Moses Hess

Moses Hess (June 21, 1812– April 6, 1875), adopted the name "Moritz". but later reverted to his original name "Moses", thus re-claiming his Jewish identity. He was an early apostle of socialism, and a precursor to what would later be called Zionism. His works included Rome and Jerusalem (1862), Holy History of Mankind (1837) and European Triarchy (1841). He married a working-class woman, in defiance of bourgeois values: rumors that she has been a prostitute are unfounded. Image File history File links Moses_Hess. ... Image File history File links Moses_Hess. ... June 21 is the 172nd day of the year (173rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 193 days remaining. ... 1812 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... April 6 is the 96th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (97th in leap years). ... 1875 (MDCCCLXXV) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Socialism refers to a broad array of doctrines or political movements that envisage a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to social control. ... Poster promoting a film about Jewish settlement in Palestine, 1930s: Toward a New Life (in Romanian),The Promised Land (in Hungarian), in small (down) text is written First Palestinian sound movie 1844 Discourse on the Restoration of the Jews by Mordecai Noah, page one. ...

Hess received a Jewish religious education from his grandfather, and later studied philosophy at the University of Bonn, but never graduated. As correspondent for a socialist newspaper that he helped to found, he lived in Paris, fleeing to Belgium and Switzerland temporarily following the suppression of the 1848 commune and again during the Franco-Prussian war. Hess originally advocated Jewish integration into the universalist socialist movement, and was a friend and collaborator of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Hess converted Engels to Communism, and introduced Marx to social and economic problems. He played an important role in transforming Hegelian dialectical idealism theory of history to the dialectical materialism of Marxism, by conceiving of man as the initiator of history through his active consciousness. The main building, viewed from the Hofgarten. ... The Eiffel Tower, the international symbol of the city For other uses, see Paris (disambiguation). ... 1848 is a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818, Trier, Germany – March 14, 1883, London) was an immensely influential German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... Friedrich Engels (November 28, 1820, Wuppertal–August 5, 1895) was a 19th-century German political philosopher. ... This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ... Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 - November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ... It has been suggested that Marxist philosophy of nature be merged into this article or section. ...

Hess was probably responsible for several "Marxian" slogans and ideas, including "religion is the opium of the people." He also is "credited" with Marx's notion that Jews were in love with money. However, Hess became reluctant to base all history on economic causes and class struggle, and he came to see the struggle of races, or nationalities, as the prime factor of past history. From 1861 to 1863 he lived in Germany, where he became acquainted with the rising tide of German Anti-Semitism. It was then that he reverted to his Jewish name Moses in protest against assimilationism. In this period he apparently returned to religion in the form of Spinoza's pantheism, which he somehow did not find incompatible with orthodoxy. He published Rome and Jerusalem in 1862. Hess contemplated the rise of Italian nationalism and the German reaction to it, and from this he arrived at the idea of Jewish national revival, and at his prescient understanding that the Germans would not be tolerant of the national aspirations of others and would be particularly intolerant of the Jews.His book calls for the establishment of a Jewish socialist commonwealth in Palestine, in line with the emerging national movements in Europe and as the only way to respond to antisemitism and assert Jewish identity in the modern world. The Eternal Jew: 1937 German poster. ... Baruch Spinoza Benedictus de Spinoza (November 24, 1632 - February 21, 1677), named Baruch Spinoza by his synagogue elders and known as Bento de Spinoza or Bento dEspiñoza in the community in which he grew up. ... Pantheism (Greek: pan = all and Theos = God) literally means God is All and All is God. It is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent God; or that the universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. ... Orthodox Judaism is the stream of Judaism which adheres to a relatively strict interpretation and application of the laws and ethics first canonized in the Talmud (The Oral Law) and later codified in the Shulkhan Arukh (Code of Jewish Law). It is governed by these works and the Rabbinical commentary... 1862 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

Hess's Rome and Jerusalem: The Last National Question went unnoticed in his time, along with the rest of this writings. Most German Jews were bent on assimilation and did not heed Hess's unfashionable warnings. His work did not stimulate any political activity or discussion. Hess's contribution, like Leon Pinsker's Autoemancipation, became important only in retrospect, as the Zionist movement began to crystallize and to generate an audience in the late nineteenth century. Leon Pinsker (1821-1891) was a physician, a Zionist pioneer and activist, and the founder and leader of the Hovevei Zion movement. ... Poster promoting a film about Jewish settlement in Palestine, 1930s: Toward a New Life (in Romanian),The Promised Land (in Hungarian), in small (down) text is written First Palestinian sound movie 1844 Discourse on the Restoration of the Jews by Mordecai Noah, page one. ...

Hess died in Paris in 1875. As he requested, he was buried in the Jewish cemetery of Cologne. In 1961 he was re-interred in the Kinnereth Cemetery in Israel along with other Socialist-Zionists such as Nachman Syrkin, Ber Borochov, and Berl Katznelson. 1875 (MDCCCLXXV) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Cologne (German: ; Kölsch: Kölle) is Germanys fourth-largest city after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich and is the largest city both in the German Federal District of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the largest European metropolitan areas with over 12 million... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... Labor Zionism (or Labour Zionism) is the traditional left-wing of the Zionist ideology. ... Nachman Syrkin or Nahman Syrkin (1868-1924) was a political theorist and founder of Labour Zionism. ... Ber Borochov, c. ... Berl Katznelson (1887 - 1944) was a Labor Zionism philosopher. ...

Reference

• Moses Hess: Rome and Jerusalem at Zionism on the Web

Bibliography

Shlomo Avineri, Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism (New York, 1985).