A leading scholar of the Kabbalah, Moshe Idel ( Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, SUNY, 1995, pp. 17 – 18 ), ascribes this doctrine to the kabbalistic system of Rabbi Moses Cordovero ( 1522 – 1570 ) and in the eighteenth century, Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, as well as his contemporary, Rabbi Menahem Mendel, the Maggid of Bar.

* The Baal Shem Tov ( 18th century founder of Hasidism )

But since Hasidism, immediately after the death of its founder, was divided into various parties, each claiming for itself the authority of Besht, the utmost of caution is necessary in judging as to the authenticity of utterances ascribed to Besht.

It may be said of Hasidism that there is no other Jewish sect in which the founder is as important as his doctrines.

Berlin was the only surviving child of a wealthy Jewish family, the son of Mendel Berlin, a timber industrialist and direct descendant of Shneur Zalman ( founder of Chabad Hasidism ), and his wife Marie, née Volshonok.

The founder of the Chabad philosophy, Shneur Zalman of Liadi, developed an intellectual system and an approach to Judaism intended to answer criticisms of Hasidism as anti-intellectual.

Shneur Zalman of Liadi ( also known as the Alter Rebbe ) was the founder of the Chabad school of Hasidism.

He would only allude in the most general ways to other great mystics, in Hebrew mekubalim, such as the Baal Shem Tov ( founder of Hasidism ), the great mystic known as the Ari who lived in the late Middle Ages, the founder of Chabad Hasidism, the Baal HaTanya Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbitz and many other great Hasidic masters as well as to the great works of Kabbalah such as the Zohar.

When the founder of Hasidic Judaism, Rabbi Yisrael ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov ( 1698 – 1760 ), emerged and made his teachings and influence felt through his own disciples, many rabbinical opponents of Hasidism were suspicious that he and his Hasidim were a class of Sabbateans.

However The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, came at a time when the Jewish masses of Eastern Europe were reeling in bewilderment and disappointment engendered by the two Jewish false messiahs Sabbatai Zevi ( 1626 – 1676 ) and Jacob Frank ( 1726 – 1791 ) in particular.

Rabbi Yisroel Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism is regarded by Hasidim, as the first Hasidic rebbe.

He was a prominent and the youngest disciple of Rabbi Dovber of Mezeritch, the " Great Maggid ", who was in turn the successor of the founder of Hasidism, Rabbi Yisroel ben Eliezer known as the Baal Shem Tov.

Moshe Schneersohn ( born c. 1784-died, before 1853 ) was the youngest son of the founder of Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidism, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi.

The second section of the Hasidic text the Tanya, by Schneur Zalman of Liadi ( Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah-Gate of Unity and Faith ), brings the mystical Panentheism of the founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, into philosophical explanation.

The Tanya ( תניא ) is an early work of Hasidic philosophy, by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Hasidism, first published in 1797.

In it, Schneur Zalman brings the new interpretations of Jewish mysticism by the Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism, into philosophical articulation and definition.

The founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, brought the Kabbalistic idea of Omnipresent Divine immanence in Creation into daily Jewish worship of the common folk.

Because of this, the founder of Hasidism taught that even saintly tzadikim are able to be inspired to do Teshuvah.

Breslov ( also Bratslav, also spelled Breslev ) is a branch of Hasidic Judaism founded by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov ( 1772 – 1810 ) a great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism.

Their leader, Hasidic Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi ( 1745 – 1812 ), the founder of Chabad Hasidism, attempted to allay the anger of the Misnagdim and of Elijah Gaon.

The latter was a disciple of Rabbi Shlomo of Lutsk, a disciple of the Rebbe Dovber, the Maggid ( Preacher ) of Mezritch, who was the primary disciple of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism.

Under Schechter's leadership, JTS attracted a distinguished faculty, including Louis Ginzberg ( author of Legends of the Jews ), historian Alexander Marx, Arabist Israel Friedlander, and future founder of Reconstructionism Mordecai Kaplan, and became a highly regarded center of Jewish learning.

On the wall behind the podium hung a picture of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, and two flags, later to become the official flag of Israel.

