Keruz Lema’an Da’ath [a proclamation announced in.

A highly scarce pamphlet centering upon the Cleves Get Controversy, one of the great rabbinic causes célèbres of the 18th-century, which involved most of the great authorities of the day: Jacob Emden, Ezekiel Landau, Aryeh Leib of Metz (“Sha’agath Aryeh”), Saul Loewenstamm of Amsterdam, Joseph Steinhart of Fuerth, Shlomo Chelma (“Merkeveth ha-Mishneh”), Saul Halevi of Hague, et al. It was the contention of the Rabbi of Mannheim, R. Tevele Hess and his Beth Din and R. Abraham of Frankfurt and his Beth Din that due to the mentally unstable state of a particular husband, a Get (bill of divorce) granted to his wife, was invalid. This Get had been supervised under the rabbinic auspices of by R. Israel Lipschuetz of Cleves. The present vituperative pamphlet was issued opposing the Rabbi of Cleves and especially R. Aaron Shimon of Copenhagen who was instrumental in arranging the divorce (and author of the related Or Ha-Yashar) and who is here maligned as being a “Masith VeMadiach” (an agitator and inciter), a kidnapper and a gambler. It further pointedly states that a public letter endorsed by a number of Polish Rabbis validating the Cleves divorce is here regarded as denigrating the authority of the Chief Rabbi of Frankfurt and hence these Polish Rabbis are belittled, especially R. Shlomo of Chelma - “a frequenter of concerts and chess-player.” The pamphlet contains other choice epithets based upon many clever play on words. It further notes that should anyone speak against the decision of the Rabbis of Frankfurt and Mannheim they will be fined and lose all community privileges. Finally, recorded in this extraordinary pamphlet is that the letter from the Polish Rabbis was publicly burnt in the courtyard of the main synagogue of Frankfurt. For more regarding the Cleves Get Controversy see EJ, Vol. V cols. 613-15.