Physical Description

Only edition, octavo, 20 pp. 235:150 mm., usual light age staining,wide margins. A very good copy bound as issued.

Detail Description

Only edition of this monograph on get (divorce) from R. David ben Solomon Neumark. The title is from “[A grievous vision is declared to me]; he who desires to be treacherous may be treacherous,” (Isaiah 21:2). There is a German subtitle “Der Treulose handelt treulos,” essentially a translation of the Hebrew, a Hebrew subtitle informing that this refers to an actual case, and below a quote from Malachi (2:14)“And you say, Why is this so? Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, yet is she your companion, and the wife of your covenant.” Ha-Bogad Bogad begins by informing that the actual case referred to is intended to defend the honor of a woman whose husband treated her scornfully. It is a scholarly and informed argument o the subject of such divorces.

R. David ben Solomon Neumark (1866–1924) was a scholar and philosopher of Reform Judaism. Born in Galicia, Neumark was ordained as rabbi at the Lehranstalt fuer die Wissenschaft des Judenthums in 1897. He served as rabbi in Rakonitz (Rakovnik), Bohemia, from 1897 to 1904, and as editor in chief of the division of philosophy and halakhah of the proposed Hebrew encyclopedia Oẓar ha-Yahadut from 1904 to 1907, whose specimen volume on the principle and philosophy of Judaism he edited in 1906. He was professor of Jewish philosophy at the Veitel-Heine-Ephraimschen Lehranstalt in Berlin in 1907 and professor of philosophy at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati from 1907 to 1924. In 1919 Neumark founded The Journal of Jewish Lore and Philosophy, which became The Hebrew Union College Annual in 1921. Neumark's philosophy of Judaism is representative of the Reform Jewish position of his time, and includes the following points: Judaism is an evolving religion which has undergone change in the past and will continue to do so in the future; the vital continuing element in Judaism is ethical monotheism, which Jewish philosophy must defend, explicate, and refine; the Bible was written by men, and while it is a source of inspiration and instruction, it is not binding and may be disagreed with. Neumark was unusual among the Reformists of his day in that he was an ardent Zionist. However, on the basis of his philosophy of Judaism, he insisted that Zionism must have a religious base, which for him was the only raison d'être for any significant Jewish enterprise.

Hebrew Descridpion

מעשה שהיה  ([מאת] ד"ר דוד ניימארק, רב לעדת רקוניטץ)...

תשובה בדין גט בעל-כרחה.

Der Treulose handelt treulos<. . <Eine Begebenheit >,

Bibliography:

Bibliography of the Hebrew Book 1470-1960 #000152451; BE bet 291; EJ