| Description |
1 online resource (237 pages) : illustrations |
| Series |
Jewish lives |
|
Jewish lives (New Haven, Conn.)
|
| Contents |
A stroll down Unter den Linden -- From Dessau to Berlin: an unpredicted career -- Cultural conversion: the three formative years -- War and peace, love and family, fame and frustration -- Affront and sickness: the Lavater Affair -- Dreams, nightmares, and struggles for religious tolerance -- Jerusalem: the road to civic happiness -- Specters: the last two years |
| Summary |
The "German Socrates," Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) was the most influential Jewish thinker of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A Berlin celebrity and a major figure in the Enlightenment, revered by Immanuel Kant, Mendelssohn suffered the indignities common to Jews of his time while formulating the philosophical foundations of a modern Judaism suited for a new age. His most influential books included the groundbreaking Jerusalem and a translation of the Bible into German that paved the way for generations of Jews to master the language of the larger culture.Feiner's book is the first that offers a full, human portrait of this fascinating man-uncommonly modest, acutely aware of his task as an intellectual pioneer, shrewd, traditionally Jewish, yet thoroughly conversant with the world around him-providing a vivid sense of Mendelssohn's daily life as well as of his philosophical endeavors. Feiner, a leading scholar of Jewish intellectual history, examines Mendelssohn as father and husband, as a friend (Mendelssohn's long-standing friendship with the German dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was seen as a model for Jews and non-Jews worldwide), as a tireless advocate for his people, and as an equally indefatigable spokesman for the paramount importance of intellectual independence |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
English |
| Subject |
Mendelssohn, Moses, 1729-1786.
|
| SUBJECT |
Mendelssohn, Moses, 1729-1786. fast (OCoLC)fst00012600 |
| Subject |
Philosophers -- Germany -- Berlin -- Biography
|
|
Jews -- Germany -- Berlin -- Biography
|
|
RELIGION -- Judaism -- History.
|
|
Jews.
|
|
Philosophers.
|
|
Germany -- Berlin.
|
| Genre/Form |
Biographies.
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| LC no. |
2010020778 |
| ISBN |
9780300167528 |
|
0300167520 |
|
9780300167528 |
|
