Moses Mendelssohn
Jewish Lives
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- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
- دیدگاه کاربران
نقد و بررسی
March 28, 2011
Feiner, a professor of Modern Jewish History at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv, presents an all-encompassing biography of Mendelssohn, a prominent 18th-century Jewish intellectual. From his early life as a child prodigy to an adulthood of serious study, notoriety, and wealth, Feiner paints a complete portrait. As a child, Mendelssohn had a remarkable capacity for learning, accompanying his rabbi and mentor to Berlin for advanced Torah studies. Although the Prussian economy was tightly controlled by Christians, Mendelssohn was allowed to stay for his scholarship and in virtue of the prominent family with whom he was boarding. Mendelssohn's intellectual interests soon expanded beyond Torah study, and he familiarized himself with the sciences and philosophy of his day. In his early twenties, he began publishing his own ideas, famously challenging other respected thinkers, which brought him respect, a reputation, and fortune. Feiner describes Mendelssohn's intellectual and social ascent in a tight, concise narrative, supported through preserved documents like Mendelssohn's correspondences between his friends and family.
October 15, 2010
Feiner (modern Jewish history, Bar Ilan Univ., Israel) presents a fascinating portrait of an important Enlightenment figure. Mendelssohn (1729-86) departed from his assumed destiny as a Torah scholar to become a man of "arts and sciences," a German Jewish philosopher and scholar, especially well known for his work Jerusalem as well as his translation of the Pentateuch and other biblical texts into German. More important, however, was his advocacy of Enlightenment rationalism, intellectual autonomy, and religious tolerance. Feiner also covers the tension between Mendelssohn as a public figure and Mendelssohn's desire to lead a private life in the parlor, his study, synagogue, and silk factory. (He was an important leader of the textile industry.) VERDICT Feiner's biographical bildungsroman is a respectful and balanced treatment of the "Socrates of Germany" and the "Father of Reform Judaism," appropriate for both academic and public library collections. With a helpful chronology of Mendelssohn's life and a concise, selected bibliography. Expect more high-caliber titles from this new partnership between Yale University Press and the Leon D. Black Foundation.--Brian Smith McCallum, Arlington Heights Memorial Lib., IL
Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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