#MosesMendelssohn

“In 1763 a self-taught Jewish bookkeeper beat Immanuel Kant in the Berlin Academy's essay contest — and then spent the rest of his life defending, against friend and foe alike, his right to remain a Jew inside the Enlightenment he had helped to build.”

“The state may compel what you do; no one — no church, no synagogue, no king — may compel what you believe. And a person can be fully enlightened and fully Jewish at the same time.”