Jerusalem, or On Religious Power and Judaism

A two-part treatise by the German Jewish Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, published in Berlin in 1783. Part One concerns the relation between state and religion. Mendelssohn distinguishes actions from convictions: the state may regulate actions and use coercion, but convictions can only be won by persuasion, so neither state nor church may punish beliefs, require oaths to doctrines or excommunicate dissenters. Part Two answers the challenge that, as a defender of reason, he ought to abandon Judaism. Mendelssohn replies that Judaism is not a revealed religion in the sense of revealed doctrines; the eternal truths about God, providence and immortality are open to all human reason. What was revealed at Sinai was a law, a set of commandments and ceremonies that act as a living script, prompting reflection on those truths. Jews, he argues, should keep that law while taking full part in civil life, and the book closes with a plea for freedom of conscience for all.

It is a founding argument for religious toleration and the separation of church and state, and a classic statement of how a minority can join modern society without giving up its tradition.