3-016-141 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Menasseh ben Israel, 1636. Manoel Dias Soeiro (1604-57), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh/ Manasseh ben Israel also, Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, writer, diplomat, printer and publisher, and founder of the first Hebrew printing press (named Emeth Meerets Titsma`h) in Amsterdam in 1626. In 1655, Menasseh came to England from Amsterdam to (successfully) petition the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, to readmit Jews to the country. Menasseh had moved to Amsterdam as a child; the city was an important centre of Jewish life and culture at the time, and Jewish sitters are common in Rembrandt's oeuvre.