Moses Mendelssohn, a Jewish Link to Germany

 

Videos

Video and learning materials from PBS Learning Media:

"In this video from The Story of the Jews, Simon Schama takes us to Berlin, Germany, where the young Talmudic scholar Moses Mendelssohn arrived in 1743 at the tender age of 14. At the time, Berlin was still quite antisemitic, but Mendelssohn forged an unlikely friendship with several early Enlightenment philosophers. He quickly learned English, German, Greek, and Latin, and became well-respected for his philosophical writings in German. One of his best-known accomplishments is the translation of sections of the Torah from Hebrew into German – the first time this had been accomplished by a Jew."

Moses Mendelssohn, a Jewish Link to Germany