Baal Shem Tov

1698 CE–1760 CE · Hasidic · Tluste (Tovste)

Founder of the Hasidic movement in 18th-century Ukraine. Israel ben Eliezer (the 'Baal Shem Tov,' 'Master of the Good Name') taught that simple sincere devotion, joy, and the recognition of God's presence in every detail of life are the heart of Jewish spirituality. His teachings, preserved by his disciples, transformed Eastern European Jewry and gave rise to all subsequent Hasidic dynasties.

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Stop 1 of 51703–1710Early Life / Residence

Tluste (Tovste)Galicia

What they did here

Orphaned as a child when both parents died, he was taken in and raised by the Jewish community of Tluste.

About Tluste (Tovste)

Tluste (today Tovste, in Ternopil Oblast, western Ukraine), a town in the Podolia/Galicia borderland, was where the young Israel ben Eliezer (the future Baal Shem Tov) lived and worked around 1730, in the years before he revealed himself as a chasidic master and settled in Medzhybizh.

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Baal Shem Tov’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

In the same tradition

Yechezkel Landau

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Baal Shem Tov’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.