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Short demurrer to the Jewes long discontinued remitter into England

Menasseh ben Israel imprint
Explore the work of Menasseh Ben Israel, rabbi, scholar, philosopher, diplomat and Hebrew printer, through books in the Cecil Roth Collection.
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Biography of Menasseh ben Israel
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Vindication of the Jews crop
Early printed witnesses to Menasseh ben Israel’s mission to England, including Christian responses.
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Apologia por la noble nacion de los Iudios y hijos de Israel
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Mikveh Yisra’el, Esto es, Esperança De Israel: : Obra con suma curiosidad conpuesta
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Light of the Jews
Arise Evans, Light for the Iews
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William Prynne, Short demurrer to the Jewes long discontinued remitter into England:
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Manasseh ben Israel, Vindiciae Judeorum
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Birkbeck 32.4
Margaret Fox, A loving salutation to the seed of Abraham among the Jewes
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Untitled
Imprints from Menasseh’s press and its Christian publishers, in Spanish, Portuguese and Hebrew (with Latin) with those of his Jewish competitors.
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Hamishah Humshe Torah: Menasseh ben Israel’s Liturgical Bible: Pentateuch, Five Scrolls and the Prophetic Portions (1)
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Hamishah Humshe Torah: Menasseh ben Israel's Liturgical Bible: Pentateuch, Five Scrolls and the Prophetic Portions (3)
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TheTratado del Temor Divino: A mystical treatise on the fear of God
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Esrim ve-arba’ah: Complete Hebrew Bible
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Thesouro dos dinim: que o povo de Israel, he obrigado saber, e observar: A Treasury of [religious] Laws which the people of Israel is obligated to know and keep.
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Hamishim derushim yekarim; va-yikra et shemo Giv’at Sha’ul: Fifty precious sermons by Amsterdam’s senior rabbi
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Sefer Asarah ma’amarot: The book of ten [kabbalistic] Addresses
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Shevet Yehudah: The Sceptre of Judah
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Untitled
This section is devoted to Menasseh as author in the context of Jewish-Christian intellectual contacts in Holland.
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The Conciliator (1)
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Conciliador, o de la conveniencia de los Lugares de la S. Escriptura que repugnantes entre si parecen: The Conciliator (2)
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Strong Room for. 8vo 1633/MAN_001
the Latin translation of the Conciliator
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De creatione problemata XXX: Thirty problems concerning Creation
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De resurrectione mortuorum libri III: Three books on the resurrection of the dead (1)
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De resurrectione mortuorum libri: Three books on the resurrection of the dead (2)
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De resurrectione mortuorum libri: Three books on the resurrection of the dead (3)
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Of the term of life
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Sefer Nishmat hayim: treatise on the immortality of the soul
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Retrato del tabernaculo de Moseh: Portrait of the Tabernacle of Moses
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Retrato del tabernaculo de Moseh: Portrait of the Tabernacle of Moses (2)
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Retrato del tabernaculo de Moseh: Portrait of the Tabernacle of Moses (3)
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Research Resources on Menasseh ben Israel
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This tract by William Prynne (1600–1669), shown here in its second edition (Roth Collection 778), was a hostile response to Menasseh ben Israel’s petition to Oliver Cromwell ‘To His Highnesse the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, the humble addresses of Menasseh Ben Israel, a divine, and doctor of physic, in behalf of the Jewish nation.’

Menasseh’s petition was originally published in Amsterdam in 1651. It was then reprinted in London in 1655. Leeds University Library holds an 1868 reprint.

Menasseh believed that the rule of the Puritans gave a unique opportunity to reverse the expulsion of the Jews from England. He was familiar with their Millenarian tendencies and beliefs in the Second Coming of Christ. Menasseh sought to convince Cromwell that a resettlement of the Jews would hasten universal redemption.

Prynne’s tract is in the form of a demurrer, a legal argument which admits the facts of an opponent’s point but dismisses it as irrelevant. Prynne, a conservative Puritan lawyer and opponent of Cromwell, mixed his learning with gross stereotypes. The text was reused in 1753 by later opponents of Jewish naturalisation.