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Wellsprings
Menasseh Ben Israel

Menasseh Ben Israel

1604 CE–1657 CE

Did you know?

  • Rembrandt etched an Amsterdam rabbi

    Menasseh ben Israel (1604-1657), the Amsterdam rabbi and printer who petitioned Cromwell to readmit Jews to England, lived in the same Amsterdam neighborhood as Rembrandt. In 1636 Rembrandt made an etched portrait long identified as Menasseh, and in 1655 supplied four etchings for Menasseh's book Piedra Gloriosa.

    How we know

    Menasseh ben Israel b.1604 d.1657 (graph). Rembrandt b.1606 d.1669. 1636 etched portrait + 1655 Piedra Gloriosa etchings; shared Jodenbreestraat-area neighborhood (Rembrandthuis museum; Rijksmuseum collection notes).

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Menasseh Ben Israel’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works

No works attributed in the corpus yet.