Joseph Perl's Revealer Of Secrets: The First Hebrew Novel

In 1819, Joseph Perl anonymously published the Hebrew novel Megalle Temirin (Revealer of Secrets) as a salvo in the battle between adherents of Haskala (the Jewish Enlightenment) and the religious revivalism of Hasidism. An ardent supporter of Haskala, Perl's book was purported to be a collection of letters between numerous Hasidim but was in fact a satire of the sect's teachings. Now Westview is publishing the book with extensive scholarly apparatus provided by Rabbi Dov Taylor as Joseph Perl's Revealer of Secrets: The First Hebrew Novel.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Taylor's translation of Perl's epistolary novel of 19th-century Jewish life in Eastern Europe gives the English-speaking reader an opportunity to savor a Hebrew classic. The modern world was dawning, and the Haskala?"the Jewish Enlightenment"?was engaged in a battle with the religious revival movement known as Hasidism. Perl, an ardent advocate of enlightenment, wrote this work in 1819 to parody Hasidism. It stands as the prototype as well as the pinnacle of the novel genre in Hebrew. As an historical novel, it is also a rich contemporary source of Jewish life in Galicia and the Pale. Recommended for scholarly and Jewish studies collections.?Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, Md.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.