Jesus in the Talmud
In the first few centuries CE, there were many sects of Judaism (such as Pharisees, Essenes, and Sadducees) each claiming to be the correct faith. Some scholars treat Christianity, during that era, referred to as Early Christianity, as simply one of many sects of Judaism. Some sects wrote polemics advocating their position, and occasionally disparaging rival sects. Some scholars view the depictions of Jesus in the Talmud as a manifestation of those inter-sect rivalries – thus the depictions can be read as polemics by the rabbinic authors of the Talmud which indirectly criticized the rival sect (Christianity), which was growing and becoming more dominant.
Hasidic Judaism
Outside pressure was mounting in the early 20th century. In 1912, many Hasidic leaders partook in the creation of the Agudas Israel party, a political instrument intended to safeguard what was now named Orthodox Judaism even in the relatively traditional East; the more hard-line dynasties, mainly Galician and Hungarian, opposed the Aguda as too lenient. Mass immigration to America, urbanization, World War I and the subsequent Russian Civil War uprooted the "shtetl"s in which the local Jews lived for centuries and were the bedrock of Hasidism. In the new Soviet Union, civil equality first achieved and a harsh repression of religion caused a rapid secularization. Few remaining Hasidim, especially of Chabad, continued to practice underground for decades. In the new states of the Interbellum era, the process was only somewhat slower. On the eve of World War II, strictly observant Jews were estimated to constitute no more than a third of the total Jewish population in Poland, the world's most Orthodox country. While the Rebbes still had a vast base of support, it was aging and declining.