Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization) [Paperback]

Alexander Altmann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 24, 1998 | Series: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization

Alexander Altmann's acclaimed, wide-ranging biography of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-96) was first published in 1973, but its stature as the definitive biography remains unquestioned. In fact, there has been no subsequent attempt at an intellectual biography of this towering and unusual figure: no other Jew so deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition was at the same time so much a part of the intellectual life of the German Enlightenment in the second half of the eighteenth century. As such, Moses Mendelssohn came to be recognized as the inaugurator of a new phase in Jewish history; all modern Jews today are in his debt. Altmann presents Moses Mendelssohn in strictly biographical terms. He does not attempt to assess his significance with the hindsight of historical perspective nor to trace his image in subsequent generations, but rather to observe his life from the period within which it was set. Altmann has written an absorbing and compelling narrative that makes a whole epoch come alive with great drama, for Mendelssohn's life was a kaleidoscope of the European intellectual scene, Jewish and non-Jewish. As both a prominent philosopher and a believing Jew, Mendelssohn became a spokesman for the Jews and Judaism; he was one of the rare figures who become the symbol of an era. Through Altmann's skilful use of hitherto unpublished archival material, the reader is introduced to the vast array of people-men of letters, artists, politicians, scientists, philosophers, and theologians-with whom Mendelssohn was in contact, and sometimes in conflict. What was Mendelssohn's Judaism like? To what extent did the disparate worlds of Judaism and modern Enlightenment jostle each other in his mind and to what degree could he harmonize them? These questions are not easily answered, and it is only in the aggregate of a multitude of accounts of experiences, reaction, and statements on his part that the answer is to be found. Alexander Altmann's analysis of this wealth of material is extraordinary in its discernment, subtlety, and clarity of expression. This masterly work will be of interest not only to those who are concerned with Jewish intellectual history but also to those interested in eighteenth-century cultural and social history, philosophy and theology, literary criticism, aesthetics, and the other areas of intellectual activity in ferment at that time. The general reader will also find much of contemporary relevance in Mendelssohn's life, not only because of his exemplary devotion to reason and tolerance, but also because of his lifelong struggle with the basic dilemma of the Jew in the modern world: the attraction of assimilation versus the singularity of Jewish life, and the preservation of Jewish identity versus integration in the wider society.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Alexander Altmann's monumental new biography not only supersedes the Kayserling study but should also serve as a turning point in the historical re-evaluation of Mendelssohn's role in the process of Jewish emancipation ... The happy combination of all these qualities in Professor Altmann makes his work a major achievement of scholarship.' Jacob Katz, Commentary There is an overpowering effect on the reader in studying the results of Professor Altmann's facts compiled as a biography and emerging as so much more: as history, as a record of controversies over religious adherence and strict and faithful Jewish observance, as theological disputation, as remarkable reporting on the philosophic discourses with noted Christians as well as Jews, as commentary on Jewish laws by the hero of the book whose piety and Jewish devotions are respected to this day ... Altmann's creative work excels in many respects. It is history par excellence. It is thorough research. It is unsparing in criticism and it recognizes the merits of controversy. It will rank as an indestructible work and will be among the classics in biographic literature.' Detroit Jewish News 'An influential educator and author of many monographic studies in the history of Jewish philosophy, Professor Altmann has here presented what may indeed become the definitive biography of Mendelssohn ... even our fast-moving generation will find the reading of this lucidly written and often eloquent volume highly rewarding.' Salo W. Baron, Jerusalem Post Magazine 'This monumental work is now required reading for everyone interested in Jewish intellectual history and in the spiritual, cultural, and religious development of the Jewish people in modern times.' Moshe Pelli, Jewish Quarterly Review 'Generally, Judaica books published by university presses are definitive studies certain to be classicsA" a hundred years from now. Among these is Alexander Altmann's biography ... This is a definitive biography ... it is written in a beautiful style ... I predict that one hundred years from now ... Moses Mendelssohn will be read and studied in new and reprinted editions.' Jewish Spectator 'Admirablement equilibree, faisant sa juste part aussi bien au recit evenementielA" qu'au tableau psychologique et a l'analyse doctrinale, l'etude de Manfred Altmann peut se prevaloir, parmi d'autres qualites dont l'erudition proprement judaique n'est pas la moindre, de la maitrise totale, chose bien rare, que l'auteur possede tant de sa langue d'origine que de sa langue d'adoption ...' G. Vajda, Revue des Etudes Juives 'Altmann ... hat mit seiner groA en Mendelssohn-Biographie wohl fur mehere Generationen ein Standardwerk geschaffen, an dem kein Philosophiehistoriker, kein Geistesgeschichtler, Religionswissenschaftler oder Judaist vorbeigehen darf, der sich kunftig mit Mendelssohn, seinem Kreis und seiner Epoche beschaftigen will.' Heinz Moshe Graupe, ZRGG

