The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy

The Haskalah or Jewish Enlightenment, is often regarded as a movement that emerged in eighteenth-century Berlin, in response to social and cultural conditions. All standard histories of Jewish philosophy point to the earliest phases of the Haskalah in Berlin as important in the formation of modern Jewish philosophy. Special focus is on the activity of Moses Mendelssohn, and Solomon Maimon and his encounter with Kantian thought. The new philosophy of Immanuel Kant attracted the attention of maskilim at the turn of the century and assimilates traditional Jewish categories of thought. The eighteenth-century Haskalah continued the harmonistic/synthetic trend of many early modern Jewish intellectuals when it came to philosophy and theosophical Kabbalah. The work of Nachman Krochmal, the most philosophically original of the Galician maskilim, is emblematic of this mixing of eastern and western Ashkenaz. The Haskalah in the Russian Empire has two primary foci similar to the Haskalah in Berlin.