Ohr Yisrael – “The Get of Kleve”. The sole book printed in Kleve, in 1770. Single edition.

Ohr Yisrael – “The Get of Kleve”. The sole book printed in Kleve, in 1770. Single edition.

Ohr Yisrael by Rabbi Yisrael Lifshitz. An original book from the end of the 18th century. No additional editions printed.

Considerable portions of the book deal with the controversy surrounding the “Get of Kleve”. In fact, this is the principal document that informs us of the serious controversy that erupted in the communities in Europe a few years prior to the growth of the Haskalah movement.

Rabbi Yisrael Lifshitz, author of the book, was the Rabbi of the city of Kleve, and he arranged the divorce certificate that was the point of dispute in the “Get of Kleve” affair.

The book’s author granted a divorce certificate to a young man, but this certificate was claimed to be invalid.

 “I thank Your name, Hashem… and You turned Your great right hand to shelter me in Your dwelling of peace and You hid me in Your shadow from those who rose against me… to persecute me for naught, and they made me a target for [their] arrows and ascribed to me iniquity, that I permitted a married woman [to be married], and they treated my flesh and blood with abandon, like the blood of cattle, and broadcast in all the mountains of Israel and the islands of the sea… to make me [appear] wicked in the entire land.”

The book’s author is the grandfather of the author of the famous commentary on the Mishnah, “Tiferet Yisrael”.

Kleve, 1770. The Widow Zitzmann.

66, 69-120 pages. Complete. Very good condition. Antique binding