Manasseh Ben Israel
Manoel Dias Soeiro (1604–November 20, 1657), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh Ben Israel (also, Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, also known with the Hebrew acronym, MB"Y), was a Portuguese-Jewish rabbi, kabbalist, scholar, writer, diplomat, printer and publisher, founder of the first Hebrew printing press in Amsterdam in 1626.
The teacher of Baruch Spinoza, Manasseh gained fame for his work El Conciliador which sought to reconcile apparent contradictions in the Hebrew Bible and was one of the first Jewish works to gain a Christian readership. His writings on the messianic prophecies of the restoration of Israel gained a wide readership in England, where he was instrumental in the decision of Oliver Cromwell's government to allow the Jewish readmission to the country, from which they had been expelled in 1290.
Life
Manasseh's father had been a Marrano—a Jew who professed Christianity in public but practiced Judaism in private. After the Israel was forced to appear in public as a penitent for his secret Judaiam in the auto da fé of August 3, 1603, his parents fled Lisbon, eventually settling, like many other Portuguese Jews, in Amsterdam. The place of Menasseh's birth is uncertain, with sources ranging from Lisbon to Madeira Island to New Rochelle in western France. He was given the name Manoel Dias Soeiro.
The family moved to Amsterdam in 1610, when the Netherlands was in the process of religious revolt during the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648). The family's arrival in 1610 was during the truce]] mediated by France and England at The Hague.
Manasseh was brought up under Isaac Uzziel of Fez, the rabbi of the new congregation Neveh Shalom. In 1622, Manasseh married Rachel Soeiro. He soon became distinguished as one of the best scholars and orators of Amsterdam's Jewish community. However, since neither preaching nor private tuition was sufficient to provide him with an adequate livelihood, Manasseh started the first Hebrew printing press in Holland. He produced a Hebrew prayer book (January 12, 1627), an index to the Midrash Rabbah (1628), a Hebrew grammar written by his teacher Isaac Uzziel (1628), and an elegant edition of the Mishnah.
Menasseh also rose to eminence as an author. One of his earliest works, El Conciliador, an attempt to reconcile apparent discrepancies in various parts of the Hebrew Bible, won immediate fame. Written in fluent Spanish, the book was was one of the first Jewish work in a modern language which gain an interest among Christian readers. Some of the best scholars of his time had correspondence with him as a result. Among his correspondents were Gerhard Johann Vossius, Hugo Grotius, and Pierre Daniel Huet.
Notwithstanding this wide fame, Manasseh still found it difficult to obtain a living for himself, his wife, and three children. Around this time, the three synagogues of Amsterdam were reorganized, and Manasseh ben Israel may have lost his position as rabbi of the Neveh Shalom. In 1638, he intended to join his brother-in-law Brazil where the latter had previously moved on a joint venture. At this point, however the wealthy Pereira brothers established a Jewish academy in Amsterdam, offering Manasseh a position as its head (1640). Manasseh was thus enabled to devote himself entirely to scholarship, writing, and his ever-widening correspondence with Jewish and Christian literati.
Manasseh was profoundly interested in messianic issues. For example, of the Davidic origin of the Abravanel family—one of the oldest and most distinguished Jewish families of the Iberian peninsula—from which his wife and children were descended. He was also convinced that the restoration to the Holy Land could not take place until the Jews had spread into and inhabited every part of the world.
He also expressed many opinions about the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical traditional. However, he did not express these view in modern languages intended to be read by Gentiles. He major work on kabbalistic matter was his Nishmat Hayim a treatise dealing with the the Jewish concept of reincarnation, which had gain prominence through the work of Isaac Luria.
In 1644, Manasseh met Antonio de Montesinos, who convinced him that the South America Andes' Indians were the descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel. This supposed discovery gave a new impulse to Menasseh's messianic hopes.
