“Ovadiah ben Baruch.” Mitzpeh Yokthe’el [bitter polemic against Raphael Hakohen’s Torath Yekuthiel]

(BERLIN, SAUL)

Chevrath Chinuch Ne’arim, for David Friedlaender

Berlin

1789

FIRST EDITION

Vinograd, Berlin 381; Mehlman 1717

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