The Conciliator of R. Manasseh Ben Israel, London 1842
First English Edition
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- Lot Number 45945
- Title (English) The Conciliator of R. Manasseh Ben Israel
- Note First English Edition
- Author E. H. Lindo, Translator
- City London
- Publisher John Wertheimer & Co.
- Publication Date 1842
- Estimated Price - Low 200
- Estimated Price - High 500
- Item # 1252668
- End Date
- Start Date
Physical Description
First edition. Two volumes, xxxii, 312; iv, 336 pp., quarto, 222:134 mm., usual light age staining, nice margins. A very good set bound in non-matching contemporary cloth over boards, rubbed.
Detail Description
Manasseh Ben Israel (1604–1657), was born a Marrano in Madeira and baptized as Manoel Dias Soeiro. His father, Gaspar Rodrigues Nunez, escaped from Lisbon after appearing as a penitent in an auto-da-fe and settled in Amsterdam, where he took the name Joseph ben Israel and renamed his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh. Manasseh became a member of the Hevrah for Talmud Torah at the age of 12, began to frequent the yeshivot when he was 14, made his first public oration in Portuguese when he was 15, and at 17 wrote his first book, Safah Berurah, a grammatical work (unpublished). Manasseh succeeded R. Isaac Uzziel as preacher to the Neveh Shalom congregation in 1622. He founded the earliest Hebrew printing press in Amsterdam (1626), where he continued to publish works in Hebrew and Spanish (Portuguese) for the remainder of his life. He was a prolific and influential author. He is also remembered for his attempts to gain entry for the Jews into England.
Elias Hayyim Lindo (1783–1865) settled in London after a mercantile career in St. Thomas (West Indies) where he was president of the Jewish community. He published an English translation of Manasseh Ben Israel's Conciliador (1842), A History of the Jews of Spain and Portugal (1848), and a Jewish Calendar for Sixty-four Years (1838) containing much historical information. Some of his unpublished translations of Jewish classics are in the library of Jews' College, London.
Hebrew Description
References
C. Roth, Life of Menasseh ben Israel; Waxman II pp. 695-99; Wolf, Menasseh ben Israel's Mission to Oliver Cromwell (1901)