Books

In popular understanding Menassah ben Israel is that rabbi of Amsterdam through whose persuasion Cromwell opened the gates of England to the Jews of the world, gates which had been closed since the latter part of the thirteenth century. Menassah ben Israel is also that rabbi whom the great Rembrandt made famous in an etching and for one of whose books he contributed a set of etchings greatly sought by collectors.

The Jewish Publication Society of America has just brought out as definitive a life of that seventeenth century Rabbi of Marrano parentage as the extant data will permit. It is by that Anglo-Jewish scholar, Cecil Roth, who modestly entitles his labor of love and scholarship “A Life of Menassah ben Israel” instead of “The Life.” Work of scholarship that it is, it is not, however, remote from the interests of Jews whose desire for knowledge of their historical past may fall just short of the rabbinical library doors. Mr. Roth’s book cannot, however, hope to reach, or to hold, any large general public, for the interest in the book must be delimited by the interest in the subject matter, the worthy rabbi, whose importance is not quite of a towering nature.

CHIEF DISTINCTION

The Amsterdam rabbi’s chief distinction lies in that he was the first theological and communal representative of his people to speak for his people in the conclaves of the learned Christian world, to take part in their disputes, to help in the enlightenment of scholars on vexed points in the Old Testament and to appear as an equal through his mastery of the Latin tongue. Perhaps not mastery, but he knew enough Latin to be able to quote the chief sources of that tongue. He was versed in half a dozen other tongues and was able to marshal an impressive body of quotations from the books of those tongues when opportunities arose to impress Gentile scholars. His chief distinction was, in substance, that he was the first ambassador of the world of Jewry to the world of Christian scholarship and theology, and an ambassador of such weight and importance in his time that ‘learned’ theologians visiting Amsterdam always made it their business to seek him out, and crowned heads were not above visiting him and being received at his synagogue and receiving dedications to his books. Mr. Roth points out that Menassah ben Israel was perhaps a little too bustling and a little too servile in his bids for attention in the Gentile world and that perhaps his zeal for Zion was muddied by a desire to be important socially as well as financially, he not being above taking part in trade ventures and in other not ennobling middleman jobs.

But there was a considerable amount of fire in the bustling rabbi and pure alleged zeal in his labors. He came, like most of the Dutch Jews of that time, from the stock of Spanish Jews whose lives had been endangered, bodies tortured and fortunes confiscated; Jews who had perforce to be converted at the point of the flaming Inquisition faggot and who had thereafter kept their bond with Abraham in secret. The zeal of Menassah was inspired by concern for those Marranos who, unlike his own immediate family, had not managed to escape into a friendly land, and his mission to Cromwell was to turn England into another haven of refuge for the weekly shiploads of refugees coming out of the Iberian peninsula.

REASONS FOR TOLERANCE

There were two reasons for opening England to the Jews again; the first, and more important one was that the Jews brought trade, as witness the Dutch Netherlands since that nation’s freedom from Spain. As a matter of fact there was in London at the time a small group of “New Christians” who appeared as good Catholics in the chapel of the Spanish Ambassador and who held secret prayer meetings, as Jews, in the home of one of them, one of the wealthiest traders and ship-owners of the time. The other reason was valid with the religious, with the Protestant zealots who believed that the second coming of Christ was imminent.

Menassah pointed out that, according to Scriptural prophecy, there could not be a second coming until the Jews who had been dispersed to the ends of the world had been gathered together again. Since there were no Jews in England, the prophecy could not be fulfilled because the dispersal had not been completed and the phrase, the end of the world, had been rigidly interpreted to mean England. This was a valid reason at the time, however lightly it may have impressed the hard-boiled Puritans at the helm of affairs.

Cromwell was greatly taken with Menassah, as indeed was anyone whom the Rabbi set out to charm, but his Council was, in the main, opposed to a legal return of the Jews. Cromwell did not care to impose his authority against the public opinion which fought the return of the Jews, but he did connive at it and although there never was any mass migration into England of Jews, those already in London were given assurance that they would not be disturbed in the practice of their religion and a synagogue was established and a reader’s services obtained. Menassah died disappointed in his mission, but he had succeeded as far as he could at that time. But, as Mr. Roth points out, the Jews owed more to the easy and indifferent tolerance of the returned Stuart than they owed to the connivance of the Puritans, the fidelity of many of whom was to the Old Testament. So faithful to it were some of the Puritans, that they celebrated their Sabbath on Saturday instead of Sunday.

Mr. Roth has done a laborious job with style and scholarship.

—H. S.