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Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86) inspired the Haskalah movement in 18th century Germany

Haskalah (Hebrew: השכלה‎; "enlightenment," "education" from sekhel "intellect", "mind"), the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the 18th–19th centuries that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history. Haskalah in this sense marked the beginning of the wider engagement of European Jews with the secular world, ultimately resulting in the first Jewish political movements and the struggle for Jewish emancipation. The division of Ashkenazi Jewry into religious movements or denominations, especially in North America and anglophone countries, began historically as a reaction to Haskalah. Leaders of the Haskalah movement were called Maskilim (משכילים).

In a more restricted sense, haskalah can also denote the study of Biblical Hebrew and of the poetical, scientific, and critical parts of Hebrew literature. The term is sometimes used to describe modern critical study of Jewish religious books, such as the Mishnah and Talmud, when used to differentiate these modern modes of study from the methods used by Orthodox Jews.

Haskalah differed from Deism of the European Enlightenment by seeking modernised philosophical and critical revision within Jewish belief, and lifestyle acceptable for emancipation rights.^[1] Rejectionist tendencies within it led to assimilation, motivating establishment of Reform and Neo-Orthodox denominations. Its outreach eastwards opposed resurgent mysticism and traditional scholarship. While early Jewish individuals such as Spinoza^[2] and Salomon Maimon^[3] advocated secular identity, it remained until the late 19th century for secular Jewish ideologies to replace Judaism. In the 20th century Gershom Scholem reestablished the historical significance of Jewish mysticism, dismissed by Haskalah historiography.

Origins in Germany[link]

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As long as the Jews lived in segregated communities, and as long as all social intercourse with their Gentile neighbors were limited, the rabbi was the most influential member of the Jewish community. In addition to being a religious scholar and "clergy", a rabbi also acted as a civil judge in all cases in which both parties were Jews. Rabbis sometimes had other important administrative powers, together with the community elders. The rabbinate was the highest aim of many Jewish boys, and the study of the Talmud was the means of obtaining that coveted position, or one of many other important communal distinctions. Haskalah followers advocated "coming out of ghetto," not just physically but also mentally and spiritually in order to assimilate amongst Gentile nations.

The example of Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86), a Prussian Jew, served to lead this movement, which was also shaped by Aaron Halle-Wolfssohn (1754–1835) and Joseph Perl (1773–1839). Mendelssohn's extraordinary success as a popular philosopher and man of letters revealed hitherto unsuspected possibilities of integration and acceptance of Jews among non-Jews. Mendelssohn also provided methods for Jews to enter the general society of Germany. A good knowledge of the German language was necessary to secure entrance into cultured German circles, and an excellent means of acquiring it was provided by Mendelssohn in his German translation of the Torah. This work became a bridge over which ambitious young Jews could pass to the great world of secular knowledge. The Biur, or grammatical commentary, prepared under Mendelssohn's supervision, was designed to counteract the influence of traditional rabbinical methods of exegesis. Together with the translation, it became, as it were, the primer of Haskalah.

Language played a key role in the haskalah movement, as Mendelssohn and others called for a revival in Hebrew and a reduction in the use of Yiddish. The result was an outpouring of new, secular literature, as well as critical studies of religious texts. Julius Fürst along with other German-Jewish scholars compiled Hebrew and Aramaic dictionaries and grammars. Jews also began to study and communicate in the languages of the countries in which they settled, providing another gateway for integration.

Spread of Haskalah in Eastern Europe[link]

This section requires expansion.

Haskalah did not stay restricted to Germany, however, and the movement quickly spread throughout Europe. Eastern Europe was the heartland of Rabbinic Judaism, with its two streams of Misnagdic Talmudism centred in Lithuania and other regions, and Hasidic mysticism popular in Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and Russia. In the 19th century Haskalah sought dissemination and transformation of traditional education and inward pious life in Eastern Europe. It adapted its message to these different environments, working with the Russian government of the Pale of Settlement to influence secular educational methods, while its writers satirised Hasidic mysticism, in favour of solely Rationalist interpretation of Judaism. Isaac Baer Levinsohn (1788–1860) became known as the "Russian Mendelssohn". Joseph Perl's (1773–1839) satire of the Hasidic movement, "Revealer of Secrets" (Megalleh Temirim), is said to be the first modern novel in Hebrew. It was published in Vienna in 1819 under the pseudonym "Obadiah ben Pethahiah". The Haskalah's message of integration into non-Jewish society was subsequently counteracted by alternative secular Jewish political movements advocating Folkish, Socialist or Nationalist secular Jewish identities in Eastern Europe. While Haskalah advocated Hebrew and sought to remove Yiddish, these subsequent developments advocated Yiddish Renaissance among Maskilim. Writers of Yiddish literature variously satirised or sentimentalised Hasidic mysticism.

Effects[link]

Even as emancipation eased integration into wider society and assimilation prospered, the haskalah also resulted in the creation of secular Jewish culture, with an emphasis on Jewish history and Jewish identity, rather than religion. This resulted in the engagement of Jews in a variety of competing ways within the countries where they lived; these included the struggle for Jewish emancipation, involvement in new Jewish political movements, and later, in the face of continued persecutions in late nineteenth century Europe, the development of a Jewish Nationalism. One source describes these effects as, “The emancipation of the Jews brought forth two opposed movements: the cultural assimilation, begun by Moses Mendelssohn, and Zionism, founded by Theodor Herzl in 1896.”^[4]

One facet of the Haskalah was a widespread cultural adaptation, as those Jews who participated in the enlightenment began in varying degrees to participate in the cultural practices of the surrounding Gentile population. Connected with this was the birth of the Reform movement, whose founders such as Israel Jacobson and Leopold Zunz rejected the continuing observance of those aspects of Jewish law which they classified as ritual, as opposed to moral or ethical. Even within orthodoxy the Haskalah was felt through the appearance of the Mussar Movement in Lithuania and Torah im Derech Eretz in Germany. Enlightened Jews sided with Gentile governments in plans to increase secular education amongst the Jewish masses, bringing them into acute conflict with the orthodox who believed this threatened Jewish life.

Another important facet of the Haskalah was its interests to non-Jewish religions. Moses Mendelssohn criticized some aspects of Christianity, but depicted Jesus as a Torah-observant rabbi, who was loyal to traditional Judaism. Mendelssohn explicitly linked positive Jewish views of Jesus with the issues of Emancipation and Jewish-Christian reconciliation. Similar revisionist views were expressed by Rabbi Isaac Ber Levinsohn and other traditional representatives of the Haskalah movement.^[5][6]

See also[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Resources > Modern Period > Central and Western Europe (17th\18th Cent.) > Enlightenment (Haskala) The Jewish History Resource Center - Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Rashi by Maurice Liber Discusses Rashi's influence on Moses Mendelssohn and the Haskalah.
• Jewish Virtual Library on Haskalah
• Dauber, Jeremy (2004). Antonio's Devils: Writers of the Jewish Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 
• Rasplus, Valéry "Les judaïsmes à l'épreuve des Lumières. Les stratégies critiques de la Haskalah", in: ContreTemps, n° 17, septembre 2006 (French)
• Ruderman, David B. (2000). Jewish Enlightenment in an English Key: Anglo-Jewry's Construction of Modern Jewish Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 
• Schumacher-Brunhes, Marie (2012). Enlightenment Jewish Style: The Haskalah Movement in Europe. Mainz: Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG). 
• Wodzinski, Marcin (2009). Haskalah and Hasidism in the Kingdom of Poland: a History of Conflict. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization. ISBN 1-904113-08-7.  (translated from Oświecenie żydowskie w Królestwie Polskim wobec chasydyzmu)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jewish Enlightenment

• Haskalah at The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
• Map of the spread of Haskalah
• Haskalah collection, John Rylands Library, University of Manchester

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:  Jewish Encyclopedia. 1901–1906. 

Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn in portrait by Anton Graff, 1773
Born	(1729-09-06)September 6, 1729
Died	January 4, 1786(1786-01-04) (aged 56)
Era	Age of Enlightenment
Region	Western philosophy
School	Haskalah
Influenced by Maimonides, Locke, Lessing, Fränkel
Influenced Friedländer, Maimon
Signature

Moses Mendelssohn's glasses, in the Berlin Jewish Museum

Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729^[1] – 4 January 1786) was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment) is indebted. Although himself a practicing orthodox Jew, he has been referred to as the father of Reform Judaism.^[2]

Born to a poor Jewish family in Dessau and originally destined for a rabbinical career, Mendelssohn educated himself in German thought and literature and from his writings on philosophy and religion came to be regarded as a leading cultural figure of his time by both Germans and Jews. He also established himself as an important figure in the Berlin textile industry, which was the foundation of his family's wealth.

Moses Mendelssohn's descendants include the composers Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn and the founders of the Mendelssohn & Co. banking house.

Youth[link]

Moses Mendelssohn was born in Dessau. His father's name was Mendel and he later took the surname Mendelssohn ("Mendel's son"). Mendel Dessau was a poor scribe—a writer of torah scrolls—and his son Moses in his boyhood developed curvature of the spine. His early education was cared for by his father and by the local rabbi, David Fränkel, who besides teaching him the Bible and Talmud, introduced to him the philosophy of Maimonides. Fränkel received a call to Berlin in 1743. A few months later Moses followed him.

A refugee Pole, Zamoscz, taught him mathematics, and a young Jewish physician taught him Latin. He was, however, mainly self-taught. He learned to spell and to philosophize at the same time (according to the historian Graetz). With his scanty earnings he bought a Latin copy of John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and mastered it with the aid of a Latin dictionary. He then made the acquaintance of Aaron Solomon Gumperz, who taught him basic French and English. In 1750, a wealthy silk-merchant, Isaac Bernhard, appointed him to teach his children. Mendelssohn soon won the confidence of Bernhard, who made the young student successively his bookkeeper and his partner.

Either Gumperz or Hess (it is not known which) introduced Mendelssohn to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in 1754, who became one of his greatest friends. The story goes that the first time Mendelssohn met Lessing, they played chess; therefore, in Lessing's play Nathan the Wise Nathan and Saladin first meet during a game of chess.

The Berlin of the day—the day of Frederick the Great—was in a moral and intellectual ferment. Lessing had recently produced the drama Die Juden, whose moral was that a Jew can possess nobility of character. This notion was then generally ridiculed as untrue. Lessing found in Mendelssohn the realization of his dream. Within a few months of the same age, the two became brothers in intellectual and artistic camaraderie. Lessing also brought Mendelssohn to public attention for the first time: Mendelssohn had written an essay attacking Germans' neglect of their native philosophers (principally Gottfried Leibniz), and lent the manuscript to Lessing. Without consulting the author, Lessing published Mendelssohn's Philosophical Conversations (Philosophische Gespräche) anonymously in 1755. In the same year there appeared in Danzig (Gdańsk) an anonymous satire, Pope a Metaphysician (Pope ein Metaphysiker), which turned out to be the joint work of Lessing and Mendelssohn.

Early prominence as philosopher and critic[link]

Mendelssohn became (1756–1759) the leading spirit of Friedrich Nicolai's important literary undertakings, the Bibliothek and the Literaturbriefe, and ran some risk (which Frederick's good nature mitigated) by criticizing the poems of the King of Prussia. In 1762 he married Fromet Guggenheim, who survived him by twenty-six years. In the year following his marriage Mendelssohn won the prize offered by the Berlin Academy for an essay on the application of mathematical proofs to metaphysics, On Evidence in the Metaphysical Sciences; among the competitors were Thomas Abbt and Immanuel Kant (who came second).^[3] In October 1763 the king granted Mendelssohn, but not his wife or children, the privilege of Protected Jew (Schutzjude)—which assured his right to undisturbed residence in Berlin.^[4]

As a result of his correspondence with Abbt, Mendelssohn resolved to write on the Immortality of the Soul. Materialistic views were at the time rampant and fashionable, and faith in immortality was at a low ebb. At this favourable juncture appeared the Phädon oder über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (Phädon or On the Immortality of Souls; 1767). Modelled on Plato's dialogue of the same name, Mendelssohn's work possessed some of the charm of its Greek exemplar and impressed the German world with its beauty and lucidity of style. The Phädon was an immediate success, and besides being often reprinted in German was speedily translated into nearly all the European languages, including English. The author was hailed as the "German Plato," or the "German Socrates"; royal and other aristocratic friends showered attentions on him, and it was said that "no stranger who came to Berlin failed to pay his personal respects to the German Socrates."

Lavater[link]

Mendelssohn, Lavater and Lessing, in an imaginary portrait by the Jewish artist Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1856). Collection of the Judah L. Magnes Museum

So far, Mendelssohn had devoted his talents to philosophy and criticism; now, however, an incident turned the current of his life in the direction of the cause of Judaism. In April 1763, Johann Kaspar Lavater, then a young theology-student from Zurich, made a trip to Berlin, where he visited the already famous Jewish philosopher with some companions. They insisted on Mendelssohn telling them his views on Jesus and managed to get from him the statement, that, provided the historical Jesus had kept himself and his theology strictly within limits of orthodox Judaism, Mendelssohn "respected the morality of Jesus' character".^[5] Six years later, in October 1769, Lavater sent Mendelssohn his German translation of Charles Bonnet's essay on Christian Evidences, with a preface where he publicly challenged Mendelssohn to refute Bonnet or if he could not then to "do what wisdom, the love of truth and honesty must bid him, what a Socrates would have done if he had read the book and found it unanswerable".^[6] Mendelssohn answered in an open letter in December 1769: "Suppose there were living among my contemporaries a Confucius or a Solon, I could, according to the principles of my faith, love and admire the great man without falling into the ridiculous idea that I must convert a Solon or a Confucius." The ongoing public controversy cost Mendelssohn much time, energy and strength.

Lavater later described Mendelssohn in his book on physiognomy, "Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe" (1775–1778), as "a companionable, brilliant soul, with piercing eyes, the body of an Aesop—a man of keen insight, exquisite taste and wide erudition [...] frank and open-hearted"—ending his public praise with the wish of Mendelssohn recognizing, "together with Plato and Moses... the crucified glory of Christ". When, in 1775 the Swiss-German Jews, faced with the threat of expulsion, turned to Mendelssohn and asked him to intervene on their behalf with "his friend" Lavater, Lavater, after receiving Mendelssohn's letter, promptly and effectively secured their stay.