* As a teenager, IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad was directly involved in the pro-Nazi New Swedish Movement ( Nysvenska Rörelsen ) until at least 1948, causing tensions when IKEA began opening stores in Israel, although one source has claimed that the movement was not pro-Nazi.

Kaplan began his career as an Orthodox rabbi at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York City, was a founder in 1912 of the Young Israel movement of Modern Orthodox Judaism, and was the first rabbi hired by the new ( Orthodox ) Jewish Center in Manhattan when it was founded in 1918.

(,, Munahayyim Beeghin, Menakhem Vol ' fovich Begin, 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992 ) was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel.

In the earliest days of Mormonism, founder Joseph Smith Jr. taught that the Indigenous peoples of the Americas were members of some of the Lost Tribes of Israel.

Archaeologically speaking, it would appear that Omri was recognized internationally as the founder of the Israelite Kingdom, though Ahab is actually the first king of Israel to appear in non-Israelite sources.

Some Jewish scholars, including Dov Noy, a professor of folklore at Hebrew University and founder of the Israel Folktale Archives, and Howard Schwartz, Jewish anthologist and English professor at the University of Missouri – St. Louis, have discussed traditional Jewish stories as " mythology ".

Kahanism is an nationalist ideology based on the views of Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League and the Kach party in Israel, who said that the State of Israel must defend itself against its enemies.

* May 22 – Israel ben Eliezer aka Baal Shem Tov, Polish-born mystical rabbi, founder of Hasidic Judaism ( b. c. 1698 )

The attack had killed the founder and leader of the military wing of the Islamic terrorist organisation Hamas, Salah Shehade, who Israel said was responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths.

Some have linked Israel to Biblical prophesies ; for example, Ed McAteer, founder of the Moral Majority, said " I believe that we are seeing prophecy unfold so rapidly and dramatically and wonderfully and, without exaggerating, makes me breathless.

David Ben-Gurion () (,, born David Grün ; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973 ) was the main founder and the first Prime Minister of Israel.

The descendants of Joseph formed two of the tribes of Israel, whereas each of the other sons of Jacob was the founder of only one tribe.

* Vernon Carrington, Rastafarian, founder of the Twelve Tribes of Israel

Two people can be considered to have spearheaded the kollel philosophy and outgrowth in today's world-Rabbi Aharon Kotler, the founder of Beth Medrash Govoha, America's largest yeshiva located in Lakewood, New Jersey, and Rabbi Elazar Shach, one of the most prominent leaders of the Jewish community in Israel until his death in 2001.

Rubin became the successor to JDL founder Rabbi Meir Kahane, after the latter moved to Israel in 1985 and formed the Kach Party, which was eventually outlawed by the Israeli Government as " racist ".

He is a respected Talmudic scholar, mystic, and brother-in-law of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov ( founder of the Hasidic movement ).

His students included Rabbis: Yonasan David ( his son-in-law ) and Aharon Schechter, his successors as Rosh Yeshivas of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin ; Hirsch Diskind, son-in-law of Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky and long-time Dean of Bais Yaakov School for Girls in Baltimore, Aharon Lichtenstein, son-in-law of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion in Israel ; Pinchas Stolper of the Orthodox Union and founder of NCSY who followed Hutner's guidelines in setting up this youth outreach movement ; Avrohom Davis, founder of the Metzudah religious books series ; Shlomo Freifeld who set up one of the first full-time yeshivas for baal teshuva students in the world ; Joshua Fishman, leader and executive Vice President of Torah Umesorah the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools ; Avrohom Kleinkaufman, a lecturer in Yeshiva of Far Rockaway and translator of the Genesis and Exodus volumes of the Metzuda Bible Commentary of Rabbi Solomon and the Kol Sasson Sephardic Siddurim and Machzorim ; Yaakov Perlow, the Novominsker Rebbe of Boro Park ; Meir Bilitzky, senior rabbi of Young Israel of New Hyde Park ; Noah Weinberg founder and head of Aish Hatorah and his brother Yaakov Weinberg of Ner Israel Yeshiva in Baltimore ; Yosef Katzenstein of Copenhagen, author of Kol Chayil and Lema ' an Achai ; Feivel Cohen of Brooklyn, author of " Badei HaShulchan " and world renowned posek, Dovid Cohen, rabbi of Congregation Gvul Yaabetz and an author of a number of books on Jewish theology, and Ahron Kaufman Rosh HaYeshiva of Yeshiva Gedola of Waterbury, son in law to Feivel Cohen.

