Who was Moses Mendelssohn? What is the significance of his philosophies?
Moses Mendelssohn (Dessau, September 6, 1729 – January 4, 1786 in Berlin) was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment) is indebted. For some he was the third Moses (the other two being the Biblical lawgiver and Moses Maimonides) heralding a new era in the history of the Jewish people. For others, his ideas led towards assimilation, loss of identity for Jews and the dilution of traditional Judaism. He was also the grandfather of the composers Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn. http://en.wikipedia.
