Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn 1729-86, German-Jewish philosopher; grandfather of Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn . He was a leader in the movement for cultural assimilation. In 1743 he went to Berlin, where he studied and worked, becoming (1750) a partner in a silk merchant's firm. In 1754 he met Lessing, and a life-long friendship began, out of which grew Lessing's play Nathan the Wise (1779). Mendelssohn's philosophy anticipated the aesthetics of Kant and Friedrich Schiller. His writings include Philosophische Gespräche (1755), Philosophische Schriften (1761), Phädon (1767), and Jerusalem; oder, Über religiöse Macht und Judentum (1783). He also translated the Psalms and the Pentateuch into German.

Bibliography: See biography by A. Altman (1973).

Mendelssohn, Moses (RaMbeMaN) (1729–86). Jewish Enlightenment philosopher. His original interest was in the development and spread of German culture—the Christian writer, G. E. Lessing, was a close personal friend; but after 1769, when he became involved in a dispute on the Jewish religion, he confined his writing to Jewish matters. His early philosophical works dealt with aesthetics and human psychology. In 1763, his Abhandlung ueber die Evidenz in Metaphysischen Wissenschaften, on the philosophy of religion, won the first prize of the Prussian Royal Academy of Science, but as a Jew, he was rejected for membership of the Academy. He became involved in a religious dispute with the Swiss clergyman, Johann Lavater. His response to Lavater's attack was published as Schreiben an den Herrn Diaconus Lavater zu Zuerich (1770). This prompted widespread debate and caused Mendelssohn to concentrate his activities on improving the civic status of the Jews and on devising a philosophical justification for his belief in Judaism. His Jerusalem: Oder, verber religioese Macht und Judenthum (1783) summarized his thoughts. In that spirit, he prepared Jews to live in the midst of German life, translating the Pentateuch into German (transliterated into Hebrew letters) and adding to it a rationalizing Hebrew commentary. He is regarded as the forerunner of Reform Judaism.