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

Source Description

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 CongregationBaruch 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.
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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].