Rav Menashe Ben Yisrael of Amsterdam

Early life

Rav Menashe ben Yisrael zt"l, known also as Menashe ben Yosef ben Yisrael, entered the world in 1604 on the island of Madeira and was given the Portuguese name Manoel Dias Soeiro. The Inquisition had driven his parents out of mainland Portugal the year before. In 1610 they brought the family to the Netherlands, then in the midst of the Eighty Years' War (1568 to 1648), its revolt against Catholic Spain. Their arrival coincided with the Twelve Years' Truce, brokered by France and England at The Hague, and Amsterdam had by then become a major center of Jewish life in Europe.

He earned renown as a rav and an author, and also as a printer. In 1626 he established the first Hebrew press in Amsterdam, and in all of Holland, and named it Emes MeEretz Titzmach. Among his early works was El Conciliador, which appeared in Spanish in 1632 and made his name at once. In it he sought to resolve seeming contradictions between verses of Tanach, relying chiefly on the Gemara and the classic commentaries but also citing Christian authorities and Greek and Latin writers. He meant it to strengthen the faith of the Marranos (Portuguese Jews who had been forced to hide their identity) in the truth of Tanach as Jewish tradition interprets it. Elias Haim Lindo's English translation came out in 1842 and was reprinted in 1972.

He corresponded with Gerardus Vossius, Hugo Grotius, Petrus Serrarius, Antonio Vieira and Pierre Daniel Huet. Supporting his wife and family in Amsterdam remained hard, and in 1638 he resolved to move to Brazil. He may have gone to Recife, the capital of the Dutch colony, but he never settled there. Things improved when the brothers Abraham and Isaac Pereyra, two Portuguese Jewish businessmen, engaged him to head a small academy they had set up in the city (a yeshivah, as Spanish-Portuguese Jews of the day called it). The painter Rembrandt van Rijn was his friend, and made an etching of the Rav and illustrated his books.

The hope of the lost tribes

In 1644 Rav Menashe met Antonio de Montezinos, a Marrano and Portuguese traveler who had returned from the New World. Montezinos persuaded him that the Indians of the Andes in South America descended from the lost ten tribes of Israel. Rav Menashe took this as fresh ground to hope for Mashiach, since Jews living in every part of the world was understood as a sign that his coming was near. His thoughts turned to England, which had barred Jews since 1290, and he labored to win them leave to resettle there, so as to bring the redemption closer.

The Hope of Israel first appeared in Amsterdam in 1650, in Latin as Spes Israelis and in Spanish as Esperanca de Israel. John Dury had written in 1648 to ask about Montezinos' claims, and the book was Rav Menashe's reply. It relayed Montezinos' account of Jews in the Americas and voiced the hope that Jews would come back to England, bringing Mashiach nearer. The author also emphasized his closeness to Parliament and said he acted out of friendship toward England, not for profit.

In 1651 he proposed to act as agent for Hebrew books to Christina, Queen of Sweden. That year too he held talks with Oliver St John and his envoys, who sought an Anglo-Dutch alliance that would let Dutch citizens, and Jews along with them, live and work in England. Impressed by his learning and bearing, the English urged him to petition formally for the Jews' readmission. In 1652 the work was rendered into English, apparently by John Dury or someone close to him, and Moses Wall published it in London with a dedication to Parliament and the Council of State. The picture it drew of the lost tribes struck the public deeply and provoked many debates, among them an exchange of letters between Edward Spencer and Moses Wall.

The mission to Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell looked kindly on the Jewish cause, partly out of tolerance but mostly because he saw how valuable Jewish merchants could be to English commerce. England had held the colony of Surinam since 1650 and gave Jews full rights there. Rav Menashe and Rav Yaakov Sasportas together petitioned Cromwell to let Jews settle in England, arguing from philosophy and theology.

Rav Menashe arrived in London in November 1655. While he was away, the rabbanim of Amsterdam excommunicated his former student, Baruch Spinoza. In London he brought out Humble Addresses to the Lord Protector, though William Prynne's Short Demurrer blunted its impact. That December Cromwell convened the Whitehall Conference, where leading statesmen, lawyers and theologians debated whether the Jews should be readmitted. Its main practical outcome was a ruling by the judges Glynne and Steele that no law barred the Jews from returning, since the banishment had come from a decree issued by King Edward I, not from an act of Parliament. The status of Jews already in England was left unsettled, and they still lived under threat of expulsion, yet a gradual return had become possible. John Evelyn wrote in his diary on December 14, 1655, "Now were the Jews admitted." Prynne and others then attacked the Jews, and in 1656 Rav Menashe answered with his major defense, Vindiciae Judaeorum.

He remained in England for nearly two years after the conference, trying to secure a written permit allowing Jews to resettle. This he did not obtain, but he met a great many influential people: Samuel Hartlib, John Dury, John Sadler, Adam Boreel, Robert Boyle with his sister, Henry Oldenburg and the Cambridge theologian Ralph Cudworth, as well as visionary figures like Arise Evans and Ambrose Barnes. His visit was arranged by Henry Jessey, a Baptist clergyman who favored the Jews and shared messianic hopes.

Writings

Rav Menashe wrote many works. His chief one, Nishmas Chaim, is a Hebrew treatise on the reincarnation of souls in Jewish thought. His son Samuel published it six years before both of them passed away. He is thought to have learned Kabbalah from Abraham Cohen de Herrera, a talmid of Israel Saruk, which would account for his knowledge of the approach of the Arizal.

Among his other works are Thesouros dos Dinim, a compendium of ritual law; De Creatione Problemata, a Spanish work printed in Amsterdam in 1635; De Resurrectione Mortuorum (1636), composed in Spanish and later put into Latin; De la Fragilidad Humana, a 1642 work on human frailty; and De termino vitae, a Latin work of 1639 that was rendered into English in London in 1709. His acquaintance Rembrandt made four etchings for Piedra Gloriosa, and they are kept today in the British Museum. He also issued a prayer book for the year, Orden de las oraciones del mes, covering the three festivals, the fasts, Chanukah and Purim, and copies survive in the National Library in Rio de Janeiro.

Later years and passing

In February 1657 Cromwell awarded Rav Menashe a state pension of 100 pounds, but he did not live to receive it. He passed away on 14 Kislev 5418 (November 20, 1657) at Middelburg in the Netherlands, on the journey home with the body of his son Samuel for burial. He lies in the Beth Haim cemetery at Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, where the headstone and gravestone are still intact.

His wife, Rachel, descended from the Abarbanel family, and they had three children. Family tradition traced the Abarbanels to King Dovid, and he was proud of the royal lineage of his children. Their eldest son, Samuel Abarbanel Soeiro, also called Samuel Ben Israel, was a printer who helped his father with his affairs in England; he died in 1657. The youngest son, Joseph, died in 1650 at the age of twenty, on a business trip to Poland that went badly. Their daughter Gracia, born in 1628, became the wife of Samuel Abarbanel Barboza in 1646 and lived until 1690.