Mises was wealthy and of high social standing, so that he had little or no regard for the consequences of openly expressing his extreme liberal positions. A Galician scholar, he was noted especially for his violent attacks on rabbinical tradition and for his extreme radicalism. He belonged to the literary circle of Solomon Rapoport (1790-1867), the latter founding a library in Lemberg supported by Mises, for the purpose of providing ambitious young men with a liberal education. Mises was an ardent supporter of the enlightenment and reform. In an earlier work, a recasting of David Caro’s Tekunat ha-Rabbanim (The character of the rabbis) he criticized contemporary rabbis and described the qualifications and duties of what he believed to be the ideal rabbi. Among them secular a swell as Jewish learning, fluency in the vernacular of his country, an ability to preach, and flexibility in adjusting Judaism to the needs of the time. In Tekunat ha-Rabbanim these views are expressed somewhat mildly. In Kinat ha-Emet, however, Mises attacks rabbinic Judaism with such severity in support of his radical positions, using doctored citations from medieval scholars and philosophers, that he aroused the ire of conservative maskilim as well as orthodox opponents. Even Solomon Rapoport rebuked Mises, albeit without naming him, in his preface to his biography of Nathan of Rome, writing that such tendencies were harmful to Judaism.