Illness[link]

In March 1771 Mendelssohn's health deteriorated so badly that Marcus Elieser Bloch, his doctor, decided his patient had to give up philosophy, at least temporarily.^[7] After a short and restless sleep one evening, Mendelssohn found himself incapable of moving and had the feeling of something lashing his neck with fiery rods, his heart was palpitating and he was in an extreme anxiety, yet fully conscious. This spell was then broken suddenly by some external stimulation. Attacks of this kind recurred. The cause of his disease was ascribed to the mental stress due to his theological controversy with Lavater.^[8] However, this sort of attack, in milder form, had presumably occurred many years earlier. Bloch diagnosed the disease as due to 'congestion of blood in the brain' (a meaningless diagnosis in modern medical practice as such congestion is anatomically impossible), and after some controversy this diagnosis was also accepted by the famous Hanoverian court physician, Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann, an admirer of Mendelssohn.^[9] In retrospect, his illness might be diagnosed as a heart-rhythm-problem and/or a mild form of familial dysautonomia, a hereditary disease of Ashkenazi Jews, which often brings with it a curvature of the spine and epilepsy-like symptoms in times of stress.^[10]

Mendelssohn was treated with China bark, blood lettings on the foot, leeches applied to the ears, enemas, foot baths, lemonade and mainly vegetarian food. “No mental stress whatsoever” was ordered. However, although he remained subject to periods of setback, he eventually recovered sufficiently to write the major works of his later career.^[11]

Works on Religion and Civil Society[link]

Medal honoring Mendelssohn.

It was after the breakdown of his health that Mendelssohn decided to "dedicate the remains of my strength for the benefit of my children or a goodly portion of my nation"—which he did by trying to bring the Jews closer to "culture, from which my nation, alas! is kept in such a distance, that one might well despair of ever overcoming it". One of the means of doing this was by "giving them a better translation of the holy books than they previously had".^[12] To this end Mendelssohn undertook his German translation of the Pentateuch and other parts of the Bible. This work called was called the Bi'ur (the explanation) (1783) and also contained a commentary, only that on Exodus having been written by Mendelssohn himself. The translation was in an elegant High German, designed to allow Jews to learn the language faster. Most of the German Jews in that period spoke Yiddish and many were literate in Hebrew (the original language of the scripture). The commentary was also thoroughly rabbinic, quoting mainly from medieval exegetes but also from Talmud-era midrashim. Mendelssohn is also believed to be behind the foundation of the first modern public school for Jewish boys, "Freyschule für Knaben", in Berlin in 1778 by one of his most ardent pupils, David Friedländer, where both religious and worldly subjects were taught.

Mendelssohn also tried to better the Jews' situation in general by furthering their rights and acceptance. He induced Christian Wilhelm von Dohm to publish in 1781 his work, On the Civil Amelioration of the Condition of the Jews, which played a significant part in the rise of tolerance. Mendelssohn himself published a German translation of the Vindiciae Judaeorum by Menasseh Ben Israel.

The interest caused by these actions led Mendelssohn to publish his most important contribution to the problems connected with the position of Judaism in a Gentile world. This was Jerusalem (1783; Eng. trans. 1838 and 1852). It is a forcible plea for freedom of conscience, described by Kant as "an irrefutable book". Mendelssohn wrote:

Brothers, if you care for true piety, let us not feign agreement, where diversity is evidently the plan and purpose of Providence. None of us thinks and feels exactly like his fellow man: why do we wish to deceive each other with delusive words?^[13]

Its basic thrust is that the state has no right to interfere with the religion of its citizens, Jews included. While it proclaims the mandatory character of Jewish law for all Jews (including, based on Mendelssohn's understanding of the New Testament, those converted to Christianity), it does not grant the rabbinate the right to punish Jews for deviating from it. He maintained that Judaism was less a "divine need, than a revealed life". Jerusalem concludes with the cry "Love truth, love peace!"—in a quote from Zacharias 8:19.

Kant called this "the proclamation of a great reform, which, however, will be slow in manifestation and in progress, and which will affect not only your people but others as well." Mendelssohn asserted the pragmatic principle of the possible plurality of truths: that just as various nations need different constitutions—to one a monarchy, to another a republic, may be the most congenial to the national genius—so individuals may need different religions. The test of religion is its effect on conduct. This is the moral of Lessing's Nathan the Wise (Nathan der Weise), the hero of which is undoubtedly Mendelssohn, and in which the parable of the three rings is the epitome of the pragmatic position.

To Mendelssohn his theory represented a strengthening bond to Judaism. But in the first part of the 19th century, the criticism of Jewish dogmas and traditions was associated with a firm adhesion to the older Jewish mode of living. Reason was applied to beliefs, the historic consciousness to life. Modern reform in Judaism has parted to some extent from this conception.

Later years and legacy[link]

Moses Mendelssohn's (reconstructed) grave in Berlin. Translation of Hebrew inscription: H[ere] R[ests] / THE WISE R[eb] MOSES of DESSAU / BORN ON THE 12TH OF ELUL 5489 [(August 12, 1729)] / DIED ON WEDNESDAY THE 5TH OF SHVAT [(January 4)] / AND BURIED THE NEXT MORNING, ON THURSDAY THE 6TH / 5546 [(January 5, 1786)] / M[ay] H[is] S[oul be] B[ound up in the] B[ond of eternal] L[ife]^[14]

Mendelssohn grew ever more famous, and counted among his friends many of the great figures of his time. But his final years were overshadowed and saddened by the so called pantheism controversy. Ever since his friend Lessing had died, he had wanted to write an essay or a book about his character. When Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, an acquaintance of both men, heard of Mendelssohn's project, he stated that he had confidential information about Lessing being a "Spinozist", which, in these years, was regarded as being more or less synonymous with "atheist"—something which Lessing was accused of being anyway by religious circles.^[15] This led to an exchange of letters between Jacobi and Mendelssohn which showed they had hardly any common ground. Mendelssohn then published his Morgenstunden oder Vorlesungen über das Dasein Gottes (Morning hours or lectures about God's existence), seemingly a series of lectures to his oldest son, his son-in-law and a young friend, usually held "in the morning hours", in which he explained his personal philosophical world-view, his own understanding of Spinoza and Lessing's "purified" ("geläutert") pantheism. But almost simultaneously with the publication of this book in 1785, Jacobi published extracts of his and Mendelssohn's letters as Briefe über die Lehre Spinozas, stating publicly that Lessing was a self confessed "pantheist" in the sense of "atheist". Mendelssohn was thus drawn into a poisonous literary controversy, and found himself attacked from all sides, including former friends or acquaintances such as Johann Gottfried von Herder and Johann Georg Hamann. Mendelssohn wrote a reply addressed To Lessing's Friends (An die Freunde Lessings) and died on January 4, 1786 as the result of a cold contracted while carrying this manuscript to his publishers on New Year's Eve; Jacobi was held by some to have been responsible for his death.^[16] He was buried in Jüdischer Friedhof cemetery in Berlin.^[17]

Family[link]

Mendelssohn had six children, of whom only his second-oldest daughter, Recha, and his eldest son, Joseph, retained the Jewish faith. His sons were: Joseph (founder of the Mendelssohn banking house, and a friend and benefactor of Alexander von Humboldt), Abraham (who married Lea Salomon and was the father of Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn); and Nathan (a mechanical engineer of considerable repute). His daughters were Dorothea, the mother of Philipp Veit (and subsequently the consort, and then wife, of Friedrich von Schlegel), Recha and Henriette, all gifted women. Recha's only grandson (son of Heinrich Beer, brother of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer), was born and educated as a Jew, but died very young, together with his parents, apparently from an epidemic. Joseph Mendelssohn's son Alexander (d. 1871) was the last male descendant of Moses Mendelssohn to practice Judaism.

