadik of Yavniel Hidabroot, January 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Ynet, Why do tens of thousands of Israelis travel to Uman on Rosh Hashanah? Ynet News, 27 August 2025.
- ↑ Religious Information Service of Ukraine, 8% of adult Jews in Israel have pilgrimage experience at Rabbi Nachman's gravesite in Uman RISU, 11 September 2026.
- ↑ Israel National News, 70 Breslov Hassidim jailed after attempting to fly to Uman Arutz Sheva, 11 September 2026.
- ↑ Ynet, Breslov Hasidim recreate Uman in Israel Ynet News, 12 August 2026.
- ↑ Breslev.co.il, Donations accessed September 2026.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Kehillas Chen Hanachal, Build a Breslov Shul in Israel Ramat Beit Shemesh Alef, accessed September 2026.
- ↑ Breslov Research Institute, In Every Generation They Rise Up to Destroy Us Breslov.org, 15 April 2024.
- ↑ Charity Commission, BRESLOV SHUL TRUST – 1184303 Charity Commission for England and Wales, accessed September 2026.