. Haskalah: v’Shaftu v’Hatzilu (by Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Fassel, a student of the Chatam Sofer). Gross Kanizsa, 1870

. Haskalah: v’Shaftu v’Hatzilu (by Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Fassel, a student of the Chatam Sofer). Gross Kanizsa, 1870

„Das mosaisch-rabbinische Strafgesetz und strafrechtliche Gerichtsverfahren : bearbeitet nach Ordnung und Einteilung der Gesetzbücher der Neuzeit und erläutert mit Angabe der Quellen. von Hirsch B Fassel“ (free translation: the Rabbinical Mosaic: Punishments and Processes in Criminal Trials, organized according to the codes of the modern era and explained with reference to the sources, by Hirsch Be’er Fassel in Gross Kanizsa). Booklet in German referencing the haskala movement and modern systems of justice, with halachic introductions. Additional jacket title page. [1], 136, xiii, [7] leaves. Stains, pages detached, some not cut by the printers on top. Overall good condition.

Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Fassel (1803-1884) was a rabbi in the towns of Prosnitz and Najkeniza (Hungary), active in modernization and educational, community, and religious reform among Moravian Jewry. He was born in Boskowitz (Moravia). As a boy he studied at the local yeshiva led by Rabbi moshe HaKohen Karpels, and the in Pressburg under the Chatam Sofer. He became close to the Av Beit Din of Prosnitz, Leib Schwab, a member of the Haskala movement and the first modern Orthodox rabbi in the region, following whom Fassel led and implemented many reforms including for Jewish education. Fassel opposed the Rashar Hirsch and published very strong criticism against his book Horev and fought him for decades. His religious position was complicated, since he held that halacha solidified after the Geonim and that its dynamism needed to be returned, but on the other hand he spoke often about the Divine origin of the Torah (both b’ktav and b’eal peh) and his complete belief in studying Talmud. Most historians categorize him as the right-wing extreme of the supporters of Zecharya Frankel, the leader of the Conservative movement, to whom he was close. Others are convinced that he held a completely Orthodox worldview.