“Aus Mendelssohn’s Jugendjahren” [“From the Days of Mendelssohn`s Youth.”]

FRIEDLAENDER, DAVID.

8th July

Berlin

1899

Autograph Manuscript Signed. Gifted to Jacob Willner in Töplitz (probably Teplitz/Teplice in Bohemia). A full transcription, along with English translation, available upon request.

A charming literary memoir of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) as told over by his close colleague David Friedländer (1750- 1834): “A company of young men, the sage of the world among them, decided in a happy mood that each of them should compose an epigram of themselves, partly to demonstrate self-knowledge, and partly his wit. The following [epigram] is from Mendelssohn. To understand it, one must know that [he] apart from a very curved backbone, also had the fault to stutter much…the stuttering was not the fault of a an organ, but due to the liveliness of his mind…” There follows Friedländer’s transcript of Mendelssohn’s epigram of himself. About this gathering of young men in Mendelssohn’s circle who wrote short witty literary poems about themselves, see Meyer Kayserling, Moses Mendelssohn: Sein Leben Und Wirken (Leipzig, 1888) p. 59; Joseph Strauss, Essays (1911) p. 78 (citied in his essay on Mendelssohn). Juda Jung, Zeitschrift für unsere Jugend, Volume 2,issue 12 (1901) p. 188. David Friedlaender, an important figure in the early Haskalah movement founded by Mendelssohn, devoted his energies to the emancipation of the Jews, associated Reforms and the education of Jewish youth. See S. Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment (2002) pp. 108-11; A. Altmann, Moses Mendelsohn (1973) pp. 350-52.