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Notes -
I think you've seen Fiddler on the Roof too many times. European Jews have been concentrated in cities for literally hundreds of years. Haredi Judaism started in the 19th century. But let's assume for the sake of argument that you are right:
I usually don't trust AI summaries, but this seems pretty non-controversial:
In other words, it seems that the genesis, so to speak, of Haredi Judaism, was the rise of modernity in Europe. Put another way, Haredi Judaism is the result of the exact selection process I described in my previous post.
Who would join such a movement and stay in it? Logically, a small fringe which is tempermentally, culturally, and genetically okay with that kind of life. Haredi are significant in numbers today only because they've been reproducing like crazy for generations now.
The first Hasidic settlement is more like a town than a city, in contrast to urban Jewry at the time, unless I am mistaken: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medzhybizh
Well, are you disputing the claim that "Haredi Judaism began as a 19th-century European movement opposing modernity and assimilation"?
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