See also[link]

• Biurists
• Fridolin Friedmann

References[link]

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Sources[link]

Mendelssohn's complete works have been published in 19 volumes (in the original languages) (Stuttgart, 1971 ff., ed. A. Altmann and others)

• Altmann, Alexander. Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study, 1973. ISBN 0-8173-6860-4.
• (German) Bloch, Marcus, Medicinische Bemerkungen. Nebst einer Abhandlung vom Pyrmonter-Augenbrunnen. Berlin 1774
• Brand, Aron, The Illness of Moses Mendelssohn, "Koroth" 6, 421-426, 1974
• Dahlstrom, Daniel, Moses Mendelssohn, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
• (German) Kayserling, Meyer Moses Mendelssohn, sein Leben und seine Werke. Nebst einem Anhange ungedruckter Briefe. Leipzig, 1862.
• (German) Lavater, J. K., Sammlung derer Briefe, welche bey Gelegenheit der Bonnetschen philosophischen Untersuchung der Beweise für das Christenthum zwischen Hrn. Lavater, Moses Mendelssohn, und Hrn Dr. Kölbele gewechselt worden [Collection of those letters which have passed between Mr. Lavater, Moses Mendelssohn, and Mr. Dr. Kölbele on occasion of Bonnet's investigation concerning the evidence of Christianity], Frankfurt am Main 1774 (Google Books).
• Mendelssohn, Moses, tr. A. Arkush, intr. A. Altmann: Jerusalem, or, on religious power and Judaism, 1983. ISBN 0-87451-263-8.
• Mendelssohn, Moses, tr., intr., comm. B. Rosenstock: Last Works, 2012. Includes Morning Hours: Lectures on the Existence of God (Morgenstunden, 1785) and To the Friends of Lessing (An die Freunde Lessings, 1786). ISBN 978-0-252-03687-3.
• Arnaldo Momigliano, On Pagans, Jews, and Christians, Weslyan University Press, 1987 ISBN 0-8195-6218-1
• (German) Schoeps, Julius H. Das Erbe der Mendelssohhns, Frankfurt 2009. ISBN 978-3-10-073606-2
• (German) Tree, Stephen. Moses Mendelssohn. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek, 2007. ISBN 3-499-50671-8.
• Wein, Berel, Triumph of Survival: The Story of the Jews in the Modern Era 1650-1995, 1997

External links[link]

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Mendelssohn, Moses.

Media related to Moses Mendelssohn at Wikimedia Commons

• Moses Mendelssohn's books at Google Books
• Translation of Moses Mendelssohn's Sache Gottes, The Case for God, a work unpublished in his lifetime dealing with questions related to theodicy, including Mendelssohn's denial of the doctrine of eternal punishment
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• Ohr Le-Netivah (introduction to the 'Biur') on HebrewBooks.org
• Contains Mendelssohn's Jerusalem, slightly modified for easier reading
• Moses Mendelssohn In_Our_Time_(BBC_Radio_4) stream (original broadcast 22 March 2012) discussion with Christopher Clark (University of Cambridge), Abigail Green (University of Oxford), Adam Sutcliffe (King's College London), hosted by Melvyn Bragg, and including a list of further readings.

David Duke
David Duke, whose 1990 campaign for United States Senator in Louisiana was the impetus for the first iteration of Stormfront
Member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from the 81st district
In office 1990–1992
Preceded by	Charles Cusimano
Succeeded by	David Vitter
Personal details
Born	David Ernest Duke (1950-07-01) July 1, 1950 (age 61) Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.
Political party	Republican since 1989,[1] Democratic until December, 1988[2]
Spouse(s)	Chloê Eleanor Hardin (m. 1974 – divorced 1984); 2 daughters
Residence	Mandeville, Louisiana, U.S.
Occupation	Author, political activist
Religion	Christianity[3]
Website	http://www.davidduke.com

David Ernest Duke (born July 1, 1950) is a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan an American activist and writer, and former Republican Louisiana State Representative. He was a candidate in the Democratic presidential primaries in 1988 and the Republican presidential primaries in 1992. Duke has unsuccessfully run for the Louisiana State Senate, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, and Governor of Louisiana.

A former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,^[4][5] Duke describes himself as a racial realist, asserting that "all people have a basic human right to preserve their own heritage."^[6] He is in strong opposition to what he asserts to be Jewish control of the Federal Reserve Bank, the federal government and the media. Duke supports stopping both legal and illegal Non-European immigration, preservation of what he labels Western culture and traditionalist Christian "family values", strict Constitutionalism, abolition of the Internal Revenue Service, voluntary racial segregation, ardent anti-communism and white separatism.^[7][8][9]

Youth and early adulthood[link]

Duke was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to David H. Duke and Alice Maxine Crick. As the son of an engineer for Shell Oil, Duke frequently moved with his family around the world. They lived a short time in the Netherlands, before settling in Louisiana. In the late 1960s, Duke met the leader of the white supremacist National Alliance, William Pierce, who would remain a life-long influence. Duke joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1967.^[10]

Duke studied at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, and in 1970, he formed a white student group called the White Youth Alliance; it was affiliated with the National Socialist White People's Party. The same year, to protest William Kunstler's appearance at Tulane University, Duke appeared at a demonstration in Nazi uniform. Picketing and holding parties on the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth, he became notorious on the LSU campus for wearing a Nazi uniform.^[11]

Duke claimed to have spent nine months in Laos, calling that a "normal tour of duty". He actually went there to join his father, who was working there and had asked him to visit during the summer of 1971.^[12] His father got him a job teaching English to Laotian military officers, from which he was dismissed after six weeks when he drew a Molotov Cocktail on the blackboard.^[13] He also claimed to have gone behind enemy lines twenty times at night to drop rice to anti-Communist insurgents in planes flying ten feet off the ground, narrowly avoiding receiving a shrapnel wound. Two Air America pilots who were in Laos at that time said that flights were during the day and flew no less than 500 feet from the ground. One suggested that it might have been possible for Duke to have gone on a safe "milk run" once or twice but no more than that. Duke was also unable to recall the name of the airfield used.^[12]

