Catalogo dos Libros que Semuel Ben Israel Soeiro Vende (Catalogue of Books for Sale by Samuel Ben Israel Soeiro)
Samuel ben Israel Soeiro
Menasseh Ben Israel
1652


Creator Bio
Samuel ben Israel Soeiro
Samuel Ben Israel Soeiro (also known as Semuel Ben Israel Abarbanel Sueiro) was a bookseller, printer, and publisher in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from 1649 to 1651. He was the son of communal leader and publisher Menasseh Ben Israel and his wife Rachel, a member of the Abravanel family.
Creator Bio
Menasseh Ben Israel
Born to converso parents and baptized as Manoel Dias Soeiro, Menasseh moved as a boy with his family to Amsterdam, where they reverted to open Judaism. In 1626, he established the first Hebrew printing shop in the Dutch capital. In his writings, he emphasized that the eternal life of the soul was assured to all the righteous of the nations. In 1650, he published his Esperança de Israel (The Hope of Israel) in several languages. In addition to his own writing and printing business, Menasseh Ben Israel was the third most important of the four ḥakhamim (rabbis) of the Sephardic congregation and was a gifted preacher. He was an interlocutor of Christian intellectuals on behalf of the Jewish community. Menasseh Ben Israel attended the 1655 Whitehall Conference and negotiated (unsuccessfully) with British leaders to obtain written permission for Jewish settlement in England.