Manasseh ben Israel

Manasseh ben Israel, 1604–57, Jewish scholar and communal leader, b. Portugal. Early in his life he settled in Amsterdam, where he became a rabbi and started (1627) the first Hebrew press there. He is best known for his efforts to obtain the readmission of Jews into England, where they had been forbidden to live since 1290; he managed to obtain Oliver Cromwell's unofficial assent for Jews to settle in London. His Conciliador, an elaborate discussion of hundreds of conflicting passages in the Old Testament, was intended to make Judaism more understandable and acceptable to the Christian world. He wrote in five languages.

Bibliography

See biography by C. Roth (1934); L. Wolf, Menasseh Ben Israel's Mission to Oliver Cromwell (1910).

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Manasseh ben Israel

 orig. Manoel Dias Soeiro

(born 1604, Lisbon?—died Nov. 20, 1657, Middelburg, United Provinces of the Netherlands) Portuguese-born Dutch Hebrew scholar and Jewish leader. He was born to a family of Marranos whom persecution drove to Amsterdam. A brilliant theology student, he became rabbi of a Portuguese congregation in Amsterdam in 1622 and established the first Hebrew printing press there in 1626. In the belief that the messiah would come only when the Jews were dispersed throughout the world, he lobbied the English government to allow Jews to live in England, and he wrote Vindication of the Jews (1656). His efforts led to unofficial English acceptance of Jewish settlement and, after his death, to the granting of an official charter of protection to the Jews of England in 1664.