Isaac Euchel

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An autograph of the Euchel, September 4, 1794.

Isaac Abraham Euchel ( Hebrew יצחק אברהם אייכל, born on October 17, 1756 in Copenhagen ; died on June 18, 1804 in Berlin ) was one of the most important representatives of the Jewish Enlightenment movement ( Haskala ) .

Life

Isaac Euchel was born in Copenhagen in 1756 to an influential and wealthy family and spent his childhood there. He had four siblings. After the early death of his father Israel Euchel (1731–1767), his mother sent the twelve year old to complete his religious studies with his uncle Masus Rintel in Berlin. In 1773 he took a position as a tutor with a wealthy family in Bielefeld and two years later with the family of Meyer Michel David in Hanover. Here he studied under the guidance of Raphael Levi , who was a student of Leibniz .

In 1778 Isaac Euchel was recommended to the influential Friedländer family in Königsberg . Until 1787 he taught the children of Meyer Friedländer (1745-1808), a brother of David Friedländer .

At the University of Königsberg , Euchel studied philosophy with Kant between 1782 and 1786 and Oriental languages with Johann Bernhard Köhler . Kant proposed Euchel in 1786 as an interim successor for Köhler's vacant position. Despite Kant's recommendation, the university's statutes did not permit the employment of a Jew. Euchel's translation of the prayer book into German, published in 1786, can be regarded as an academic thesis. In Königsberg in 1782 Euchel campaigned for the establishment of a Jewish free school based on the Berlin model. In the same year, together with Mendel Breslau and members of the Friedländer family, he founded the Enlightenment Society of Hebrew Literature Friends, Hebrew חברת דרשי לשון עבר. It published the first modern Hebrew magazine, the monthly Hame'assef , with a German-language supplement under the name Der Collector .

Bookplate Isaac Euchel

Their announcement letter Nachal Habesor is considered the first program of the Haskala. Despite major financial problems, the magazine developed into the most important publication organ of the Jewish Enlightenment and appeared with interruptions until 1811. Euchel remained the publisher until 1790.

The magazine Hame'assef served the Jewish enlightenmentists as a platform to spread their ideas among the Jews of Europe. Their goal was a reform of Judaism based on the renewal of the Hebrew language. Euchel published articles on various topics. In his first article he defends the usefulness of dealing with secular history to the Jewish traditionalists. The article also contains the first paraphrase of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason . In a series of articles he devoted himself to the fight against the early burial of the Jews. Finally, he suggested to Marcus Herz to write his well-known work On the Early Burial of the Jews , which later appeared in a Hebrew translation in the Hame'assef . In addition, he enriched Hebrew literature with new genres. In letters to his student Michael Friedländer , Euchel showed that the Hebrew language can also describe everyday things. With the letters of Meschulam based on the model of Montesquieu's Persian Letters , Euchel introduced the epistolary novel into Hebrew literature.

In 1788 Euchel went to Berlin and took over the management of the printing works of the Jewish Free School. Here he had Maimonides ' Leader of the Undecided , among other things, printed. His biography of Moses Mendelssohn , already published as a sequel in the Hame'assef , was also published in 1788 by the printer. The biography, written in Hebrew, saw several editions and spread the fame of Mendelssohn and the ideas of the Jewish Enlightenment among the Jews of Eastern Europe. It is the first time that large passages from Mendelssohn's writings are translated into Hebrew.

In 1792, Euchel was one of the co-founders of the Society of Friends in Berlin, along with Moses Mendelssohn's eldest son Joseph and Aaron Halle-Wolfssohn , with whose support he was able to at least partially abolish the rite of early burial in the local Jewish community.

His satirical play Reb Henoch or wos tu mer dermit only appeared posthumously, but circulated among its readers in various versions. In it he drew a portrait of the customs of Berlin's Jewish society at the end of the 18th century.

In the last years of his life he withdrew from the public and worked as a partner in the widow Bernhard's yarn factory. In 1803 he married Esther Bendix (1769-1814), their son Abraham (later August) was born on April 11, 1804, two months before Euchel's death.

The modernization of the Hebrew language, for which Euchel was committed, failed towards the end of the 18th century when the German Jews turned to the German language and culture. As a result, Euchel appeared only marginally in the history books. It was only in the last century that interest in his person grew again.

Works

The biography of Moses Mendelssohn from 1788
  • Sefat Emet. Königsberg 1781. (Heb.)
  • Prayers of the High German and Polish Jews. Translated from Hebrew and accompanied by notes. Kanter, Koenigsberg 1786.
  • The first person a story. Dedicated to my Eleven Joseph Meyer Friedlæender on the day of His consecration. Koenigsberg 1787.
  • Biography of Moses Mendelssohn. Oriental book printing, Berlin 1788. (Heb.)
  • Proverbia Salomonis cum versione jud.-germ. et commentario. Oriental book printing, Berlin 1789. (Heb.)
  • Is it really forbidden to sleep the dead under Jewish law? In a letter to Professor Löwe in Breslau. German and oriental Graßische Stadt-Druckerey, Breslau 1796/97. (yidd.)
  • Reb Enoch or what is me doing with it. A family painting in three sections. Edited by M. Allenstein. Berlin 1846.

literature

  • Andrea Ajzensztejn: Isaac Abraham Euchel. A Jewish enlightener in Königsberg , in: Michael Brocke , Margret Heitmann , Harald Lordick (eds.): On the history and culture of the Jews in East and West Prussia . Hildesheim: Olms, 2000, pp. 405-423
  • Marion Aptroot, Roland Gruschka (ed.): Isaak Euchel: Reb Henoch, or: Woß does me with it. A Jewish comedy of the Enlightenment period. Buske, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-87548-461-4 .
  • Marion Aptroot (ed.): Isaac Euchel: the cultural revolutionary of the Jewish Enlightenment . Hanover: Wehrhahn, 2010 ISBN 978-3-86525-215-9
  • Isaac Euchel: Of the benefits of the enlightenment. Writings on the Haskala. Edited by Andreas Kennecke, Parerga, Berlin 2000, ISBN 978-3-930450-58-9 .
  • Shmuel Feiner: יצחק אייכל- ה'יזם 'של תנועת ההשכלה בגרמניה [Isaac Euchel - The' Entrepreneur 'of the Haskala Movement in Germany]. In: Zion , Vol. 52, 1987, pp. 427-469. (hebr.)
  • Andreas Kennecke: Isaac Euchel - architect of the Haskala. Wallstein, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 3-8353-0200-0 .
  • Sebastian Panwitz: The Society of Friends 1792-1935. Berlin Jews between Enlightenment and high finance. Georg Olms, Hildesheim 2007, ISBN 978-3-487-13346-1 .
  • Moshe Pelli: Isaac Euchel. Tradition and Change. In: Moshe Pelli: The Age of Haskalah , Leiden 1979, pp. 190-230.
  • Euchel, Isaac , in: Encyclopaedia Judaica , 1971, Volume 6, Sp. 956f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andreas Kennecke: Isaac Euchel - Architect of the Haskala , Wallstein, Göttingen, 2007, pages 20 and 21
personal data
SURNAME Euchel, Isaac
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Euchel, Itzig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jewish enlightener
DATE OF BIRTH October 17, 1756
PLACE OF BIRTH Copenhagen
DATE OF DEATH June 18, 1804
Place of death Berlin