LEBEN ABRAHAM'S NACH AUFFASSUNG DER JUEDISCHEN SAGE MIT ERLAEUTERNDEN ANMERKUNGEN UND NACHWEISUNGEN
Beer, B. (Bernhard)
Published by O. Leiner, Leipzig, 1859
215pp
Th. Beer (1801-1861) was a "German scholar, community leader, and bibliophile. For nearly 30 years Beer served as head of the Dresden Jewish community and its schools. He founded various charitable organizations, and in 1829 joined in establishing a Mendelssohn Society for the furtherance of scholarship, art, and trades among Jewish youth. Through his writings and personal active efforts, Beer was able to wage an eventually successful struggle for the civic equality of the Jews in Saxony. Although he observed traditional practice and was emotionally attached to Jewish customs, Beer rejected Orthodoxy intellectually and aesthetically in favor of moderate reforms, especially in liturgy. He was the first Jew to give a German sermon in a Dresden synagogue. Beer's religious views were similar to those of his close friend, Zacharias Frankel. Nevertheless the reformers Geiger and Holdheim also accorded him respect and admiration, and Beer was regarded as a mediating influence between the proponents of tradition and those of reform. "(EJ, Meyer)
