Samuel C. Heilman is Proshansky Chair in Jewish Studies at the Graduate Center and Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Queens College CUNY. He has written eleven books, including, most recently (with Menachem Friedman), The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, winner of the National Jewish Book Award.

"One might expect to find these riveting succession stories—of the rebbes of the Munkacs, Boyan and Kopyczynitz, Bobover, Satmar, and Chabad Lubavitch dynasties—in a TV mini-series rather than in a work of sociology and history. While fueled by an enormous amount of research, they read more like page turners where the obsession is not sex, but succession."

• List of IllustrationsPrologue1 Succession in Contemporary Hasidism: Who Will Lead Us?2 Munkács: An Oedipal Challenge3 Boyan and Kopyczynitz: Running Out of Rebbes4 Bobov: A Clash of Families5 Satmar: Succession Charged with Conflict6 ChaBaD Lubavitch: A Rebbe Who Never DiesFinal ThoughtsNotesIndex

Samuel C. Heilman is Proshansky Chair in Jewish Studies at the Graduate Center and Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Queens College CUNY. He has written eleven books, including, most recently (with Menachem Friedman), The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, winner of the National Jewish Book Award.

"One might expect to find these riveting succession stories—of the rebbes of the Munkacs, Boyan and Kopyczynitz, Bobover, Satmar, and Chabad Lubavitch dynasties—in a TV mini-series rather than in a work of sociology and history. While fueled by an enormous amount of research, they read more like page turners where the obsession is not sex, but succession."

• List of IllustrationsPrologue1 Succession in Contemporary Hasidism: Who Will Lead Us?2 Munkács: An Oedipal Challenge3 Boyan and Kopyczynitz: Running Out of Rebbes4 Bobov: A Clash of Families5 Satmar: Succession Charged with Conflict6 ChaBaD Lubavitch: A Rebbe Who Never DiesFinal ThoughtsNotesIndex

Samuel C. Heilman is Proshansky Chair in Jewish Studies at the Graduate Center and Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Queens College CUNY. He has written eleven books, including, most recently (with Menachem Friedman), The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, winner of the National Jewish Book Award.

"One might expect to find these riveting succession stories—of the rebbes of the Munkacs, Boyan and Kopyczynitz, Bobover, Satmar, and Chabad Lubavitch dynasties—in a TV mini-series rather than in a work of sociology and history. While fueled by an enormous amount of research, they read more like page turners where the obsession is not sex, but succession."

• List of IllustrationsPrologue1 Succession in Contemporary Hasidism: Who Will Lead Us?2 Munkács: An Oedipal Challenge3 Boyan and Kopyczynitz: Running Out of Rebbes4 Bobov: A Clash of Families5 Satmar: Succession Charged with Conflict6 ChaBaD Lubavitch: A Rebbe Who Never DiesFinal ThoughtsNotesIndex