He graduated from Louisiana State University in 1974 after enrolling in 1968. During this time he spent what would have been his senior year organizing the National Party.^[14]

Family and personal life[link]

While working in the White Youth Alliance, Duke met Chloê Hardin, who became active in the group. They remained companions throughout college and married in 1974. Hardin is the mother of Duke's two daughters, Erika and Kristin. According to Martin A. Lee of the Southern Poverty Law Center, in 1977 David Duke, then married with two children, pursued female sex partners so avidly and so openly that it embarrassed many of his closest colleagues.^[15] Metzger, then Duke's state leader in southern California, became livid when Duke showed up for a Ku Klux Klan anti-immigrant "border watch" stunt and immediately started pursuing women.^[15] Duke divorced in 1984—arguably because Chloe was fed up with Duke's womanizing^[16]—and Chloe moved to West Palm Beach to be near her parents. There she became involved with Duke's Klan friend, Don Black, whom she later married.^[17] Duke also developed a life-long weakness for gambling^[15]

As of 2009, it was confirmed that David Duke was living in Zell am See in Salzburg, Austria,^[18] from which he ran the Internet business "Art by Ernst", taking and selling photographs of rare birds, mountain scenery and wildlife^[19][20] under the pseudonym "Ernst Duke" (his middle-name "Ernest" Germanized).^[21][22] Local authorities have stated that as long as he does not break any laws, Duke is allowed to stay in Austria if he wishes.^[23] Duke has stated: "I'm not in Austria for any political activities. I just come to Austria to relax – the mountains are beautiful. The Austrian Alps are just beautiful. There's beauty all over the world." In May 2009, Duke issued a statement denying that he resides in Austria and saying that he is a resident of Mandeville, Louisiana, and is registered as a taxpayer in his city, state and on the national level.^[24]

Political activities[link]

Early campaigns[link]

Duke first ran for the Louisiana State Senate as a Democrat from a Baton Rouge district in 1975. He received 11,079 votes, a third of those cast.^[25] In 1979, he ran as a Democrat for the 10th District Senate seat and finished second in a three-candidate race with 9,897 votes (26 percent).^[26] Duke allegedly conducted a direct-mail appeal in 1987, using the identity and mailing-list of the Georgia Forsyth County Defense League without permission. League officials described it as a fund-raising scam. Duke was accused by several Klan officials of stealing his organization's money. "Duke is nothing but a con artist," Jack Gregory, Duke's Florida state leader, told the Clearwater Sun (of Florida) after David Duke allegedly refused to turn over proceeds from a series of 1979 Klan rallies to the Knights. Another Klan official under Duke, Jerry Dutton, told reporters that Duke had used Klan funds to purchase and refurbish his home in Metairie. Duke later justified the repairs by saying most of his home was used by the Klan. In 1979, after his first, abortive run for president (as a Democrat) and a series of highly publicized violent Klan incidents, Duke quietly incorporated the nonprofit National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP) in an attempt to leave the baggage of the Klan behind.^[27]

1988 Democratic presidential campaign[link]

In 1988, Duke ran initially in the Democratic presidential primaries. His campaign failed to make much of an impact, with the one notable exemption of winning the little-known New Hampshire Vice-Presidential primary.^[28] Duke, having failed to gain much traction as a Democrat, then successfully sought the Presidential nomination of the Populist Party.^[29] He appeared on the ballot for President in eleven states and was a write-in candidate in some other states, some with Trenton Stokes of Arkansas for Vice President, and on other state ballots with Floyd Parker for Vice President. He received just 47,047 votes, for 0.04 percent of the combined, national popular vote.^[30]

1989: Successful run in special election for Louisiana House seat[link]

In December 1988, Duke changed his political affiliation from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.^[2]

In 1988, Republican State Representative Charles Cusimano of Metairie resigned his District 89 seat to become a 24th Judicial District Court judge, and a special election was called early in 1989 to select a successor. Duke entered the race to succeed Cusimano and faced several opponents, including fellow Republicans, John Spier Treen, a brother of former Governor David C. Treen, Delton Charles, a school board member, and Roger F. Villere, Jr., who operates Villere's Florist in Metairie. Duke finished first in the primary with 3,995 votes (33.1%).^[31] As no one received a majority of the vote in the first round, a runoff election was required between Duke and Treen, who polled 2,277 votes (18.9%) in the first round of balloting. John Treen's candidacy was endorsed by U.S. President George H. W. Bush, former President Ronald Reagan, and other notable Republicans,^[32] as well as the Democrat Victor Bussie (president of the Louisiana AFL-CIO) and Edward J. Steimel (president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry and former director of the "good government" think tank, the Public Affairs Research Council). Duke, however, hammered Treen on a statement the latter had made indicating a willingness to entertain higher property taxes, anathema in that suburban district.^[33] Duke with 8,459 votes (50.7%) defeated Treen, who polled 8,232 votes (49.3%).^[34] He served in the House from 1990 until 1992.^[35]

As a short-term legislator, Duke was, in the words of a colleague, Ron Gomez of Lafayette, "so single minded, he never really became involved in the nuts and bolts of House rules and parliamentary procedure. It was just that shortcoming that led to the demise of most of his attempts at lawmaking."^[36]

One legislative issue pushed by Duke was the requirement that welfare recipients be tested for the use of narcotics. The recipients had to show themselves to be drug-free to receive state and federal benefits under his proposal.^[37]

Gomez recalls having met and interviewed Duke in the middle 1970s when Duke was a state senate candidate: "He was still in his mid-20s and very non-descript. Tall and slimly built, he had a very prominent nose, flat cheek bones, a slightly receding chin and straight dark brown hair. The interview turned out to be quite innocuous, and I hadn't thought about it again until Duke came to my legislative desk, and we shook hands. Who was this guy? Tall and well-built with a perfect nose, a model's cheek bones, prominent chin, blue eyes and freshly coiffed blond hair, he looked like a movie star. He obviously didn't remember from the radio encounter, and I was content to leave it at that."^[38]

Consistent with Gomez's observation, Duke in the latter 1980s reportedly had his nose thinned and chin augmented. Following his election to the Louisiana House of Representatives, he shaved his mustache.^[39][40][41]

Gomez continued: "He once presented a bill on the floor, one of the few which he had managed to get out of committee. He finished his opening presentation and strolled with great self-satisfaction back up the aisle to his seat. In his mind, he had spoken, made his presentation and that was that. Before he had even reached his desk and re-focused on the proceedings, another first-term member had been recognized for the floor and immediately moved to table the bill. The House voted for the motions effectively killing the bill. That and similar procedures were used against him many times."^[42] Gomez said that he recalls Duke obtaining the passage of only a single bill, legislation which prohibited movie producers or book publishers from compensating jurors for accounts of their court experiences.^[43]

Gomez added that Duke's "tenure in the House was short and uninspired. Never has anyone parlayed an election by such a narrow margin to such a minor position to such international prominence. He has run for numerous other positions without success but has always had some effect, usually negative, on the outcome."^[44]

