Malbim On The "reform" movement

Malbim on Mishley
Rabbi Meir Leibush Malbim
Feldheim Publishers
0-87306-280-9

from the introduction:
“Already in 1844, however, Malbim realized that on another battlefield he could counter those whose heady rush toward assimilation was not to be stemmed. A “synod” of Reform leaders in Braunschweig, Germany that year-which he called an assembly of “shepherds who butcher their sheep and call themselves rabbis, preachers, cantors and shochtim (ritual slaughterers) of their communities”-made him aware of the dire need for a sound contemporary commentary on the Hebrew Bible. For the Reform camp was producing interpretations of Scripture, supposedly based on the literal or “original” meaning of the Hebrew, which did not so much reform as deform everything sacred in the Jewish heritage. Reform particularly attacked the Talmud's interpretation of Scriptural texts, on which the Oral Law is largely based.”