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Stéphane Mosès

Stéphane Mosès was a French-Israeli philosopher, translator and Germanist who taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and wrote on the thought of Franz Rosenzweig.

1931 to 2007Study of Franz Rosenzweig's philosophyFounding the Franz Rosenzweig Research CenterGerman-Jewish literature and thought

Born: 11 June 1931, Berlin
Died: 1 December 2007, 5th arrondissement of Paris
Occupation: philosopher, literary scholar, translator, Germanist
Education: École Normale Supérieure

Stéphane Mosès was born in 1931 in Berlin

Stéphane Mosès was born to a Jewish family in Berlin in 1931. In 1938 his family left Germany out of fear of the Nazis and settled in Casablanca, Morocco, where it stayed until 1950. He attended French schools.

He then moved to Paris and studied German literature and philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure. He later worked as a teaching assistant at the Sorbonne, where he met the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. He also took part in the Gilbert Bloch school for Jewish leadership in Orsay.

In 1957 he married the artist Liliane Klapisch, and they had 3 children. In 1969 he moved to Israel, settled in Jerusalem and became a professor of general and comparative literature at the Hebrew University, where he later founded the German literature department. In 1990 he founded the Franz Rosenzweig Research Center for German-Jewish literature and culture and led it in its first 3 years.

His 1983 book on Rosenzweig's philosophy brought that thinker to readers in France. He also wrote on Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, Franz Kafka, Goethe, Paul Celan and Levinas, in French or German. He spent his last years in Paris for health reasons, died there in 2007 and was buried in Jerusalem's Sanhedria cemetery.