Kisch, a Jewish
physician, he learnt Latin from a book picked up at a second-hand book
stall. General culture was at that time an unknown quantity in the
possibilities of Berlin Jewish life. The schoolmasters, who were not
permitted to stay in the city more than three years, were for the most
part Poles. One Pole, Israel Moses, a fine thinker and mathematician,
banished from his native town, Samosz, on account of his devotion to
secular studies, lived with Aaron Gumpertz, the only one of the famous
family of court-Jews who had elected a better lot. From the latter,
Mendelssohn imbibed a taste for the sciences, and to him he owed some
direction in his studies; while in mathematics he was instructed by
Israel Samosz, at the time when the latter, busily engaged with his
great commentary on Yehuda Halevi's _Al-Chazari_, was living at the
house of the Itzig family, on the _Burgstrasse_, on the very spot where
the talented architect Hitzig, the grandson of Mendelssohn's
contemporary, built the magnificent Exchange. To enable himself to buy
books, Mendelssohn had to deny himself food. As soon as he had hoarded a
few _groschen_, he stealthily slunk to a dealer in second-hand books. In
this way he managed to possess himself of a Latin grammar and a wretched
lexicon. Difficulties did not exist for him; they vanished before his
industry and perseverance. In a short time he knew far more than
Gumpertz himself, who has become famous through his entreaty to Magister
Gottsched at Leipsic, whilom absolute monarch in German literature: "I
would most respectfully supplicate that it may please your worshipful
Highness to permit me to repair to Leipsic to pasture on the meadows of
learning under your Excellency's protecting wing."

After seven years of struggle and privation, Moses Mendelssohn became
tutor at the house of Isaac Bernhard, a silk manufacturer, and now began
better times. In spite of faithful performance of duties, he found
leisure to acquire a considerable stock of learning. He began to
frequent social gatherings, his friend Dr. Gumpertz introducing him to
people of culture, among others to some philosophers, members of the
Berlin Academy. What smoothed the way for him more than his sterling
character and his fine intellect was his good chess-playing. The Jews
have always been celebrated as chess-players, and since the twelfth
century a literature in Hebrew prose and verse has grown up about the
game. Mendelssohn in this res