Concerning Chassidism, yes it is the the same thing as Hasidism. The Hebrew alphabet has a letter called "khet" which can probably best be transliterated as "kh

Concerning Chassidism, yes it is the the same thing as Hasidism. The Hebrew alphabet has a letter called "khet" which can probably best be transliterated as "kh". It is sometimes interchanged with "h" when writing in English, e.g. "Chanukah" vs "Hannukah", etc. I am not trying to proselytize in any way (Judaism discourages proselytizing), but you mentioned that you would like to learn more about Chassidism. Chabad.org (http://www.chabad.org http://www.chabad.org, the website the article is posted on) is the website of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement (an "implementation" of Chassidus) and has a huge amount of content (disclaimer - I interned there this summer as a developer :-)) that can explain more about Judaism, Chassidus, and Chabad in particular. Concerning the furry hats, chassidim do wear hats when praying (besides a skullcap (Yarmulkah/Kippah) worn all day), but Chabad chassidim generally (myself included), wear fedoras. Sorry if I disappointed you :-).