משה קאן

Moses Kann was a German rabbi; born at Frankfurt am Main; died there 1761 or 1762; son of Löb Kann. He was chief rabbi of Hesse-Darmstadt and head of the Talmudical school at Frankfurt, which had been founded and richly endowed by his father-in-law, Samson Wertheimer, of Vienna. For over half a century this school flourished under Kann's guidance, and maintained the high reputation of Frankfurt as a seat of Talmudic study. By his energy and activity in behalf of the Jews, Moses Kann's name became celebrated throughout German Jewry. He and his father-in-law furnished the means for the publication of a new edition of the Talmud ; but through the denunciations of a baptized Jew, Paul Christian, this edition and a number of prayer-books were confiscated. By the testimony of the Berlin court preacher Jablonski and the consistorial councillor Scharden of Halle, supported by the opinion of twenty-four Christian professors and preachers who, in 1728, had declared that "neither the Jewish prayer-book nor the Talmud contained anything derogatory to Christianity," Moses Kann proved before the Elector of Mainz the bad character of the apostate. On 1 August 1753, the Imperial Court rescinded the order of confiscation of these books.