(REFORM JUDAISM)

Prague

1831

Chorin(er), Aaron. Der treue Bothe an seine Religionsgenossen [The True Mesenger on His Coreligionists] / Tzir Ne'eman

Vinograd, Prague 1271

Aaron Chorin of Arad, Hungary (1766-1844), or as he signed himself at the conclusion of this work, “Aaron Ben Chorin” [“Aaron the Free”] (p. 58), was one of the most outspoken proponents of Reform Judaism - although in his youth, he studied in the yeshivah of the illustrious Rabbi Ezekiel Landau in Prague. In Orthodox circles Choriner was contemptuously known by the acronym “Acher” which in addition to being the initials of his name, recalled an earlier renegade by the name of Elisha ben Abuyah, the infamous Tanaic heretic. In the German portion of the present work, Chorin advocates transferring the Sabbath day to Sunday, as well as calling for a synod to mitigate the severity of the laws governing the Sabbath. In the Hebrew portion of the work, Chorin abolishes the piyyutim (poetic prayers) composed by Kallir, recited in the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, and makes some suggestion in the way of Takanath Agunoth, allowing women to remarry. Tzir Ne'eman begins with an exchange of letters between the author and the Italian savant Isaac Samuel Reggio (YaSHaR). See M. Carmilly-Weinberger, Censorship and Freedom of Expression in Jewish History (1977) p. 176