Professor Shuman's talk focuses on Reb Shayele of Kerestir, a Hungarian Hasidic miracle-worker (1851-1925), who has witnessed a revival of popularity over the last decade. Shayele operates much like Hermes, the trickster of Greek mythology. He plays a trickster by outwitting hostile strangers and non-Jewish authorities. His devotees summon his powers as a subaltern technology of protection. In this talk, Shuman examine how a 2024 TV show Kugel reverses the order of things, however. Shayele’s trickster-double and devotee, Uncle Nukhem, transgressively spell-binds members of his own community. In so doing, Kugel presents a trenchant critique of contemporary Hasidic life. Shayele has been resurrected after nearly a century of dormancy to remedy a perceived crisis of care plaguing Hasidic communities. It ultimately requires an antisocial trickster like Uncle Nukhem to reveal these maladies. That his victims experience his exploitation as care reveals just how perversely uncaring his world is.
Sam Shuman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and a core faculty member in the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Virginia (UVA). Shuman researches Hasidic Judaism within a global context to rethink larger questions in political theology about race and religion, global capitalism, gender and sexuality, sovereignty and empire. They are currently working on their first book, Of Mice and Hasidic Men: Populist Hospitality and theRevival of a 20th-Century Jewish Saint, which they will discuss today. Shuman’s research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), and Fulbright. Their work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in the Jewish Quarterly Review, Shofar, Images: A Journal of Jewish Art & Visual Culture, and Religions, as well as chapters in edited volumes. In Winter/Spring 2026, they will be an Open Society fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the Central European University in Budapest.
