Early on, a serious schism evolved between the Hasidic and non-Hasidic Jews. European Jews who rejected the Hasidic movement were dubbed by the Hasidim as "mitnagdim", (lit. opponents). Some of the reasons for the rejection of Hasidic Judaism was a novel emphasis on different aspects of Jewish laws; even more problematic was the overwhelming exuberance of Hasidic worship; their untraditional ascriptions of infallibility and Miracle-working to their leaders, and the concern that it might become a messianic sect, which in fact had occurred among the followers of both Shabbatai Zvi and Jacob Frank.
On a more prosaic level, other Mitnagdim argued that Jews should follow a more scholarly approach to Judaism. At one point Hasidic Jews were put in cherem (a Jewish form of communal excommunication); after years of bitter acrimony, there was a rapprochement between Hasidic Jews and those who would soon become known as Orthodox Jews. Since then all the sects of Hasidic Judaism have been subsumed into Orthodox Judaism, particularly Ultra-Orthodox Judaism.
During the Holocaust the Hasidic centers of Eastern Europe were destroyed. Survivors moved to Israel or America, notably Brooklyn, and established new centers of Hasidic Judaism. Some of the larger and more well-known Hasidic sects still extant include Breslov, Lubavitch (Chabad), Satmar, Ger, and Bobov Hasidim. For years, the two "superpowers" of the Brooklyn Hasidic world were Satmar and Chabad, based on Williamsburg and Crown Heights, respectively. Despite being so similar in the eyes of other Jews, the two groups had a hostile relationship. Satmar was militantly anti-Zionist, while Chabad was supportive of Israel, though the Lubavitcher rebbe never visited Israel. Satmar also disdained Chabad's tendency to do outreach among non-observant Jews. Satmars were especially offended by Chabad's sending of mitzvah tanks into their neighborhood, as if they needed prodding to be observant. In recent years the tension has cooled.
There has been significant revival of interest in Hasidic Judaism on the part of non-Orthodox Jews due to the writings of non-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish authors like Martin Buber, Arthur Green and Abraham Joshua Heschel. As such, one now finds some minor Hasidic influences in the siddurim (prayer books) of Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism.
1 -[Hassidism]
2 -[Hassidism : Prelude to the Hasidic movement]
3 -[Hassidism : Fundamental conceptions]
4 -[Hassidism : The spread of Hasidism]
5 -[Hassidism : Hasidim versus non-Hasidim]
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