PERLES (Perls), ISAAC MOSES

PERLES (Perls ), ISAAC MOSES (1784–1854), Hungarian rabbi. Born in Brod, Moravia, Perles studied under Meshullam Eger in Pressburg and with Joseph b. Phinehas, rabbi of Posen. He served as rabbi in several Hungarian communities: Kojetin (from 1813), Holics (1820), Eisenstadt (1822), and Bonyhad (1841). During his last years difficulties arose between him and his community. They were in the main connected with reforms in the life of the community which Perles, despite his generally liberal approach, refused to countenance. Matters reached such a stage that he was denounced to the government as "interfering with order and authority, hating light and progress," or as "robbing and wronging his congregants, making demands upon them, and taking by force… in excess of that to which he was entitled." The government, knowing that the charges were baseless, ignored them, but as a result of the dispute Perles left Bonyhad and returned to Brod, where he died after a few months. After his death his grandson Abraham Ẓevi published his work Beit Ne'eman (1907), including responsa of great interest and prefaced by Perles' biography. His son Meir (1811–1893) was born in Brod. Although a profound talmudic scholar, he did not join the Orthodox camp. He served as rabbi in Carei (Mare) from 1834. In Beit Ne'eman there is a letter to him from Moses *Sofer dated 1834.

bibliography:

zhb, 12 (1908), 68–70; P.Z. Schwartz, Shem ha-Gedolim me-Ereẓ Hagar, 1 (1914), 51a; 2 (1914), 2b; N. Ben-Menaḥem, Mi-Sifrut Yisrael be-Ungaryah (1958), 170, no. 91.

[Naphtali Ben-Menahem]