Maskil Moses Hirschel (13 September 1754 – 24 June 1818 Breslau) was a German writer, polemicist and

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

author. Hirschel was a representative of the

Haskalah The ''Haskalah'' (; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), often termed the Jewish Enlightenment, was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Wester ...

, or Jewish Enlightenment, in

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

toward the end of the 18th century. He published the first German translation of the chess writings of

Gioachino Greco Gioachino Greco ( – ), surnamed Cusentino and more frequently ''il Calabrese'', was an Italian chess player and writer. He recorded some of the earliest chess games known in their entirety. His games, which never indicated players, were q ...

, together with a re-edition of

Philipp Stamma Philipp Stamma ( – c. 1755), a native of Aleppo, Ottoman Syria, later resident of England and France, was a chess master and a pioneer of modern chess. His reputation rests largely on his authorship of the early chess book ''Essai sur le jeu d ...

in ''Das Schach des Herrn Giochimo Greco Calabrois und die Schachspiel Geheimniße des Arabers Philipp Stamma übersezt, verbeßert und nach einer ganz neuen Methode zur Erleichterung der Spielenden umgearbeitet'' (Breslau 1784, ''Nachdruck Zürich: Olms 1979 und 1987''). Hirschel's translation of the two chess classics was significant as their publication helped to popularize algebraic notation in Germany. He also wrote ''Ueber das Schachspiel, dessen Nutzen, Gebrauch und Mißbrauch, psychologisch, moralisch und scientisisch erörtert'' (Breslau 1791). Hirschel also published the following polemic works which were influential in the inner Jewish debates of the late 18th Century: ''Kampf der Jüdischen Hierarchie'' (Breslau 1789); ''Jüdische Intoleranz und Fanatismus in Breslau'' (1789); ''Patriotische Bemerkungen'' (1790); ''Ueber die Allzufrühen Ehen der Jüdischen Nation'' (Breslau 1790); ''Biographie des Jüdischen Gelehrten und Dichters Ephraim Moses Kuh'' (Zurich, 1791); ''Apologie der Menschenrechte'' (Zurich, 1793); ''Vier Briefe über Schlesien'' (Breslau 1796). Disappointed with the lack of reform within the Breslau Rabbinat at the time, Hirschel converted to

Lutheranism Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

with his entire family on 25 May 1804 taking the name "Christian Moritz Herschel".Heywood Jones, David. ''Moses Hirschel and Enlightenment Breslau'', Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, , p. 73

References

External links

*Moses Hirschel
''Unterricht für Schachspieler''
(1795 edition of the Greco / Stamma book) {{DEFAULTSORT:Hirschel, Moses 1754 births 1818 deaths Writers from Wrocław People from the Province of Silesia 18th-century German Jews German chess players Jewish chess players German chess writers German male non-fiction writers Writers from the Kingdom of Prussia People of the Haskalah