Christian Wilhelm von Dohm
You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
Christian Wilhelm von Dohm (German: [doːm]; 11 December 1751 – 29 May 1820) was a German historian and political writer.
Biography
Dohm was born in Lemgo on 11 December 1751. The son of a Lutheran pastor at Lemgo's St. Mary's Church , he was a radical advocate for Jewish emancipation. He entered Prussian officialdom in 1779, first as archivist in Berlin. In 1781, Dohm published a two-volume work entitled Ueber die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden ("On the Civil Improvement of the Jews"), which argued for Jewish political equality on humanitarian grounds. It was widely praised by the Jewish communities in Berlin, Halberstadt, and Suriname. In 1786 he was ennobled (untitled nobility), gaining him the nobiliary particle von before his surname.
Dohm died on his Pustleben estate near Nordhausen on 29 May 1820.
Jewish emancipation
Many Enlightenment thinkers were skeptical about Jewish commitment to Englightenment ideals. Enlightenment philosphers generally believed that man had power over his own nature, and so, saw pathways for Jewish assimilation which often involved the shedding of some aspects of Jewish identity.
Dohm was one of these liberal minded Enlightenment advocates. Based on his friendship with Moses Mendelssohn, Dohm advocated for emancipation. Dohm acknowledged many of the "negative characteristics" that were troubling to liberal minded Enlightenment philosophers - moral corruption, clannish and unsociable behaviors, unproductive and primarily commercial occupations - but he argued these traits were the product of centuries of oppression by Christians and the coercive power of Talmudic Judaism over the Jewish community. Dohm believed emancipation would pave the way for Jewish assimilation into Enlightenment society.[1]
References
- ^ Brustein, William; Roberts, Louisa (2015). The Socialism of Fools: Leftist Origins of Modern Anti-Semitism. United States: Cambridge University Press. p. 19.
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Dohm, Christian Wilhelm Von". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
- Articles with short description
- Short description is different from Wikidata
- Pages with German IPA
- Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia
- Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia without a Wikisource reference
- Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia
- Articles with FAST identifiers
- Articles with ISNI identifiers
- Articles with VIAF identifiers
- Articles with BNF identifiers
- Articles with BNFdata identifiers
- Articles with GND identifiers
- Articles with J9U identifiers
- Articles with KBR identifiers
- Articles with LCCN identifiers
- Articles with NKC identifiers
- Articles with NTA identifiers
- Articles with PLWABN identifiers
- Articles with VcBA identifiers
- Articles with BPN identifiers
- Articles with DTBIO identifiers
- Articles with Trove identifiers
- Articles with SUDOC identifiers
- 1751 births
- 1820 deaths
- People from the Principality of Lippe
- 18th-century German historians
- German male non-fiction writers
- People from Lemgo
- Members of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences
- Ambassadors to Saxony
- Geheimrat
- Activists against antisemitism
- Opposition to antisemitism in Germany
- All stub articles
- German historian stubs