Gomez continued: Duke's "new message was that he had left the Klan, shed the Nazi uniform he had proudly worn in many previous appearances and only wanted to serve the people. He eliminated his high-octane anti-Semitic rhetoric. He was particularly concerned with the plight of 'European-Americans.' He never blatantly spoke of race as a factor but referred to the 'growing underclass.' He used the tried and true demagoguery of class envy to sell his message: excessive taxpayers' money spent on welfare, school busing practices, affirmative action... and set-aside programs. He also embraced a subject near and dear to every Jefferson Parish voter, protection of the homestead exemption."^[45]

Duke launched unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. Senate in 1990 and governor in 1991. Villere did not again seek office but instead concentrated his political activity within the Republican organization.^[46]

1990 campaign for U.S. Senate[link]

In 1990, in the October 6 primary, Duke ran as a Republican against three Democrats including incumbent Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr.^[47]

The Republican Party endorsed state Senator Ben Bagert of New Orleans, but national GOP officials anticipated that Bagert could not win and was fragmenting Johnston's support; so funding for Bagert's campaign was halted, and he dropped out two days before the election, though his name remained on the ballot.^[48]

Duke's views prompted some of his critics (including Republicans) to form the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, which directed media attention to Duke's statements of hostility to blacks and Jews.^[49] Duke received 43.51 percent (607,391 votes) of the vote to Johnston's 53.93 percent (752,902 votes).^[47]

In a 2006 editorial, Gideon Rachman (The Economist, the Financial Times) recalled interviewing Duke's campaign manager (from his 1990 campaign) who said, "The Jews just aren't a big issue in Louisiana. We keep telling David, stick to attacking the blacks. There's no point in going after the Jews, you just piss them off and nobody here cares about them anyway."^[50]

1991 campaign for Governor of Louisiana[link]

Despite repudiation by the Republican Party,^[51] Duke ran for Louisiana Governor in 1991. In the open primary, Duke was second to former governor Edwin Edwards in votes; thus, he faced Edwards in a runoff. In the initial round, Duke received 32% of the vote. Incumbent Governor Buddy Roemer, who had switched from the Democratic to Republican parties during his term, came in third with 27% of the vote. Duke effectively killed Roemer's bid for re-election. While Duke had a sizable core constituency of devoted supporters, many voted for him as a "protest vote" to register dissatisfaction with Louisiana's establishment politicians. Duke said he was the spokesman for the "White majority."^[52]

The interest group, the Louisiana Coalition against Racism and Nazism, rallied against the election of Duke as governor. Among its leaders was Beth Rickey, a moderate member of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee and a Ph.D. student at Tulane University, who began to follow Duke to record his speeches and expose what she saw as instances of racist and neo-Nazi remarks. For a time, Duke took Rickey to lunch, introduced her to his daughters, telephoned her late at night, and tried to convince her that he was a mainstream conservative in the Reagan mold.^[53]

Between the primary and the runoff, called the "general election" under Louisiana election rules (in which all candidates run on one ballot, regardless of party), white supremacist organizations from around the country contributed to his campaign fund.^[54][55] Duke was endorsed by James Meredith, a black civil rights figure.^[56]

Duke's success garnered national media attention. While Duke gained the backing of the quixotic former Alexandria Mayor John K. Snyder, he won few serious endorsements in Louisiana. Celebrities and organizations donated thousands to Edwards' campaign. Referencing Edwards' long-standing problem with accusations of corruption, popular bumper stickers read: "Vote for the Crook. It's Important,"^[57] and "Vote for the Lizard, not the Wizard." When a reporter asked Edwards what he needed to do to triumph over Duke, Edwards replied with a smile: "Stay alive."

Edwards received 1,057,031 votes (61.2%). Duke's 671,009 votes represented 38.8% of the total. Duke claimed victory, saying: "I won my constituency. I won 55% of the white vote." Exit polls confirmed that he had.^[11]

1992 Republican Party presidential candidate[link]

In 1992 Duke ran for the nomination. Republican Party officials tried to block his participation.^[58] He received 119,115 (0.94%) votes^[59] in the primaries, but no delegates to the national convention. His presidential campaign inspired a song by Skankin' Pickle.^[60]

In 1992 a film was released that investigated Duke's appeal among some white voters. Backlash: Race and the American Dream explored the demagogic issues of Duke's platform, examining his use of black crime, welfare, affirmative action and white supremacy and tied Duke to a legacy of other white backlash politicians, such as Lester G. Maddox and George C. Wallace, Jr., and the use in the 1988 Presidential campaign of Pres. George H.W. Bush of these same racially themed hot buttons.^[61]

Late 1990s campaigns[link]

When Johnston announced his retirement in 1996, Duke ran again for the U.S. Senate. He polled 141,489 votes (11.5%). Former Republican state representative Woody Jenkins of Baton Rouge and Democrat Mary Landrieu of New Orleans, the former state treasurer, went into the general election contest. Duke was fourth in the nine-person, jungle primary race.^[62]

Because of the sudden resignation of powerful Republican incumbent Bob Livingston in 1999, a special election was held in Louisiana's First Congressional District. Duke sought the seat as a Republican and received 19% of the vote. He finished a close third, thus failing to make the runoff. His candidacy was repudiated by the Republicans.^[63] Republican Party Chairman Jim Nicholson remarked: "There is no room in the party of Lincoln for a Klansman like David Duke."^[63] Republican state representative David Vitter (now a U.S. Senator) went on to defeat Republican ex-Governor David C. Treen. Also in the race was the New Orleans Republican leader Rob Couhig.

In 1999 Duke ran for Louisiana's First Congressional District. Duke finished third in the May 1, 1999 election with 28,059 votes (19.15%).^[64]

In 2004, Duke's bodyguard, roommate, and longtime associate Roy Armstrong made a bid for the United States House of Representatives, running as a Democrat, to serve Louisiana's First Congressional District. In the open primary Armstrong finished second in the six candidate field with 6.69% of the vote, but Republican Bobby Jindal received 78.40% winning the seat.^[65] Duke was the head advisor of Armstrong's campaign.^[66][67]

Affiliations[link]

Knights of the Ku Klux Klan[link]

In 1974, David Duke founded the Louisiana-based Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKKK), a Louisiana Ku Klux Klan organization, shortly after graduating from LSU.^[68] He became Grand Wizard of the KKKK. A follower of Duke, Thomas Robb, changed the title of Grand Wizard to National Director, and replaced the Klan's white robes with business suits.^[69] Duke first received broad public attention during this time, as he endeavored to market himself in the mid-1970s as a new brand of Klansman: well-groomed, engaged, and professional. Duke also reformed the organization, promoting nonviolence and legality, and, for the first time in the Klan's history, women were accepted as equal members and Catholics were encouraged to apply for membership.^[70] Duke would repeatedly insist that the Klan was "not anti-black", but rather "pro-white" and "pro-Christian."

NAAWP[link]

In 1980, Duke left the Klan and formed the National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP).^[71]

On May 20, 2004, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) became outraged when it discovered that David Duke had chosen New Orleans to host his International NAAWP Conference during the NAACP's Big Easy Rally to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.^[72]

Ernst Zündel and the Zundelsite[link]

Duke has expressed his support for Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, a German who lived in Canada. Duke made a number of statements in support of Zündel and his Holocaust denial campaign.^{[73][74][75][76]} After the aging Zündel was deported from Canada to Germany^[77] and imprisoned in Germany on charges of inciting the masses to ethnic hatred,^[78] Duke referred to him as a "political prisoner".