The most important writers are Yose ben Yoseh, probably in the 6th century, chiefly known for his compositions for Yom Kippur ; Eleazar Kalir, the founder of the payyetanic style, perhaps in the 7th century ; Saadia Gaon ; and the Spanish school, consisting of Joseph ibn Abitur ( died in 970 ), ibn Gabirol, Isaac Gayyath, Moses ibn Ezra, Abraham ibn Ezra and Judah ha-Levi, Moses ben Nahman ( Nahmanides ) and Isaac Luria.

* Judah ben Samuel of Regensburg, a 12th-13th century rabbi and mystic, founder of Chasidei Ashkenaz

The appellation “ Baal Shem ” was not unique to Rabbi Yisroel ben Eliezer ; however, it is Rabbi Yisroel ben Eliezer who is most closely identified as a “ Baal Shem ”, as he was the founder of the spiritual movement of Hasidic Judaism.

The term " Misnagdim " gained a common usage among Jews living in Europe as the term that referred to Ashkenazi Jews who opposed the rise and spread of early Hasidic Judaism, particularly as embodied by Hasidism's founder, Rabbi Yisroel ( Israel ) ben Eliezer ( 1698 – 1760 ), who was known as the Baal Shem Tov or BESHT.

Hasidism's founder was Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov (" master of a good name " usually applied to a saintly Jew who was also a wonder-worker ), or simply " the Besht "; he taught that man's relationship with God depended on immediate religious experience, in addition to knowledge and observance of the details of the Torah and Talmud.

Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia (), the founder of the school of " Prophetic Kabbalah ", was born in Zaragoza, Spain, in 1240, and died sometime after 1291, in Comino, Maltese archipelago.

The name is most well known in reference to the founder of Hasidic Judaism, the Baal Shem Tov (" Master of the Good Name ")- Israel ben Eliezer ( 1698 – 1760 ) in the Ukraine.

** ‘ Anan ben David – founder of the Ananites, a group that became a part of the Karaite movement

Israel ben Eliezer, a Jewish mystical rabbi, and the founder of the Hasidic Jewish movement, one of the most important Jewish denominations, was born in Okopy in 1698.

Manoel Dias Soeiro ( 1604 – November 20, 1657 ), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh ben Israel ( מנשה בן ישראל ), also, Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, also known with the Hebrew acronym, MB " Y, was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, scholar, writer, diplomat, printer and publisher, founder of the first Hebrew printing press ( named Emeth Meerets Titsma ` h ) in Amsterdam in 1626.

Thus, notwithstanding his veneration for Anan ben David, the founder of Karaism, and for Benjamin Nahawandi, he often rejects their interpretations.

* Yisroel ben Eliezer ( Baal Shem Tov ) considered to be the founder of Hasidic Judaism

In the Eastern Europe, in spite of the rivalry between the schools of thought of the Vilna Gaon ( or the GRA, Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon, 1720 – 1797 ) of the Mitnagdim, who spoke against Hasidic Judaism and Baal Shem Tov ( Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, 1700 – 1760 ), the founder of Hasidic Judaism ), rabbis were regarded as the final arbiters of community decisions.

Rabbis who believed in the idea of reincarnation include, from Medieval times: the mystical leaders Nahmanides ( the Ramban ) and Rabbenu Bahya ben Asher ; from the 16th-century: Levi ibn Habib ( the Ralbah ), and from the mystical school of Safed Shelomoh Alkabez, Isaac Luria ( the Ari ) and his exponent Hayyim Vital ; and from the 18th-century: the founder of Hasidism Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, later Hasidic Masters, and the Lithuanian Jewish Orthodox leader and Kabbalist the Vilna Gaon.

Abu Zakariya Yahya (, Abu Zakariya Yahya I ben Abd al-Wahid ) ( 1203 – 1249 ) was the founder and first ruler of the Hafsid dynasty in Ifriqiya.