58 • cHAPTeR 2
spheres and the imperative to make this distinction. For al- Khalidi,
concerned as he was with matters of nationalism and the nation in the
very different environment of the early twentieth century (rather than
Mendelssohn’s eighteenth- century europe), the critical sphere from
which to separate religion was the nation (as opposed to Mendelssohn’s
state).
differentiation, however, is only one way in which al- Khalidi’s
version of Mendelssohn’s theory represents a fair reading of Mendels-
sohn (regardless of whether al- Khalidi actually read Mendelssohn).
Al- Khalidi, as we have seen, highlighted the degree of acculturation
effected by Jews, particularly those of western europe, in the period
following Mendelssohn. Though al- Khalidi perceived a direct, causal
link between Mendelssohn and this acculturation, the latter was a so-
cial phenomenon that began before Mendelssohn and had numerous,
complex causes (not merely a Mendelssohnian dictum). Nonetheless,
Mendelssohn was a vocal and important advocate of certain aspects
of acculturation.^68 In the final pages of Jerusalem, he contended that
there was “no wiser advice” that might be offered his fellow Jews than
to “adapt yourselves to the morals and the constitution of the land to
which you have been removed,” even while “hold[ing] fast to the reli-
gion of your fathers too.”^69 Al- Khalidi would seem justified in reading
these lines as a call to acculturation in all spheres of life aside from
those explicitly deemed “religious.”
Finally, along with differentiation and acculturation, Mendelssohn’s
theory, as articulated by al- Khalidi, severed the Jews from Palestine,
renouncing the historic links between the people and the land that had
been preserved over the previous centuries. Again, though Mendels-
sohn did not express this view exactly, this claim, too, has a basis in
his writings, especially in his polemical exchange with Johann david
Michaelis. In the early 1780s Michaelis, a christian opponent of the
emancipation of the Jews in the German lands, contended that the
“messianic expectation of a return to Palestine” casts “doubt on the full
and steadfast loyalty of the Jews to the state and the possibility of their
full integration.” The Jews, Michaelis had written, “will always see the
state as a temporary home, which they will leave in the hour of their
greatest happiness to return to Palestine.”^70 In his effort to counter Mi-
chaelis’s argument against Jewish emancipation, Mendelssohn claimed
(^68) Mendelssohn advocated elements of acculturation even as he attempted to combat
acculturation in other respects (e.g., by reintroducing Jews to their linguistic and reli-
gious heritage and by arguing against the rejection of Jewish law).
(^69) Mendelssohn, Jerusalem,Or,onReligiousPowerandJudaism, 133.
(^70) “Johann david Michaelis’ Arguments against dohm (1782),” in Mendes- Flohr and
Reinharz, eds., TheJewintheModernWorld, 43.