Filled with this idea, he turned his attention to England, where the Jews had been expelled since 1290. He found interest for his views among English Christians. Oliver Cromwell, for example, had been moved to sympathy with the Jewish cause, chiefly because he foresaw the importance for English commerce of the presence of the Jewish merchant princes, some of whom had already found their way to London. At this juncture, Jews received full rights in the colony of Surinam, which had been English since 1650. In the same year, there appeared an English version of Manasseh's Hope of Israel, a tract which deeply impressed public opinion. One of the replies, "An Epistle to the Learned Manasseh ben Israel" (London, 1650), was written by Sir Edward Spencer, member of Parliament for Middlesex. Another appeared anonymously under the title "The Great Deliverance of the Whole House of Israel." Both these replies, however, insisted upon the need of Jewish conversion to Christianity before the messianic prophecies about Israel could be fulfilled, and it was probably for this reason that the matter was dropped for a time by Manasseh.
Meanwhile, Cromwell's attention had been drawn to the subject, and Cromwell's representative at Amsterdam was put into communication with Manasseh. As a result, Manasseh addressed the English council of state on the subject of the Jewish readmission to England, and a pass was issued to enable him to travel there. After the cessation of the war between Holland and England, Manasseh sent his son Samuel and his nephew David Dormido to consult with Cromwell. They were unsuccessful, however, and Samuel returned to Amsterdam in 1655 to persuade his father to attempt the task himself.
In 1655, Menasseh arrived in London. One of his first acts on reaching London was to issue his Humble Addresses to the Lord Protector. Cromwell summoned a conference at Whitehall to discuss the issue of Jewish readmission in December of the same year. Some of the most notable statesmen, lawyers, and theologians of the day were summoned to this meeting. The chief practical result was the declaration of judges Glynne and Steele that "there was no law which forbade the Jews' return to England." Though nothing was done to regularize the position of the Jews, the door was opened to their gradual return. The diarist John Evelyn wrote on date December 14, 1655: "Now were the Jews admitted." But the attack on the Jews by Prynne and others could not go unanswered. In the meantime Menasseh replied to the anti-Jewish tract of Puritan polemicist William Prynne in Vindiciae judaeorum (1656), considered one of Manasseh's finest works.
Soon after Menasseh left London, Cromwell granted him a pension, but he died before he could enjoy it. Death overtook him at Middleburg in the Netherlands in the winter of 1657, as he was conveying the body of his son Samuel home for burial. His tomb is in the Beit Hayim of Ouderkerk a/d Amstel.
Legacy
Manasseh be Israel's greatest legacy was his successful attempt to gain the readmission of the Jews to England. He was also the teacher of Baruch Spinoza, the greatest Jewish philosopher of his age, although he was excommunicated by the rabbis of Amsterdam while Manasseh was away in England. He was a friend of Rembrandt, who painted his portrait and engraved four etchings to illustrate Manasseh's Piedra gloriosa. The portrait, however, is disputed, since it does not resemble other contemporary pictures of Manasseh.
Manasseh claimed to read and understand ten languages, and printed works in five—Hebrew, Latin, Portuguese, English, and Spanish. Manasseh's major work was his Nishmat Hayim a kabbalistic treatise in Hebrew dealing with the the Jewish concept of reincarnation. It was published by his son Samuel six years before they both died. His Conciliador was more influential, however, stimulating readership among Christians as well as Jews.
The pamphlets connected with the return of the Jews to England were republished, with an introduction by Lucien Wolf, through the Jewish Historical Society of England (London, 1901). Manasseh also wrote a series of works in Latin on various theological problems, all printed at Amsterdam—"De Creatione" (1635), "De Resurrectione Mortuorum" (1635), "De Termino Vitæ" (1639). He wrote an essay in Spanish, "De la Fraglidad Humana" (1642); and a list of the 613 Jewish commandments in Portuguese, entitled "Thesoro dos Dinim" (1645). His "Vindiciæ Judæorum" was translated into German, with a preface by Moses Mendelssohn.
His son, Yossef, died at age 20. Menasseh was also the father of Samuel Abarbanel Soeiro, also known as Samuel Ben Israel.
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External links
- England related articles in the Jewish Encyclopedia
- Digital collection of books and letters related to Menasseh Ben Israel
- Short biography of Menasseh Ben Israel
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
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