Menasseh ben Israel (part 3)

Menasseh ben Israel: Printing and Teaching Judaism

This section united imprints from Menasseh’s press and its Christian publishers, in Spanish, Portuguese and Hebrew (with Latin) with those of his Jewish competitors.

Orden de los cincos Tahanioth. Estampado por ordre de los señores Efraim Bueno, y Yonah Abravanel. Amsterdam: Menasseh ben Israel, 5390 [1630].

[2], 222 p; 15 cm; 8vo. Wanting title page. Special Collections Roth Collection 534

A Spanish translation of the prayers for the five “minor” fast days of the year (10^th of Tevet, Ta’nit Esther, 17^th of Tammuz, 9^th of Av, and Tzom Gedaliah). Financed by his friend the physician Bueno (whose portrait was painted by Rembrandt) and his brother-in-law.

Hamishah Humshe Torah: u-Nevi’im rishonim ve-aharonim ve-ketubim; Haftarot mi-kol ha-shanah. Pentateuch with Targum, Five Scrolls and the Haftaroth. Be-Amsterdam: Nidfas be-veit Menasseh ben Israel; Amstelreodami: sumptibus Henrici Laurentii [1631]
128 l [i.e. 256 p], 46 l [i.e. 92 p]; 22 cm. Special Collections Roth Collection 111

Printed and corrected in Amsterdam by Menasseh ben Joseph Ben Israel, financed by the Christian publisher Laurentius (active 1602-45) who early saw the export potential of the new high quality Hebrew imprints produced by Menasseh. The Pentateuch and prophetical portions are arranged for the weekly Shabbat readings. The woodcut title page design has been lifted from a

Christian publication, as shown by the Tetragrammaton enclosed in a triangle of light – a motif of Jesuit inspiration also used by Millenarian sects.

Tratado del Temor Divino, extracto del doctissimo libro llamado Ressit hohmá, traduzido nuevamente del Hebrayco, a nuestro vulgar idioma por David hijo de Ishac Coen de Lara. Amstelredam: en casa de Menasseh ben Yosseph ben Ysrael, 5393 [1633]

208 p; 18 cm; 4to. Wanting all after p. 208 [2 pages missing at the end]. Special Collections Roth Collection 889

Reshit Hokhmah (Beginning of Wisdom) was a popular ethical work by the Safed kabbalist Elijah ben Moses de Vidas (? 1518- Hebron 92). In it, he collected all the moral sentences scattered throughout the Talmud, Midrashim, and Zohar. The present Spanish translation is of the first part, concerning the fear of God. Spanish was the learned vernacular, which the Portuguese Conversos had studied at university. The woodcut title page arch is topped by the pelican feeding its young – a Christian symbol of the crucifixion and one of the symbols adopted by the Rosicrucian sect. It was adapted on one of the portals of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue (1675).

Esrim ve-arba’ah: ve-hem hamishah humshe Torah Nevi’im rishonim ve-aharonim u-Khetuvim. Bible, Old Testament, Hebrew. Be-Amsterdam: be-vet Menasheh ben Yisra’el, [3]98 [1639]; Amstelodami: Sumptibus Joannis Janssonii, 1639

166 l [i.e. 332 p].; c. 17 cm. Special Collections Roth Collection 104

Menasseh’s complete Hebrew Bible, not arranged for liturgical use, with a fine engraved titlepage. In this year, Menasseh joined the college of Rabbis of the newly united Sephardi community and was expected to give up printing. Jansonnius (Arnhem 1588 – Amsterdam 1661), the Christian publisher who financed this book with a clear eye on especially the growing Polish market, also printed five Hebrew books on his own account.

Manasseh ben Israel, Thesouro dos dinim: que o povo de Israel, he obrigado saber, e observar composto por Menasseh ben Israel. Amsterdam: [s.n.], 5470 [1710]
Special Collections Roth Collection 635

This work was originally published by the Printer Elijah Aboab, 5405 [1645]. It was dedicated to “Senhores Parnassim deste Kados de Talmud Tora”, that is Menasseh’s employers, with an approbation (permission to print) by Rabbis Saul Levi Mortera (see next item) and David Pardo. The book was intended to help the recently reconverted members of the community to observe laws which were new and in some cases strange to them. As a DYI manual, it is written in the ‘common’ Portuguese.

Saul Levi Mortera, Hamishim derushim yekarim; va-yikra et shemo Giv’at Sha’ul. Amsterdam: Be-vet Imanu’el Benvenisti, 405 [1645]
116 l; 22 cm. Special Collections Roth Collection 704

Saul Levi Mortera (Venice 1596-Amsterdam 1660) a senior Amsterdam rabbi, a famed preacher, and a teacher at Keter Torah. In 1656 he chaired the tribunal that excommunicated his former pupil Baruch Spinoza. The 50 sermons in the present work were published by Mortera’s students, who selected them from among a corpus of 500. Immanuel Benvenisti was Menasseh ben Israel’s most formidable competitor in the Hebrew printing business. Between 1641 and 1660 the Benveniste press produced prayer-books, an edition of the Midrash Rabbah, Alfasi’s law code, and the Shulchan Arukh. His woodcut title pages, here displaying Benvenisti’s printer’s mark as a coat of arms displaying a castle and lion (Castile and Leon?) surmounted by a star, were widely imitated in Hebrew printing across Europe.

Menahem Azariah da Fano, Sefer Asarah ma’amarot. she-hiber Menahem Imanu’el; ve-nosaf alav ha-perush Yo’el Mosheh she-hotsi le-or Mosheh ben Shelomoh ha-Levi. [Amsterdam]: Nidpas be-vet Yehud. ben Mordekhai, Shemu’el bar Mosheh ha-Levi, 409 [1649]

158 l [i.e. 316 p]; 20 cm. Special Collections Roth Collection 260

This is one of the early works of popular Kabbalah and shows its spread among the Sephardi communities. The “Ten Essays” originate in festival sermons by Menahem Azariah da Fano (1548-Mantua 1620), Italian rabbi, talmudist, and kabbalist. His achievement was to make Lurianic Kabbalah accessible to the common people. With the commentary Yoel Moshe by Moses ben Solomon ha Levi of Frankfurt (here in its first edition), Fano’s Kabbalah became accepted among an Ashkenazi readership. Judah Leib ben Mordekhai Gimpel of Posen and Samuel bar Moses ha Levi were the first Ashkenazi printers in Amsterdam (1648-52). The former had been compositor at both Menasseh ben Israel’s and Immanuel Benvenisti’s presses, Samuel bar Moses ha Levi had been foreman at Benvenisti’s press. So it is hardly surprising that the titlepage is based on Benvenisti’s gate design – even that printer’s lion and tower device reappears.

Solomon Ibn Verga, Shevet Yehudah. Amsterdam: be-vet Imanu’el Benvenisti, 415 [1655]
88 l [i.e. 176 p]; 16 cm. Special Collections Roth Collection 357

Ibn Verga (1460-1554), a refugee scholar from Portugal, wrote Sceptre of Judah (alluding to Gen 49:10: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah…”) as an account of Jewish persecutions, culminating in those of the Iberian Peninsula that he had witnessed himself. He was an eyewitness of the Lisbon massacre of 1506. The work was a bestseller: a Yiddish translation was published in Amsterdam in the fateful year 1648, and a Latin one in 1680. The titlepage features a different gate design, with the familiar coat of arms drawn in by hand.