About the Author

Alexander Altmann (1906-87) was born in Hungary and educated at the Rabbinical Seminary, Berlin, and at the University of Berlin. In 1938 he left Germany for Manchester, England, where he was appointed communal rabbi. While in Manchester he founded the Institute of Jewish Studies that later moved to University College, London. In 1959 he was appointed Professor of Jewish Philosophy at Brandeis University, Massachusetts, and Director of its Lown Institute of Advanced Judaic Studies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 914 pages
• Publisher: Littman Library Of Jewish Civilization (September 24, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1874774536
• ISBN-13: 978-1874774532
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,688,636 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A thicket of scholarship, January 3, 2012

By 

Ralph Blumenau (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Moses Mendelssohn;: A biographical study (Hardcover)

This is a truly magisterial and immensely detailed work, first published in 1973: a text of 759 pages, and definitely not a book for readers not already familiar with an outline of Mendelssohn's life or with the philosophical issues of the time. They will find it difficult to see the wood for the trees, and even those who can see the wood may possibly find the number of trees in it frequently on the excessive side.

The special quality of the book is that the late Professor Altmann analyzes in detail all the major essays and books that Mendelssohn had written, as well as innumerable exchanges of correspondence (which are excellently translated into modern and very readable English).

Altmann devotes 18 pages on the famous Prize Essay contest of 1763 (on whether philosophical truths are capable of the same clarity as mathematical truths), setting out and commenting on not only the arguments with which Mendelssohn (on the third ballot) won the prize but also those of Kant who was placed second; and there are 53 pages about the content of and the correspondence about the Phaidon, Mendelssohn's dialogue about the immortality of the soul, plus another 15 about the efforts to convey its ideas in Hebrew.

Whilst these two examples make for tough reading, the 68 page long chapter about the Lavater Affair of 1770 and its little-known repercussions are (mostly) easier to follow. Lavater had challenged Mendelssohn either to refute or to accept Christianity. In reply Mendelssohn affirmed his Judaism (without at this time writing a defence of the Jewish religion), but for several reasons, the most important of these probably the prudential ones, declined Lavater's challenge. But this bare sentence does not do justice to a complex story, which both enters into the details of Mendelssohn's reply and at the same time throws a vivid light on his personality and also on how the position of even as distinguished a Jew as himself was still precarious.

52 pages are devoted to Mendelssohn's translation of the Pentateuch into German and to the commentary (Be'ur) that accompanied it. Amid the immense details of the account and the praise he heaps on the labour devoted to it, Altmann makes no comment on the significance of the Be'ur. I could find nothing in the book to support what I had read elsewhere, that the commentary taught that the essence of the Bible is ethical rather than ritual or scholastic. Perhaps the sources I had read were wrong, for if they were right, surely Altmann would have commented on it. As it is, it appears that the objections which some rabbis had to the book was not so much to the commentary as to the fact that the translation was printed side by side with the sacred text, and to the fear that readers would devote more time to the translation than to the original.

There are 63 pages about the background, content and debate about Mendelssohn's Jerusalem, which dispel the story, still found in many books about him that it was written in response to a second challenge for Mendelssohn to convert to Christianity, this time from Joseph II's minister Joseph von Sonnenfels. Mendelssohn himself originally thought that the challenge had come from Sonnenfels, but discovered, when the book was already at the press, that in fact it had been written by a much less important Berlin figure, one August Friedrich Cranz, who had signed the challenge as S*** from Vienna.

The most indigestible pages - in my opinion a quite disproportionate 112 of them - are towards the end, and deal with the dispute, during the last three years of Mendelssohn's life, between him and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. Jacobi had written to him about a meeting he had had with Mendelssohn's closest friend Gotthold Ephraim Lessing a year before the latter's death in 1781, and that in that meeting Lessing had avowed himself a Spinozist. Mendelssohn was excessively upset to learn that Lessing, with whom he had always had a frank change of ideas (usually agreeing, occasionally disagreeing) should have kept his Spinozism from him, though in retrospect he was not all that surprised. He was now concerned to show, from his own knowledge of Lessing, that, if his avowal was serious - which could not be taken for granted - his Spinozism would not have been the atheism that Jacobi, along with many people at the time, attributed to Spinoza, but was a "purified Spinozism", namely pantheism. He felt driven to explain this and also to define his own position on Spinozism - part respectful but ultimately rejecting - in some chapters of his book, Morgenstunden. The way he and Jacobi handled their contest became increasingly hostile and even to an extent devious; Mendelssohn became increasingly worked up about it, and this was believed by some to have contributed to his death in 1786: on a cold December day he had hurried out without an overcoat to deliver to his publisher a manuscript against Jacobi, caught a chill, and died four days later.

It is striking that the book ends without Altmann attempting a general summary and assessment, not only of Mendelssohn's life but of the enormous effect his life had on the later history of Judaism in Germany and subsequently on Judaism in general.

The book is a mine of information, but I cannot say that I have enjoyed reading it: it is far too dense. However, it would be churlish to give a work of such scholarship fewer than the five stars which, rather reluctantly, I do.