“Ovadiah ben Baruch.” Mitzpeh Yokthe’el [bitter polemic against Raphael Hakohen’s Torath Yekuthiel]
AUCTION 11 |
Tuesday, November 28th,
2000 at 1:00
Important Hebrew Printed Books and Manuscripts From the Library of the London Beth Din
Lot 14
(BERLIN, SAUL)
“Ovadiah ben Baruch.” Mitzpeh Yokthe’el [bitter polemic against Raphael Hakohen’s Torath Yekuthiel]
Berlin: Chevrath Chinuch Ne’arim, for David Friedlaender 1789
Est: $500 - $700
PRICE REALIZED $700
Within Berlin’s complex personality lay a combination of reverence for traditional Rabbinism as well as an attraction toward the progressive ideas of Mendelssohn and Wessely. However, the extreme personal nature of the author’s pseudonymous attack in this work resulted in the almost complete destruction of all copies.
Berlin’s father was Tzvi Hirsch Berlin, his brother Solomon Hirschel, Chief Rabbi of England. Indeed, it was to London that Berlin eventually fled, from Continental Europe, dying there in 1794, wholly misunderstood. See M. Carmilly-Weinberger, Censorship and Freedom of Expression in Jewish History (1977) pp.157-59