David Friedländer (sometimes spelled Friedlander; 6 December 1750, Königsberg – 25 December 1834, Berlin) was a German banker, writer and communal leader.
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Life
Communal leader and author in Berlin, a pioneer of the practice and ideology of assimilation, and a forerunner of Reform Judaism. Born in Koenigsberg, the son of a "protected Jew," Joachim Moses Friedlaender, a wholesale merchant, David settled in Berlin in 1770, and in 1776 established a silk factory there. As an expert in his field, he was appointed counselor of the state Commission of Inquiry into the textile industry. In 1791 he forwarded a memorandum in the name of the manufacturers, advocating changes in the economic system against excessive government supervision over industry and the granting of protective tariffs to individual manufacturers. However, his interests ranged far beyond his business activities. Entering Moses Mendelssohn's circle at the age of 21, Friedlaender absorbed Mendelssohn's ideas and became prominent among his followers. Through his marriage in 1772 with Blümchen Itzig, daughter of the banker Daniel Itzig, he entered one of the wealthiest and most distinguished families of Court Jews in Prussia.
In 1799 Friedlaender sent his famous Sendschreiben ("Open Letter") to Pastor Teller in which he expressed, "in the name of some Jewish householders," a deistic conception of religion. For this reason, he rejected Christian dogma as well as the retention of Jewish ritual precepts. According to him the eternal truths around which enlightened Jews and Protestants should unite were synonymous with the pure teachings of Moses, i.e., with original Jewish monotheism. Throughout his life Friedlaender regarded Mosaic monotheism as an ideal to be followed; it was apparently the positive factor in his decision (in which he differed from many of his circle) against conversion to Christianity. "We are destined from time immemorial to guard and teach by example the pure doctrine of the unity and sanctity of God, previously unknown to any other people," Friedlaender wrote in 1815 in his Reden der Erbauung ("Edifying Speeches"). In his respect for biblical Judaism, he was a faithful disciple of Mendelssohn, although Kant, who exercised an influence on Friedlaender, disparaged biblical Judaism. Friedlaender shared the educational ideals and belief in liturgical reform current among representatives of the Jewish enlightenment in Berlin after Mendelssohn, giving expression to these ideas in his writings.