Berlin Jewish salons
I read with interest Eli Kavon’s article about Historian Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg book The French Enlightenment and the Jews in his June 14 column, titled “Rahel Varnhagen: An enlightenment tragedy,”
I have not read the book so I can only respond to the article. But I was disappointed that Kavon repeats the same ignorant arguments about antisemitism and the Jewish or European enlightenment that are common with people who idealize the shtetl or ghetto.
From this perspective Jewish assimilation was misguided and fruitless.
Of course, in some ways that was true – Felix Mendelssohn (despite his father’s conversion of the family – which Heinrich Heine quipped was the most Jewish thing Abraham Mendelssohn ever did) was not saved from antisemitism in his circle.
His teacher referred to him as the Jew-boy Mendelssohn.
But there were also clear benefits of the growing social equality of Jews in Prussia that culminated with their emancipation under Friedrich III in 1812.
Mendelssohn’s great-aunt Sarah Levy (who never converted) was the most prominent harpsichordist of her day, a student of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and patroness of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, called by contemporaries the Berlin Bach.
When you come to salons, think of Amelia Beer, who made her son Giacomo Meyerbeer, (born Jacob Liebmann Beer) who was the most performed opera composer of the 19th century, promise he would never convert to Christianity.
She had two other sons, a prominent poet and a prominent astronomer. One must go back to Renaissance Italy to find Jews occupying such prominent positions in the life of their societies.
And a ringing defense of Jews can be found in the end of Honoré de Balzac’s Splendeurs et Misères des courtisanes. He says people say the Jews have no heart, that is the opposite of the truth. BILL HALSEY Seattle, Washington