Zweig framed Hasidic dancing as proof of western Jewry’s alienation from life

Evidence

These old men, more the men than the boys, who really romp and rejoice in the prayer halls, these jumping Jews with blowing ‘Tallejssim’ and quivering beards, dancing naturally without women, dancing as the orientals they are in honor of the festive celebration and according to the book that contains the path to God, the path to life. These dancers evoke the quivering in and of itself, and with this every real insight is received: how far away one is alienated from life itself” (62). — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 415