MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL

(1604–1657). Jewish theologian. Born on Madeira, this Sephardic (Portuguese) Jewish scholar settled in Amsterdam, where he founded a printing house in 1626. He pub lished his own El Conciliador from 1632 to 1651, in which he tried to reconcile seemingly contradictory passages of the Bible. Menasseh was convinced of the importance of the coming of the Messiah as soon as the Diaspora of the Jews over the world was completed. In 1655, he went to London hoping to induce Oliver Cromwell to admit the Jews freely to England, without success. A portrait of him has been attributed to Rembrandt.