The book publisher and teacher at the Franzschule | Moses Philippson (1775-1814) and the legacy of German Jewry

*Tuesday, 13 May 2025, 7.00 p.m.
Archive Association Dessau (Old Water Tower), Heidestraße 21
Lecture by Dr Bernd G. Ulbrich, Wettin-Löbejün

A central figure in the Jewish reform movement of the early 19th century in Dessau was the writer Moses Philippson, who was born 250 years ago. He will be the focus of the lecture ‘The book publisher and teacher at the Franzschule Moses Philippson (1775-1814) and the legacy of German Jewry’, which Dr Bernd G. Ulbrich will give on 13 May 2025 at 7 p.m. in the lecture hall of the Archivverbund Dessau, Heidestraße 21 (Alter Wasserturm).

With his writings, as a book publisher and teacher at the ‘Franzschule’, Moses Philippson, following the ideas of Moses Mendelssohn, strove for the participation of Jews in German culture and society and, associated with this, for a modernisation of Judaism itself. The history of an influential German-Jewish family of scholars also began with him and his wife Marianne. Their descendants include the rabbi and founder of the ‘Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums’ Ludwig Philippson (1811-1889), the doctor and writer Phöbus Philippson (1807-1870), the historian Martin Philippson (1846-1916) and the geographer Alfred Philippson (1864-1953). The lecture follows the traces and chequered fates of this family from Dessau to Theresienstadt and examines the historical significance of the synthesis of Jewish and German tradition that permeated them.

The Dessau-Roßlau City Archive and the Association for Anhalt Regional Studies invite you to this lecture event. Admission is free.