Manasseh Ben-Israel—Aaron Levi alias Antony Montezinos—Moses Wall—Leonard Busher—David Abrabanel [Manuel Martinez Dormido]—Oliver St. John.
Manasseh Ben-Israel (1606–1657), the Amsterdam Jewish preacher and Hebrew-Spanish author, was the chief promoter of the readmission of the Jews to England and the leading figure in the history of that great event. He had all the virtues and accomplishments of a leader. He was a man of fine intellect and high moral character, unselfish in thought, word and deed, straightforward and sincere, extraordinarily endowed and irresistibly attractive, at the same time a faithful religious believer and a practical man of action. All the sorrows and all the hopes of the old Jewish nation were in him, and all the beauty of the Bible was in his visions.
Manasseh was neither a first-rate Talmudical authority, nor the principal of a great Rabbinical school, nor a celebrated and officially recognized leader of Rabbis. He achieved nothing striking in the field of Halachah,¹ where alone, according to traditional views, authority can be won among learned Rabbis and their followers. In high Rabbinical quarters he may have been considered a dilettante or an eclectic, perhaps a sort of dreamer; and not without justice. The “practical” people of the period, again, may have pointed out that there was plenty of immediate “practical” work for Manasseh to do in congregations, in societies, in charities and in schools among the Portuguese Jews of the “Jodenbreestraat” in Amsterdam, and that he would do better if he devoted himself to ordinary local work, instead of chasing chimeras and planning Utopian schemes in close agreement with the Puritan Saints and Marrano travellers. And yet, in spite of all the immediate needs of the hour, this remarkable man, inspired by a vision of the lost Ten Tribes of Israel, wrote one book after another; not the traditional commonplace Rabbinical books dealing with questions and details of the conduct of everyday Jewish religious life, but books about the past and the future, about the Ten Tribes and about Israel as a nation—and with an inimitable touch of mysticism and poetry. He thought that Judaism required something more than local activities, that it needed clear-sighted and fearless self-defence, emancipated from routine, and not localized within the boundaries of one country. And he not only wrote books in Hebrew, Spanish, and Latin on this subject, but had several of them translated into other languages; he also entered into personal relations with non-Jewish “dreamers” who had proved by their ideas their intellectual kinship with him, although they challenged him to controversy on some essential points. He wrote petitions and proposals, and interfered to a certain extent with what should, according to some other rabbis, be confidingly left to Providence. It had dawned upon him that the Jews should resettle in England, to pave the way for their final resettlement in Palestine.
Manasseh was nothing if not a Zionist, if we look upon Zionism in the light of his time. He was undoubtedly a dreamer, but one of those dreamers to whom the word of the Psalmist applies, “... We were like unto them that dream.”¹ He combined worldly wisdom with the prophetic spirit. There was some ancient magic about him; there was a deep sense of religion in all his writings. This religious character enabled Manasseh to stir up Christian England at a time when there was a great rekindling of the religious consciousness. No wealthy Jew could have influenced England as did this poor Hebrew scholar; no powerful Jewish community could have produced an impression equal to that produced by this Jewish dreamer, not only by his boundless activity, determination and persistence, but chiefly because he was an inspired man. He brought to his task deep religious feeling, and a mind ripened by Jewish historical studies. He thus set himself to perform with energy and moral courage an exceedingly responsible service to the Jewish people, which he carried out with singular fidelity, inspiration and enthusiasm, as well as with discretion and tact.
He sent his brother-in-law, David Abrabanel [Manuel Martinez Dormido]¹ to England in 1654, to present to the Council a petition for the readmission of the Jews, and followed up this visit by his own journey to England, in order to support this petition.
There were undoubtedly several auxiliary causes which made the readmission of the Jews possible, and the general conditions of the time and the country were assuredly favourable. Still, the fact remains that Manasseh’s powerful imaginative impulse and his emotional Messianic conception were the most important driving force in the wonderful story of the resettlement of the Jews in England.¹ It is true that he did not succeed in obtaining that formal permission for the resettlement which he wanted, but by the publicity of his appeal he brought the subject prominently before the ruling minds of England, and thus indirectly led to the recognition of the fact that there was nothing in English law against the readmission of the Jews.²
One can say, without exaggeration, that there was a Biblical and Messianic idea at the very root of this great event. In effect, Zionism stood at the cradle of the resettlement of the Jews in England. This is clear to everybody who has studied Manasseh’s writings, particularly in the original Hebrew, the language in which he can best be understood and appreciated. His favourite idea was that the return of the Jews to their ancient land must be preceded by their general dispersion. The Dispersion, according to the words of the Bible, was to be from one end of the earth to the other, and must therefore include the British Isles, which lay in the extreme north of the inhabited world. Manasseh made no secret of his Messianic hopes, because he could and did reckon upon the fact that the “Saints” or Puritans wished for the “assembling of God’s people” in their ancestral home and were inclined to help and promote it.
