Naphtali Herz Wessely

Danish author

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July 23, 2026

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Naphtali Herz Wessely was a Danish author and a key figure in the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala) movement in the 18th century. He collaborated with Moses Mendelssohn on translating the Torah into German, aiming to promote German culture and displace Yiddish. Wessely also advocated for educational reforms, emphasizing secular subjects like mathematics and history to prepare Jewish communities for emancipation. His work sought to reconcile traditional Judaism with the intellectual currents of the European Enlightenment.12

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Judaism
In central Europe
…he joined with a poet, Naphtali Herz (Hartwig) Wessely (1725–1805), in translating the Torah into German, combining Hebrew characters with modern German phonetics in an effort to displace Yiddish, and wrote a modern biblical commentary in Hebrew, the Beʾur (“Commentary”). Within a generation, Mendelssohn’s Bible was to be found in…
Read More
…he joined with a poet, Naphtali Herz (Hartwig) Wessely (1725–1805), in translating the Torah into German, combining Hebrew characters with modern German phonetics in an effort to displace Yiddish, and wrote a modern biblical commentary in Hebrew, the Beʾur (“Commentary”). Within a generation, Mendelssohn’s Bible was to be found in…
Read More

Hebrew literature
Beginnings of the Haskala movement
One, a Dane, Naphtali Herz Wessely, who had spent some time in Amsterdam, wrote works on the Hebrew language, and another, an Italian, Samuel Aaron Romanelli, wrote and translated plays. Out of these contacts grew Haskala (“Enlightenment”), a tendency toward westernization that venerated Hebrew and medieval western Jewish…
Read More
One, a Dane, Naphtali Herz Wessely, who had spent some time in Amsterdam, wrote works on the Hebrew language, and another, an Italian, Samuel Aaron Romanelli, wrote and translated plays. Out of these contacts grew Haskala (“Enlightenment”), a tendency toward westernization that venerated Hebrew and medieval western Jewish…
Read More