biography
| name: |
Manasseh ben Israel
|
| |
also spelled Menasseh
|
pronunciation:
[muhnasuh]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1604–57)
|
| biography:
| Portuguese Jewish scholar and printer, born in Lisbon, Portugal. He was taken early to Amsterdam, where he became chief rabbi at the age of 18 in 1622, and set up the first Hebrew printing press in Holland (1627). He later went to England (1655–7), securing from Cromwell the tacit readmission of the Jews (1655). He wrote theological works in Hebrew, Spanish, and Latin, and in English a Humble Address to Cromwell, A Declaration, and Vindiciae Judaeorum. In 1650 he wrote a book (Esperança de Israel) which gained great popularity, claiming that the lost ten tribes had been found in South America. |
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