Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), German philosopher and author, an ardent advocate of Jewish civil rights, and a pioneer in denouncing Jewish separatism. Born in Dessau, Germany, and educated by his father and the local rabbi, Mendelssohn became tutor to the children of a silk merchant in Berlin in 1750; he subsequently became the merchant's partner. In 1754 he was introduced to the German dramatist and critic Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and the two became friends. Lessing, a champion of Jewish emancipation, later modelled the hero of his play Nathan der Weise (Nathan the Wise, 1779) on Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn's Philosophische Gespräche (Philosophical Discourses) was anonymously published by Lessing in 1755. In the same year their joint satire, Pope ein Metaphysiker (Pope a Metaphysician), appeared.

In 1764 Mendelssohn won the Berlin Academy prize for the best essay on a metaphysical subject with his work Abhandlung über die Evidenz in den Metaphysischen Wissenschaften (Upon Proving Metaphysics a Science). His treatise Phädon (1767), in which he expounded his belief in the immortality of the soul, was modelled on the dialogue Phaedo by Plato, it earned him the title the “German Socrates”. In addition to works on philosophy, Mendelssohn wrote books on Judaism and Jewry. His most important contribution was opening the world of German language and literature to his fellow Jews with his translation of the first five books of the Old Testament (the Pentateuch), the Psalms, and other sections of the Bible into German.