Detailed
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A polemic against studying secular material, including the study of foreign languages. The broadside reinforces previous excommunication decrees against both those who study and those who teach, and even against parents who send their children to study these secular ("external)" subjects.
The signers of this broadside want to emphasize and remove all doubt that the study of these subjects are forbidden. That is why they want to go over every detail and clearly explain what the old and the new "issurim" [forbidden actions] are. They state that they are speaking for the Ashkenazim and for the Sephardim as well. They state that even for only three studying together it is also forbidden. …and even for a wage (meaning it is forbidden to teach this as a livelihood as well)..and forbidden even for a short time..and even for one day.
…it is forbidden for males and for females…[even] for infants ..for young and old…
This is signed by 17 names, with the note that if there was room there would be 100 names. The bottom quarter of the page contains "words of the Bet Din HaGadol of Jerusalem" which is three short letters agreeing with the above exclusion of secular studies and studying in "schools" and signed by Moshe Yehoshua Yehuda Leib, son of Binyamin (of Brisk), Shneur Zalman, who was the Av Bet Din of Lublin, and Shmuel Salant.
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