JTS Both/And

Moses Mendelssohn had already acknowledged that Jews in the modern era can make choices about how to practice and believe in Judaism, or whether to keep it at all. A range of choices then emerged in response to this new freedom, including ultra-Orthodoxy, the neo-Orthodoxy of Samson Raphael Hirsch, Reform Judaism, and the emergence of Conservative Judaism with Zacharias Frankel, when he said “yes” to both history and halakhah.

Further reading:
Zachariah Frankel in Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz, The Jew in the Modern World (2nd ed., 1995), 194-197, 178-182.

Our story begins with the pre-history of modern Jewish philosophy and the radical writings of Benedict Spinoza, who considered the Enlightenment’s challenges to Judaism, and found Judaism wanting. We then meet Moses Mendelssohn, the first traditional Jew to engage with the Enlightenment and mount a sophisticated defense of Judaism.

Further reading:
Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem, translated by Allan Arkush (102-139)