Rabbi Yisroel (Israel) ben Eliezer (רבי ישראל בן אליעזר August 27, 1698 (18 Elul) – May 22, 1760), often called Baal Shem Tov or Besht, was a Jewish mystical rabbi. He is considered to be the founder of Hasidic Judaism (see also Mezhbizh Hasidic dynasty).
Besht was born to Eliezer and Sara in Okopy (Ukrainian: Окопи) a small village that over the centuries has been part of Poland, Russia, and is now part of Ukraine, (located in the Borshchivskyi ...
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Rabbi Yisroel (Israel) ben Eliezer (רבי ישראל בן אליעזר August 27, 1698 (18 Elul) – May 22, 1760), often called Baal Shem Tov or Besht, was a Jewish mystical rabbi. He is considered to be the founder of Hasidic Judaism (see also Mezhbizh Hasidic dynasty).
Besht was born to Eliezer and Sara in Okopy (Ukrainian: Окопи) a small village that over the centuries has been part of Poland, Russia, and is now part of Ukraine, (located in the Borshchivskyi Raion (district) of the Ternopil Oblast). He died in Medzhybizh, (Ukrainian: Меджибіж, Polish: Międzybórz, Międzyborz or Międzybóż, Yiddish: מעזשביזש), which had once been part of Lithuania, then Turkey, Poland and Russia, and is also now in Ukraine, in the Khmelnytskyi Oblast.
Besht is better known to many religious Jews as "the holy Baal Shem" (der heyliger baal shem in Yiddish), or most commonly, the Baal Shem Tov (בעל שם טוב) . The title Baal Shem Tov is usually translated into English as "Master of the Good Name", with Tov ("Good")...
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