Hartwig Wessely

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Hartwig Wessely copperplate engraving by Daniel Berger (1791)

Hartwig Wessely ( Hebrew נפתלי הרץ וייזל also: Naphtali Herz Weisel, Naphtalie Herz Wessely, Naphtali Hirz Wessely ; * 1725 in Hamburg ; † February 28, 1805 in Hamburg) was a merchant , writer and educational reformer in the Age of Enlightenment .

Wessely is assigned to the Berlin Enlightenment . He worked at the side of Moses Mendelssohn on the translation of the Five Books of Moses from the Hebrew - a company with central importance for the Jewish Enlightenment ( Haskala ). Wessely's Leviticus Commentary appeared in 1781 in the third volume of Mendelssohn's Pentateuch edition Sefer netivot ha schalom , Berlin 1780–1783 (cf. Moses Mendelssohn, Gesammelte Schriften , Jubiläumsausgabe, Vol. 17). He published mainly in Hebrew .

Life

Wessely came from a wealthy Copenhagen merchant family, but was born in Hamburg. His father Issachar Ber Wessely ensured a connection between secular (especially in modern languages) and traditional education. Among other things, Wessely studied the Talmud at the yeshiva of Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschütz and had, in Salomon Hanau (1687–1746), an "outstanding scholar of the Hebrew language" ( Heinrich Graetz ) as a private tutor. Since 1763 in Berlin, where he joined the Enlightenment man Moses Mendelssohn, he was meanwhile a representative of the Feitel bank in Amsterdam. There publication of his writing Jen Levanon ("Wein des Lebanons", Amsterdam 1765, further part Berlin 1775). His writings earned him the reputation of a “renewer of the Hebrew language and its literature” (Graetz). Wessely was best known for the public reaction to his missive entitled Words of Truth and Peace (four parts, Berlin 1782–1785, part 1 by David Friedländer in 1782 into German, translated into Italian by Elia Morpurgo in 1783), which “ first systematic treatise on modern Jewish education ”(Ernst A. Simon). The first letter was created on the occasion of Joseph II's patent of tolerance of 1782 for the Jews of Vienna and Lower Austria and advocates the preference for the secular, so-called “human sciences” over the “divine sciences” in the future education of Jewish youth.

family

His brother Moses Wessely (1737–1792) was a merchant in Hamburg and supplier to the French army during the Seven Years' War, and later engaged in the business of Moses Ries in Hamburg. He was a trusted friend of Lessing and M. Mendelssohn and wrote, among other things, a book about banks and coins, a pamphlet on the improvement of the Jews in civil society (1782) and letters about Lessing's "Emilia Galotti".

His son Emanuel Wessely (* 1774, † June 5, 1823) inherited his father's poetic disposition, he wrote poetry. Together with W. Hufnagel and JJ Spalding he edited a German translation of the Hebrew original of Hartwig Wessely's epic Mosaide . His widow published his literary estate.

Works

  • Gan na'ul (Closed Garden), 2 volumes, Amsterdam 1765 and 1766.
  • Mosaide (1789), a heroic epic about the life of Moses in Hebrew
  • Divrei Shalom we-Emet (four letters): 1.) Divrei Shalom we-Emet (words of peace and truth), first letter, Berlin 1782; 2.) Rav tuv le-vejt Jisrael (Much goodness to the house of Israel), Second Letter, Berlin 1782, 2nd ed. 1785; 3.) A Mishpat (source of law), Third Letter, Berlin 1784; 4.) Rehovot (width / generosity), fourth letter, Berlin 1785.
  • Wine of Lebanon (Masechet avot 'im perush jen levanon), Berlin 1775, introduction. In: »Learn Reason!« Jewish educational programs between tradition and modernization. Source texts from the time of the Haskala, 1760–1811. ed. by Uta Lohmann and Ingrid Lohmann, with the assistance of Peter Dietrich. Münster, New York, Munich, Berlin: Waxmann Verlag 2005, pp. 44–55.
  • Book of Ethics (Sefer ha-midot) Berlin 1786, introduction. In: »Learn Reason!« Jewish educational programs between tradition and modernization. Source texts from the time of the Haskala, 1760–1811. ed. by Uta Lohmann and Ingrid Lohmann, with the assistance of Peter Dietrich. Münster, New York, Munich, Berlin: Waxmann Verlag 2005, pp. 100-106.
  • Naphtali Herz Wessely, words of peace and truth. Documents of a controversy about education in the European Late Enlightenment , edited, introduced and commented on by Ingrid Lohmann, co-edited by Rainer Wenzel and Uta Lohmann. Translated from Hebrew and annotated by Rainer Wenzel. Münster, New York: Waxmann Verlag 2014.

literature

  • Chevrat Chinuch Nearim - The Jewish Free School in Berlin (1778-1825) in the context of Prussian educational policy and Jewish cultural reform. A collection of sources, ed. by Ingrid Lohmann. Münster, New York, Munich, Berlin: Waxmann 2001.
  • Shmuel Feiner: Haskala - Jewish Enlightenment. Story of a cultural revolution . From the Hebrew by Anne Birkenhauer . Hildesheim, Zurich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag 2007, especially Part II.
  • Sylvia Lässig: Wessely's biography and work - literature review . In: Naphtali Herz Wessely, Words of Peace and Truth, pp. 74–98.
  • Ingrid Lohmann: Torah and reason - renewal of religion as a medium of bourgeoisie in the Jewish Enlightenment . In: Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft 9 (2006) 2, pp. 203-218.
  • Christoph Schulte : The Jewish Enlightenment. Philosophy, religion, history . Munich: CH Beck 2002.
  • Michael Studemund-Halévi: Biographical Lexicon of the Hamburg Sephardic Islands . The grave inscriptions of the Portuguese cemetery on Königstrasse in Hamburg-Altona. (Ed. For the Institute for the History of German Jews by Monika Richarz and Ina Lorenz ) Christians, Hamburg 2002.
  • Edward Breuer: Naphtali Herz Wessely and the Cultural Dislocations of an Eighteenth-Century Maskil . In: New Perspectives on the Haskalah. Edited by Shmuel Feiner and David Sorkin. London / Portland, Oregon 2001. pp. 27-47.
  • Michal Kümper: “Words of the Truth of Peace” or “Words of Peace and Truth”? The German translation of Naphtali Herz Wessely's educational pamphlet Divrei shalom we-emet by David Friedländer . In: Berlin Enlightenment. Cultural studies. Vol. 2nd ed. By Ursula Goldenbaum and Alexander Košenina. Hanover 2003. pp. 155-188.
  • Moshe Pelli: Naphtali Herz Wessely. Moderation in transition . In: ders .: The Age of Haskalah. Studies in Hebrew Literature of the Enlightenment in Germany. Leiden 1979. pp. 113-130.
  • Andrea Schatz: Divre Shalom we-Emet. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 2: Co-Ha. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02502-9 , pp. 143-146.
  • Constantin von Wurzbach : Wesselý, Naphtali Herz . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 50th part. Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1884, p. 188 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph Schulte: The Jewish Enlightenment
  2. ↑ http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=134&letter=W (May 28, 2009)
  3. ^ Source: Short biographies of Jewish authors by Peter Dietrich
  4. ↑ Source: Adolph Kohut : Famous Israelite Men and Women . Vol. II.
personal data
SURNAME Wessely, Hartwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weisel, Naphtali heart
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German poet, enlightener and businessman
DATE OF BIRTH 1725
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1805
Place of death Hamburg