Lessing und das Judentum

The 19th-century German-Jewish debate about the author of Nathan and his friend Moses Mendelssohn, followed very different conceptions and parameters of reception. This repeatedly involved forms of respect and contempt, of appropriation and rejection, which have as yet been insufficiently studied. This volume seeks to trace these intricate pathways and not only to understand Lessing in terms of their contexts but also conversely to understand these contexts of Lessing. Many discourses involving Jews and Judaism were oriented to his singular position and presented the opportunity for the creation of an individual image and also for self-assurance. Such a double perspectivation leads to a further pluralisation of our image of Lessing and to a strong differentiation of mentalities, ways of thinking, clichés and dispositifs in a wider and – despite great efforts in research – still by no means sufficiently surveyed field of German-Jewish (literary) history. This volume of essays is the first in a new series which will bring together research and reports from the work of the Lessing Museum in Kamenz.