Shmuel Fein­er is Pro­fes­sor of Mod­ern Jew­ish His­to­ry at Bar-Ilan Uni­ver­si­ty and Chair­man of the His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety of Israel. He is author of Haskalah and His­to­ry; The Emer­gence of a Mod­ern Jew­ish His­tor­i­cal Con­scious­ness; The Jew­ish Enlight­en­ment; Moses Mendelssohn, Sage of Moder­ni­ty; and The Ori­gins of Jew­ish Sec­u­lar­iza­tion.