616. Sharot, Stephen. "Jewish Millenarianism: A Comparison of Medieval Communities." Comparative Studies in Society and History 22, 1980a: 394-415.
This article addresses the question why millenarism was more current among Sephardim than among Ashkenazim though the latter were more rigorously persecuted in this period. Sharot suggests that it may in part be due to the greater prominence of Cabbalah among the Sephardim, who felt themselves to be and to some extent were a special elite, even in Christian countries, while the Ashkenazim clearly were a chronically abused and despised minority. When the Sephardim suffered setbacks they would have experienced their reverses more keenly, especially their unexpected expulsion from Castile in 1492, which radically denied their identity, a severe trauma that Ashkenazim did not experience to the same extent. Don Isaac Abravenel, for example referred to the expulsion as the "birth pangs of the messiah." However, Sharot cautions that there is no one clear pattern to explain these cases.
617. ———. "Hasidism and the Routinization of Charisma." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 19 (4), 1980b: 325-36.
Hasidism grew and prospered in part because it had multiple principles of succession and multiple streams of succession, leading to many new groups, a decentralized structure and lively diversity of belief and practice.
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