Joseph Perl Author

Joseph Perl (1773-1839) was an Ashkenazi Jewish educator and writer, best known for his writings on Hasidism, ranging from critical treatises to parody.  He wrote in Hebrew, Yiddish and German. In 1819, Perl published Revealer of Secrets, said to be the first modern novel in Hebrew; in 1838 he published a sequel, Testing the Righteous, a response to readers’ reactions and critics of the earlier work.