Menachem Mendel Lefin
Born in Satanów (Satanov), Podolia, Menachem Mendel Lefin was an important Haskalah figure. Raised and educated traditionally, he lived in Berlin in the 1780s, where he met maskilim as well as Moses Mendelssohn. Unlike many other East European–born maskilim who were attracted to Berlin, he returned to Eastern Europe, adapting Enlightenment features to local conditions. He fiercely opposed Hasidism, advocated the teachings of Maimonides (whose Guide for the Perplexed he translated), and promoted the addition of secular subjects to the Jewish school curriculum. Under the patronage of the Polish prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, Lefin published works and received a stipend. Living in Galicia for the last part of his life, he influenced later maskilim such as Joseph Perl.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
Primary Source
Sefer ḥeshbon ha-nefesh (Book of Moral Accounting)
Primary Source
Prayer against the Hasidim
Related Guide
Rabbinic Scholarship, 1750–1880
Despite the challenges of the early modern period, rabbinic scholarship flourished in Central and Eastern Europe in the latter half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century.
Related Guide
Haskalah and Pedagogy, 1750–1880
The first maskilim ransacked both Jewish and European tradition to find new platforms for creating and transmitting the Jewish cultural ideals they conceived. Jews enlisted diverse literary genres to call for social, educational, and economic change.