FULD, AARON BEN MOSES

FULD, AARON BEN MOSES (1790–1847), defender of Orthodoxy and communal worker in his native Frankfurt. Fuld in his early youth met R. Phinehas ha-Levy Horowitz, author of the Hafla'ah, and was close to the circle of his son, Ẓevi Hirsch Horowitz. He was also a pupil of Solomon Zalman Trier who headed the Frankfurt bet din, and to whom he used to refer as: "my esteemed teacher, the high priest." Fuld engaged in business and never held any rabbinical post. Although opposed to the Reform movement, he strove for the inclusion of secular subjects in the curriculum of Jewish schools. In a letter to Akiva *Eger, Fuld asked for the approval of a curriculum in which secular subjects were included, stressing that the rabbis of "every city and province should strive with all their might that there be no slackening of the study of these subjects, essential nowadays so as not to provide an opening for the criticism of those who have risen against us" (Beit Aharon, Introd., v–vi). In another letter, of 1843, written on behalf of the Frankfurt rabbinate, he protested strongly against the desecration of the Sabbath and the abolition of circumcision, attendant upon the strengthening of the Reform movement. On one occasion, when Fuld was rebuked by Moses *Sofer (Schreiber) for having, according to his informant Akiva b. Abraham Moses *Lehren, permitted shaving during the intermediate days of a festival, he wrote a letter of vindication, stating, "Those who said I permitted shaving during the intermediate days have spoken falsely about me, for such a thing never entered my mind" (Beit Aharon, introd., ii). At the same time, Sofer mentions Fuld with respect in his responsa as "the sharp-witted, learned rabbi" (responsa Ḥatam Sofer, yd (1841), nos. 88, 224, 319, 323).

Fuld's work, Beit Aharon, comprises five sections: (1) Meshivei Milḥamah Sha'rah, 17 responsa written between 1823 and 1830; (2) glosses to the Talmud; (3) glosses to the Arukh (also published as an appendix to the 1959 edition of Arukh); (4) Haggahot ha-Tishbi to the Sefer ha-Tishbi (Isry, 1541) of Elijah b. Asher ha-Levi Baḥur; (5) Haggahot ha-Meturgeman to the Sefer ha-Meturgeman (ibid., 1541) of Elijah b. Asher ha-Levi Baḥur. Fuld's notes to the Shem ha-Gedolim of Ḥ. J.D. Azulai were published at the end of volume two of the Frankfurt edition (1847).

bibliography:

Ḥ.M. Horowitz, in: A. Fuld, Beit Aharon (1890), i–xiv (introd.); S.A. Trier, Rabbinische Gutachten ueber die Beschneidung (1844), xix.

[Yehoshua Horowitz]