Online Document Assignment 16

MOSES MENDELSSOHN

The Enlightenment Debate on Religious Tolerance

For Jewish philosophers like Moses Mendelssohn, Enlightenment debates about religious tolerance and the role of religion in public life were anything but theoretical. For Mendelssohn and other participants in the Haskalah, anti-Semitism was not just one example among many of intolerance and fanaticism; it was a defining fact of their lives. Eighteenth-century Jews faced severe restrictions on their legal and civil rights that made them, in effect, people without a country—permanent aliens with no fixed citizenship. Legal discrimination against Jews was the formal, codified expression of deeply ingrained popular prejudice. European Christians from across the social spectrum embraced malicious stereotypes of Jews as embodiments of greed, dishonesty, and guile. The combination of widespread hostility and the absence of legal protections made Jews easy scapegoats for Europe’s various problems and discontents.

This direct experience with intolerance gave Jewish participants in Enlightenment discussions of religion a unique perspective. On the one hand, Jewish thinkers and writers knew all too well the pernicious effects of religious hatred and fanaticism. On the other hand, many also had a deep appreciation of the value of religious customs and traditions. Denied membership in the larger community and forced to live a precarious and contingent existence, Europe’s Jews found a measure of collective stability and security in the beliefs and practices that defined them as Jews. Keep this dual perspective in mind as you read the following excerpts from eighteenth-century writings on religious tolerance. What did religious tolerance mean to Moses Mendelssohn? How did his position fit into the larger Enlightenment debate about tolerance?

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