Moses Mendelssohn, Hartwig Wessely, and Fear of the Haskalah

This chapter is about Jewish hostile representations of prominent exponents of the Berlin Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), especially the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, and the educational reformer Hartwig Wessely. There were intervening circumstances, independent of Mendelssohn’s and Wessely’s own behaviour, that elicited in response very unfavourable attitudes to these two cultural figures, for the very reason that they had become iconic. For example, Joseph Mendelssohn, Moses Mendelssohn’s nominally still Jewish son (his siblings had converted), misrepresented his father’s motifs and unwittingly confirmed some of the most damning claims later made against him in Eastern Europe. This chapter begins with an introduction to Moses Mendelssohn, and to attitudes to his memory. The second section deals with the Berlin Haskalah movement, and other branches of the Jewish Enlightenment. The third section is concerned with Naphtali Hertz (Hartwig) Wessely and his controversial proposal of reform in Jewish education, as part of Josephinism in the Holy Roman Empire. The fourth section is about the peculiar Isaac Satanow (Satanov, Satenow, Satenof), who joined the Berlin Enlightenment but was also interested in mysticism. The fifth section turns to a social phenomenon: the wave of baptisms among Berlin Jews between 1770 and 1830. In the sixth section, the evolution of David Friedländer is considered: from Moses Mendelssohn’s closest disciple, to extreme Enlightener advocating an end of Jewish education, an end to Jewish knowledge, and “dry” yet not wet baptism. The seventh section considers the hostile reception of Moses Mendelssohn especially in Eastern Europe, and what was held against Moses Mendelssohn by rabbinic opponents of the Haskalah. The eighth section turns to a factor that reinforced such a negative reception, namely, to how Joseph Mendelssohn, Moses Mendelssohn’s non-practising yet unconverted son misrepresented his father’s motifs (so they would befit Joseph’s own ideals), and unwittingly confirmed some of the most damning claims later made against him in Eastern Europe.