Revealer of Secrets
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Revealer of Secrets (Hebrew: מגלה טמירין), first published in 1819, is an epistolary novel by Joseph Perl, a proponent of Jewish emancipation and Haskalah. It is often considered the first modern novel in Hebrew. The book purports to be a collection of letters between various hasidic rabbis, but is actually a satire of their teachings.
Hasidism began in the late 1740s under Ukrainian Rabbi Yisroel Baal Shem Tov. His followers published a collection of stories about his life, Shivhei ha-Besht (ln Praise of the Ba'al Shem Tov), in 1815.[1]
The following year Perl published Ueber das Wesen der Sekte Chassidim aus ihren eigenen Schriften gezogen (On the Nature of the Sect of the Hasidim, Drawn from Their Own Writings),[2] in which he laid out what he saw as the absurdity of Hasidic beliefs and practices.[3]
In 1819 he continued his writings against Hasidism by publishing a novel about the subject. In the novel, characters search for the original copy of a recently published anti-Hasidic book. The novel was originally published anonymously.[4]
