There were undoubtedly several auxiliary causes which made the readmission of the Jews possible, and the general conditions of the time and the country were assuredly favourable. Still, the fact remains that Manasseh’s powerful imaginative impulse and his emotional Messianic conception were the most important driving force in the wonderful story of the resettlement of the Jews in England.[¹] It is true that he did not succeed in obtaining that formal permission for the resettlement which he wanted, but by the publicity of his appeal he brought the subject prominently before the ruling minds of England, and thus indirectly led to the recognition of the fact that there was nothing in English law against the readmission of the Jews.[²]
[¹] Not that there had not been Jews in England since the expulsion. The researches of Sir Sidney Lee and Mr. Lucien Wolf have shown that hardly for a single year was English soil without Jewish inhabitants, some of them of considerable distinction: Dr. Rodrigo Lopez (ob. 1594), Antonio Fernandez Carvajal (1590?–1659), Manuel Martinez Dormido [David Abrabanel] (ob. 1667); but they were tolerated only as privileged individuals.
[²] Mr. Lucien Wolf, to whose researches our knowledge of the secret services of Carvajal and his friends to Cromwell and the Commonwealth is due, is inclined to give them all the credit for the readmission. But it is clear that had not public opinion been aroused on the side of Jewish rights, nothing could have been done.
One can say, without exaggeration, that there was a Biblical and Messianic idea at the very root of this great event. In effect, Zionism stood at the cradle of the resettlement of the Jews in England. This is clear to everybody who has studied Manasseh’s writings, particularly in the original Hebrew, the language in which he can best be understood and appreciated. His favourite idea was that the return of the Jews to their ancient land must be preceded by their general dispersion. The Dispersion, according to the words of the Bible, was to be from one end of the earth to the other, and must therefore include the British Isles, which lay in the extreme north of the inhabited world. Manasseh made no secret of his Messianic hopes, because he could and did reckon upon the fact that the “Saints” or Puritans wished for the “assembling of God’s people” in their ancestral home and were inclined to help and promote it.
What was the difference between Manasseh and other Rabbis? No Rabbi could fail to be well acquainted with the familiar prophecies of the Bible, and to know that the Dispersion was to be from one end of the earth to the other. Are not these prophecies quoted in the Jewish daily prayers, prayers that have been lost unheard, as it seems, in the dark depths of 2000 years of dispersion, and are known to every Jewish child? Or did not the Rabbis cherish those Messianic hopes which inspired Manasseh? There was only one difference: the difference between passivity and activity, between purely spiritual impulses and impulses which lead to action. If the dispersion has to be complete, let Providence make it complete—this was the usual point of view. Those who merely believed declined to do anything, as they did not wish to face the danger of failure. They lived on that, of which other nations die—on sorrow. Their melancholy had much of majesty in it, but it led to nothing and ended in nothing. They dared not attempt to penetrate into the secrets of the Almighty; for God alone can see what will happen, and no man can avoid his destiny. They refused to undertake any effort for the readmission of their brethren not only into Palestine, but even into England. They were believers, not men of action. Manasseh took matters into his own hands. He not only believed, he acted in accordance with his belief. He collected evidence with judicious care, weighing and measuring difficulties, keeping facts calmly before his mind, studying the facts of the dispersion with interest and zeal. He occupied himself with Messianism more than any Jewish scholar since Don Isaac de Judah Abrabanel (1437–1508), and more effectively than the latter, because of the active character of his plans.
In his מקוה ישראל, Esperança de Israel (Appendix iv), Manasseh relates how the Marrano traveller, Aaron Levi, alias Antony Montezinos, while travelling in South America, had met a race of natives in the Cordilleras, who recited the Shema, practised Jewish ceremonies, and were, in short, Israelites of the tribe of Reuben. Montezinos had related his story to Manasseh, and had even embodied it in a sworn affidavit before the heads of the Amsterdam Synagogue. Montezinos’ story seemed to be a proof of the increasing dispersion of Israel. Daniel (xii. 7) had foretold in his prophecies that the dispersion of the Jewish people would be the forerunner of their restoration.
“And the Lord shall scatter thee among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;...” (Deuteronomy xxviii. 64).
It was clear from Montezinos’ and other travellers’ reports that the Jews had already reached one end of the earth. “Let them enter England and the other end would be reached.” In this sense Manasseh wrote his book, which, at the instigation of John Dury (1596–1680) was translated into English by the Puritan Moses Wall,[¹] from the Latin version (Appendix v), of the original Spanish under the title of The Hope of Israel (Appendix vi), which produced a profound impression throughout England. It was followed in the next few years by two other tracts by Manasseh, The Humble Addresses [1655] (Appendix vii) and Vindiciæ Judæorum [1656] (Appendix viii).
[¹] “... Moses Wall, of Causham or Caversham in Oxfordshire, a scholar and Republican opinionist, of whom there are traces in Hartlib’s correspondence and elsewhere.” (Life of John Milton, by David Masson (1822–1907), vol. v., 1877, pp. 601–2).
See also The Diary and Correspondence of Dr. John Worthington (1618–1671). Edited by James Crossley (1800–1883).... 1847, pp. 355 and 365.