BRESSELAU, MEIR ISRAEL. Cherev Nokemeth Nakam Berith [“A Sword Avenging the Covenant”]

(REFORM JUDAISM).

(Dessau)

1819

FIRST EDITION

Vinograd, Dessau 77

A Reform response to the Orthodox denunciation Eileh Divrei ha-Berith, which was published in Altona that same year of 1819. The controversy surrounding Israel Jacobsohn’s Reform Temple in Hamburg pivoted on two issues: the accompaniment of the prayer by organ music, and the recitation of the prayer in German rather than Hebrew. The author takes swipes at the Orthodox rabbis whose opinions appeared in Eileh Divrei ha-Berith (shortened by Bresselau to simply “Divrei ha-Berith,” initials DiBaH, the Hebrew word for slander): Rabbis Moses Schreiber of Pressburg, Mordecai Banet of Nikolsburg, and Jacob Lorbeerbaum of Lissa.” See E.M. Klugman, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1996), pp. 26-27