Jews in Enlightenment philosophy (Mendelssohn, Spinoza)

At the dawn of modernity, two Jewish figures marked in contrasting ways the relationship between tradition and rational thought. Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), from the Sephardic community of Amsterdam, was excommunicated in 1656 and developed a philosophy that broke with the traditional conception of God and Revelation, exerting a major influence on Western philosophy. Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786), a Berlin philosopher admired in Enlightenment circles, strove by contrast to reconcile fidelity to Judaism with participation in the rational culture of his time, notably in his work Jerusalem. He was a central figure of the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment movement. These two trajectories durably raised the question of the compatibility between rationalism, citizenship, and religious tradition.

Sources & resources

• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan
• Jewish Virtual Library ↗