"Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729[note 1] – 4 January 1786) was a German-Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the Haskalah, the 'Jewish Enlightenment' of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is indebted.
Born to a poor Jewish family in Dessau, Principality of Anhalt, 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 Christian and Jewish inhabitants of German-speaking Europe and beyond. He also established himself as an important figure in the Berlin textile industry, which formed the foundation of his family's wealth." - (en.wikipedia.org 15.02.2022)