Glenn Dynner

Jews, Liquor, and Life in the Kingdom of PolandIn Yankel's Tavern, Glenn Dynner investigates the role of Jews in tavern-keeping in the Kingdom of Poland between 1815 and the uprising of 1863-4 and its aftermath....

In nineteenth-century Eastern Europe, the Jewish-run tavern was often the center of leisure, hospitality, business, and even religious festivities. This unusual situation came about because the nobles who owned taverns throughout the formerly Polish lands believed that only Jews were sober enough to run taverns profitably, a belief so ingrained as...

Hasidism, a kabbalah-inspired movement founded by Israel Ba'al Shem Tov (c1700-1760), transformed Jewish communities across Eastern and East Central Europe. In Men of Silk, Glenn Dynner draws upon newly discovered Polish archival material and neglected Hebrew testimonies to illuminate Hasidism's dramatic ascendancy in the region of Central Poland...