Interregional Academy of Personnel Management[link]

In September 2005, Duke received a Kandidat Nauk degree in History from the Ukrainian Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP).^[79]

His doctoral thesis was titled "Zionism as a Form of Ethnic Supremacism."^[79] Prior to earning his Ph.D., Duke had received an honorary doctorate^{[citation needed]}. Anti-Defamation League claims that MAUP is the main source of antisemitic activity and publishing in Ukraine,^[80] and its "anti-Semitic actions" were "strongly condemned" by Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk and various organizations.^{[81][82][83][84]} The Anti-Defamation League describes it as a "University of Hate".^[85] Duke has taught an international relations and a history course at MAUP.^[86]

New Orleans Protocol[link]

Shortly after his release from prison for tax fraud in 2004, Duke organized a weekend gathering of "European Nationalists", in the vein of white nationalism, in Kenner, Louisiana. In an attempt to overcome the splintering and division that had followed the death of William Pierce in 2002, he presented a unity proposal for peace within the movement and a better image amongst outsiders. His proposal was accepted and is now known as the New Orleans Protocol (NOP). It pledges adherents to a pan-European outlook, recognizing national and ethnic allegiance, but stressing the value of all European peoples. It has three provisions:^[87][88]

1. "Zero tolerance for violence."
2. "Honorable and ethical behavior in relations with other signatory groups. This includes not denouncing others who have signed this protocol. In other words, no enemies on the right."
3. "Maintaining a high tone in our arguments and public presentations."

Those who signed the pact on May 29, 2004 include Duke, Paul Fromm, Don Black, Willis Carto, Kevin Alfred Strom, and John Tyndall (signing as an individual, not on behalf of his British National Party).^[87]

Publications[link]

Finders-Keepers[link]

Duke wrote a self-help book for women to raise money under the pseudonym Dorothy Vanderbilt and James Konrad, titled Finders-Keepers – Finding and Keeping the Man You Want which contains sexual, diet, fashion, cosmetic and relationship advice, published by Arlington Place Books in 1976. Professor Lawrence N. Powell, who read a rare copy of the book given to him by Patsy Sims, wrote that it includes advice on vaginal exercises, fellatio, and anal sex.^[89][90][91] The book is out of print and difficult to find; however, according to Tyler Bridges, The Times-Picayune obtained a copy and traced its proceeds to Duke^[92] who compiled the information from women's self-help magazines.^[11]

My Awakening[link]

Duke published his autobiography My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding in 1998. The book details Duke's social philosophies, especially his reasoning behind racial separation. In the book, Duke says:

We (Whites) desire to live in our own neighborhoods, go to our own schools, work in our own cities and towns, and ultimately live as one extended family in our own nation. We shall end the racial genocide of integration. We shall work for the eventual establishment of a separate homeland for African Americans, so each race will be free to pursue its own destiny without racial conflicts and ill will.^[7]

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) book review refers to it as containing racist, antisemitic, sexist and homophobic views.^[93]

To raise the money to re-publish a new, updated edition of My Awakening, Duke instigated a 21-day fundraising drive on November 26, 2007 where he had to raise "$25,344 by a December 17 deadline for the printers."^[94] Duke states this drive is necessary because the work "has become the most important book in the entire world in the effort to awaken our people for our heritage and freedom."

Jewish Supremacism[link]

David Duke (right) and Udo Voigt (left), the leader of the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), shaking hands.

In 2002, Duke traveled to Eastern Europe to promote his book, Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening on the Jewish Question in Russia in 2003. The book purports to "examine and document elements of ethnic supremacism that have existed in the Jewish community from historical to modern times."^[95] The book is dedicated to Israel Shahak, a critical author of what Shahak saw as supremacist religious teachings in Jewish culture. Former Boris Yeltsin administration official and politician Boris Mironov wrote an introduction for the Russian edition, called The Jewish Question Through the Eyes of an American.

The ADL office in Moscow urged the Moscow prosecutor to open an investigation of Mironov. The ADL office initiated a letter from a prominent Duma member to Russia’s Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, urging a criminal case be opened against the author and the Russian publisher of Duke's book. The letter by Aleksandr Fedulov described the book as antisemitic and as violating Russian anti-hate crime laws.^[96] Around December 2001 Prosecutor's office closed the investigation of Boris Mironov and Jewish Supremacism. In a public letter, Yury Biryukov, First Deputy of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, stated that a socially-psychological examination, which was conducted as a part of the investigation, concluded that the book and the actions of Boris Mironov did not break Russian hate-crime laws.^[97]

Duke says his views had been "vindicated" with the publication of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, and said he was "surprised how excellent [the paper] is". Duke dedicated several radio webcasts to the book and the authors comparing it to his work Jewish Supremacism,^{[98][99][100][101]} although Walt stated: "I have always found Mr. Duke's views reprehensible, and I am sorry he sees this article as consistent with his view of the world".^[102]

Duke says that his books "have become two of the two most influential and important books in the world."^[103] The ADL refer to the book as antisemitic,^[104] though Duke had denied the book is motivated by antisemitism.^[105] At one time, the book was sold in the main lobby of the building of Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament). The first printing of 5,000 copies sold out in several weeks.

In 2004, the book was published in the United States. Originally published in English and Russian, the book has subsequently been translated internationally into Swedish, Ukrainian, Persian, Hungarian, Spanish.^[103] and most recently (2010) into Finnish (ISBN 978-952-92-8137-4). In 2007, an updated edition was published^[106] which Duke purports to be a "fine quality hardback edition with full color dust jacket and it has a new index and a number of timely additions".^[103]

His website has hosted articles by various authors claiming that Jewish loan-sharks own the Federal Reserve Bank^[107] and that Jews own Hollywood and the American media.^[108]

Internet commentary[link]

In 1995, Don Black and Chloê Hardin, Duke's ex-wife, began a small bulletin board system (BBS) called Stormfront. Today, Stormfront has become a prominent online forum for white nationalism, Neo-Nazism, hate speech and racism.^{[109][110][111]} Duke has an account on Stormfront which he uses to post articles from his own website, www.davidduke.com, as well as polling forum members for opinions and questions, in particular during his internet broadcasts. Duke has worked with Don Black on numerous projects including Operation Red Dog in 1980.^[112][113]

On February 5, 2002, Duke said, on his Internet radio show, that Ariel Sharon was "the world's worst terrorist" and that Mossad was involved in the September 11 attacks. The broadcast said that Zionists were behind the attacks in order to reduce sympathy for Muslim nations in the West, and that the number of Israelis killed in the attack was lower than it would be under normal circumstances, citing early assessments by The Jerusalem Post and "the legendary involvement of Israeli nationals in businesses at the World Trade Center". According to Duke, this indicated that Israeli security services had prior knowledge of the attack.^[114]

On August 5, 2005, Duke published an article stating support for Cindy Sheehan, saying that:

