One movement. Many sacred paths.
The map distinguishes relationships often blurred together: family descent, teacher–student transmission and succession to a court. Every tile’s dot and stripe carry the color of its school; filter by region or by school below, toggle each relationship layer, or follow a curated journey. Select any figure to open the full record.
From the founding circle down, branches are grouped by homeland — west to east: Poland · Galicia · Hungary & Carpathians · Bukovina & Romania · Ukraine · the Lita. Drag to pan · scroll or pinch to zoom · double-click to zoom in · the small branch button on a tile lights its chains back to the Baal Shem Tov.
The dynastic constellation.
Every court with its founder, heartland and signature legacy, one row per house. Select a row to expand its indexed rebbes in place; completed research rows also open their defining teachings, historical arc, guide sources, key members, institutions and communal infrastructure.
Where the courts stood.
Every indexed figure, placed at the town of their primary court or residence and colored by school. Filter by house, select a town to see who held court there, and open any record straight from the map. The far-flung markers — Tiberias, Brooklyn, Queens — are the story of aliyah, flight and rebuilding.
Towns are shown at modern coordinates; where a rebbe led more than one court, the founding or principal seat is used. Marker size reflects how many indexed figures sat in that town.
Sefarim as living lineage.
Every sefer here is a living branch of the tree that wrote it. Search and filter the shelf below by school and genre, and see at a glance whether each work reached print in its author’s own lifetime — or was carried forward, faithfully, by his talmidim.
A calendar of remembrance.
A yahrzeit is not a day of loss, but a day of closeness — the day a tzaddik’s soul rises higher, drawing his merit and teachings nearest to those who remember him. The year of remembrance unfolds below, from Tishrei to Elul.
From Podolia to the world.
Chasidic history is also a map of vanished borders, forced movement, rebuilding and astonishing continuity. Figures whose documented lifetimes touch each era are linked below it.
A source-aware atlas.
Chasidic genealogy is full of name variants, disputed dates and fragmented records. The atlas records exactly what kind of relationship is asserted, with room for source-level citations.
Completion standard: a dynasty isn’t “complete” just because its famous rebbes appear — full coverage means collateral branches, marriages, students, publishers, successors and a full bibliography.
Descent, marriage, discipleship and succession are tracked as distinct relationship types.
Yiddish, Hebrew and regional name variants all remain searchable.
Yahrzeit, civil date and burial site are independently sourced; known variants are flagged (e.g. Ziditchov 1872/1873).
Same-named figures, like two different Yaakov Koppels, are kept distinct, never conflated.
Colleague panels are computed from shared teachers, courts and lifetimes — contemporaneity, not confirmed contact.