What was the difference between Manasseh and other Rabbis? No Rabbi could fail to be well acquainted with the familiar prophecies of the Bible, and to know that the Dispersion was to be from one end of the earth to the other. Are not these prophecies quoted in the Jewish daily prayers, prayers that have been lost unheard, as it seems, in the dark depths of 2000 years of dispersion, and are known to every Jewish child? Or did not the Rabbis cherish those Messianic hopes which inspired Manasseh? There was only one difference: the difference between passivity and activity, between purely spiritual impulses and impulses which lead to action. If the dispersion has to be complete, let Providence make it complete—this was the usual point of view. Those who merely believed declined to do anything, as they did not wish to face the danger of failure. They lived on that, of which other nations die—on sorrow. Their melancholy had much of majesty in it, but it led to nothing and ended in nothing. They dared not attempt to penetrate into the secrets of the Almighty; for God alone can see what will happen, and no man can avoid his destiny. They refused to undertake any effort for the readmission of their brethren not only into Palestine, but even into England. They were believers, not men of action. Manasseh took matters into his own hands. He not only believed, he acted in accordance with his belief. He collected evidence with judicious care, weighing and measuring difficulties, keeping facts calmly before his mind, studying the facts of the dispersion with interest and zeal. He occupied himself with Messianism more than any Jewish scholar since Don Isaac de Judah Abrabanel (1437–1508), and more effectively than the latter, because of the active character of his plans.
In his מקוה ישראל, Esperança de Israel (Appendix iv), Manasseh relates how the Marrano traveller, Aaron Levi, alias Antony Montezinos, while travelling in South America, had met a race of natives in the Cordilleras, who recited the Shema, practised Jewish ceremonies, and were, in short, Israelites of the tribe of Reuben. Montezinos had related his story to Manasseh, and had even embodied it in a sworn affidavit before the heads of the Amsterdam Synagogue. Montezinos’ story seemed to be a proof of the increasing dispersion of Israel. Daniel (xii. 7) had foretold in his prophecies that the dispersion of the Jewish people would be the forerunner of their restoration.
“And the Lord shall scatter thee among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;...” (Deuteronomy xxviii. 64).
It was clear from Montezinos’ and other travellers’ reports that the Jews had already reached one end of the earth. “Let them enter England and the other end would be reached.” In this sense Manasseh wrote his book, which, at the instigation of John Dury (1596–1680) was translated into English by the Puritan Moses Wall,¹ from the Latin version (Appendix v), of the original Spanish under the title of The Hope of Israel (Appendix vi), which produced a profound impression throughout England. It was followed in the next few years by two other tracts by Manasseh, The Humble Addresses [1655] (Appendix vii) and Vindiciæ Judæorum [1656] (Appendix viii).
These tracts followed the remarkable evolution of English religious ideas which occurred in the seventeenth century. It is a well-known fact that the recognition of religious liberty in England was due chiefly to the struggle between the True Believers and other Nonconformists. The Reformation had granted only a limited form of religious liberty: when the True Believers themselves began to be persecuted the demand for religious liberty became very strong. The earliest pamphlet on this subject, by Leonard Busher, published in 1614,¹ had already demanded religious liberty for the Jews as well.
The English refugees in Amsterdam came into contact with the Jews of that town, and above all with Manasseh, whom they admitted to the innermost circle of friendship. The intercourse was continuous, and did much to dispel the mutual prejudices which old enmities had created and ignorance had nourished. Intimacies were formed which proved salutary to both, particularly to the Saints. Manasseh was also on terms of intimacy with Oliver St. John (1598?–1673), the English Ambassador in Holland (1651), who was afterwards a member of the Committee selected to consider the readmission of the Jews into England.