The Iraq war and her son's death did not defend America from hatred or terrorism ... In fact, the war is massively increasing hatred and terrorism. For every one terrorist killed in Iraq, we are creating thousands more who hate and want to hurt America and Americans. This is the surest way to lose the war on terror, not win it.^[115]

On February 4, 2009, Duke repeatedly called MSNBC pundit Keith Olbermann "untermensch" on his radio show in response to being labeled "Worst Person in the World" on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.^[116]

Public appearances[link]

Public address in Syria[link]

On November 24, 2005, Duke visited Damascus, Syria, addressing a rally which was broadcast on Syrian television, and later giving an interview.^[117][118] During the rally, he referred to Israel as a "war-mongering country" and stated that Zionists "occupy most of the American media and now control much of the American government…It is not just the West Bank of Palestine, it is not just the Golan Heights that are occupied by the Zionists, but Washington D.C. and New York and London and many other capitals of the world.” He concluded by stating: "Your fight for freedom is the same as our fight for freedom.” After speaking at the rally, Duke gave an interview where he said that Israel "makes the Nazi state look very, very moderate." Syrian parliament member Muhammad Habash later stated that Duke's visit gave Syrians a "new and very positive view of the average American."^{[117][119][120]}

Comments in the media[link]

Since 2005, Duke has appeared three times on Current Issues, a Lafayette, Louisiana–based television show hosted and produced by Palestinian-American Hesham Tillawi, which has recently been picked up by Bridges TV. Show host Tillawi gave Duke the opportunity to discourse at length about his beliefs about Jewish supremacism. On a show in October 2005, Duke claimed that Jewish extremists are responsible for undermining the morality of America and are attempting to "wash the world in blood."^[121]

After John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's paper on the Israel Lobby appeared in March 2006, Duke praised the paper in a number of articles on his website, on his March 18 Live Web Radio Broadcast, and on MSNBC's March 21 Scarborough Country program.^[122] According to The New York Sun, Duke said in an email, "It is quite satisfying to see a body in the premier American university essentially come out and validate every major point I have been making since even before the war even started." Duke added that "the task before us is to wrest control of America's foreign policy and critical junctures of media from the Jewish extremist Neocons that seek to lead us into what they expectantly call World War IV."

Conferences[link]

Duke organized a gathering of European Nationalists who signed the New Orleans Protocol on May 29, 2004. The signatories agreed to avoid infighting among far-right racialists.

On June 3, 2005, Duke co-chaired a conference named "Zionism As the Biggest Threat to Modern Civilization" in Ukraine, sponsored by the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management. The conference was attended by several notable Ukrainian public figures and politicians, and writer Israel Shamir.^[123]

Duke claims that Swedish police thwarted an attempted assassination against him, in August 2005, while Duke was speaking in Sweden.^[124]

On the weekend of June 8–10, 2006, Duke attended as a speaker at the international "White World's Future" conference in Moscow, which was coordinated and hosted by Pavel Tulaev.^[125] From December 11–13, he Duke attended the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran, Iran, opened by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stating "The Holocaust is the device used as the pillar of Zionist imperialism, Zionist aggression, Zionist terror and Zionist murder."^[126]

Duke attended the conference, along with Gazi Hussein (Syria); Dr Rahmandost (conference chair, Society for Supporting People of Palestine); Jan Bernhoff, a Swedish computer science teacher who maintains that 300,000 Jews died during the Holocaust;^[127] and Fredrick Töben, director of the Adelaide Institute, Australia.

Criticism and legal difficulties[link]

Plastic surgery claims[link]

In 1990 syndicated columnist Jack Anderson argued Duke has done "everything to make himself look better to the voters, including plastic surgery".^[128][129]

Duke explained in My Awakening that he had had reconstructive surgery on his nose, which had been broken many times.^[130]

Critical publications[link]

In Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust and David Duke's Louisiana^[131][132] by Professor Lawrence N. Powell, who teaches at Tulane University history department and was a founding member of Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, "connects the prewar and wartime experiences of Jewish survivors to the lives they built in the United States" and depicts the "story of Anne Skorecki Levy, a Holocaust survivor who transformed the horrors of her childhood into a passionate mission to defeat the political menace of reputed neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke." The book won three awards.^[133]

Tax fraud conviction[link]

David Duke pleaded guilty to the felony charge of filing a false tax return under 26 U.S.C. § 7206 and mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1341 in December 2002.^[134]

Four months later, Duke was sentenced to 15 months in prison, and he served the time in Big Spring, Texas. He was also fined US$10,000, ordered to cooperate with the Internal Revenue Service, and to pay money still owed for his 1998 taxes. Following his release in May 2004, he stated that his decision to take the plea bargain was motivated by the bias that he perceived in the United States federal court system and not his guilt. He said he felt the charges were contrived to derail his political career and discredit him to his followers, and that he took the safe route by pleading guilty and receiving a mitigated sentence, rather than pleading not guilty and potentially receiving the full sentence.

Duke pleaded guilty to what prosecutors described as a six-year scheme to dupe thousands of his followers by asking for donations. Through postal mail, Duke later appealed to his supporters that he was about to lose his house and his life savings. Prosecutors claimed that Duke raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in this campaign. Prosecutors also claimed he sold his home at a hefty profit, had multiple investment accounts, and spent much of his money gambling at casinos.^{[135][136][137]}

The entire file of court documents related to this case can be found at The Smoking Gun^[138] website, including details on the December 12, 2002 guilty plea to federal charges that he filed a false tax return and committed mail fraud.

Don Black claims that Duke was targeted by the government to discredit him.^[139]

Arrest in the Czech Republic and dropping of the charges[link]

Wikinews has related news: Wikinews Shorts: April 27, 2009

On April 24, 2009, Duke, who had arrived in the Czech Republic on invitation by a Czech neo-Nazi Group known as Národní Odpor ("National Resistance")^[140] to deliver three lectures in Prague and Brno to promote the translation of his book My Awakening into Czech language,^[140] was arrested on suspicion of "denying or approving of the Nazi genocide and other Nazi crimes" and "promotion of movements seeking suppression of human rights," which are crimes in the Czech Republic punishable by up to three years' imprisonment. At the time of his arrest, Duke was reportedly guarded by members of the Národní Odpor.^[141][142]

The Czech police accused Duke of promoting movements suppressing human rights.^{[143][144][145]} The police released him early on April 25, 2009, on condition that he leave the country by midnight that same day.^[146][147]

Duke's first lecture had been scheduled at Charles University in Prague, but it was canceled after university officials learned that neo-Nazis were planning to attend.^[148] Some Czech politicians, including Interior Minister Ivan Langer and Human Rights and Minorities Minister Michael Kocáb, had previously expressed opposition to Duke's being allowed into the country.^[141]

In September 2009, the office of the District Prosecutor for Prague dropped all charges, explaining that there was no evidence that David Duke had committed any crime.^[149]

Election history[link]

Possible 2012 presidential campaign[link]

Duke claimed that thousands of Tea Party movement activists had urged him to run for president in 2012^[150][151] and he was seriously considering entering the Republican Party primaries.^[151]

References[link]