The present source deals with the Foreword to a collection of expert report
entitled
Dibere Haberith (Words of the
Covenant, DH), that the three executive board members (
Dajanim) of the rabbinic judicial court of the
Hamburg Congregation
–
Baruch Meyer,
Jacob Meyer Jaffe, und Michel Israel Speyer– published in the German
language in September 1819, in order to respond to
the erection of a new Reform synagogue, the "
New Israelite Temple
Association." In May / June 1819, the collection appeared first in a Hebrew
edition, which soon thereafter was supplemented with a German-language edition
printed in Hebrew letters. At the “wish of several readers” (Preface to
Dibere Haberith), finally there appeared a
German-language edition in Latin letters, from which the following textual
excerpt is taken – apparently, a part of the readership could no longer read
Hebrew. Unlike the Hebrew version, which first and foremost represented a
halakhic compendium, the
German version was meant for “general use” (Preface to
Dibere Haberith) and therefore dispensed with the
cross-references to rabbinic sources. A few opinions – for example, that of the
Alsatian Rabbi
Katzenellenbogen – are completely
missing.
Dibere Haberith or: Letters from the most eminent Rabbis and Rabbinic Boards Consistories of the most excellent Israelite Congregations of Germany, Poland, and Italy concerning the erection of the “New Temple-Association” in Hamburg by a few individuals of the present Israelite Congregation – contrary to the laws of Judaism. Faithfully translated from the Hebrew into German. Altona, printed by the Brothers Bonn, 1819 (translated by Richard S. Levy), edited in: Key Documents of German-Jewish History,
<https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:source-23.en.v1> [October 06, 2024].