Tephiloth Yisrael / Gebete der Juden

(LITURGY)

Chevrath Chinuch Ne’arim Press

Berlin

1786

Two parts in one. Part One: Hebrew text of the prayers for weekday, Sabbaths and festivals, including Ethics of the Fathers, with grammatical notes supplied by Isaac Satanow. Part Two consists of Judeo-German translation and notes by David Friedländer.

Vinograd, Berlin 348

The first German translation (in Hebrew characters) of the prayer-book. See S.C. Reif, Judaism and Hebrew Prayer (1993) p.262. Professor Karp suggested that the initials “M.M.D.” tooled onto the spine of the book indicate that the original owner might have been none other than the renowned philosopher M[oses] M[endelssohn] of D[essau]. “Moses of Dessau” is listed on f.3r. as one of the Berlin “prenumeranten” (subscribers) to the book, moreover, the editor, David Friedlaender, was a Mendelssohn protegé. “Among Mendelssohn's many admirers none was so deeply and unreservedly attached to him as David Friedländer, and Mendelssohn responded with equal warmth…Friedländer's memory was a store-house of anecdotes from Mendelssohn's life, and his point in telling them was to show the wisdom and nobility of the man.” A. Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biography (1973), pp. 350-351. The difficulty with this attributed provenance is that David Friedländer dated his introduction “Rosh Chodesh Nisan, [5]546 [1786].” According to Altmann, Mendelssohn passed away on January 4th, 1786 (5th Shevat, 5546), ibid., p. 741. Possibly the book was especially bound as an act in memory of the great philospher by his sincerest student