Jewish politics became the new Hassidism

After the Sabbatean disaster the Hassidic movement revived the spirit of the Jewish people. With the collapse of traditional Jewish leadership at the end of the 19th century the efflorescence of Jewish political life performed the same function the Hassidic movement had done two centuries prior. Jewish politics became the new Hassidism. It energized the Jewish people and pulled them out of the historical rut into which they had become stuck after the emancipation and Enlightenment.