Menasseh ben IsraelFrom the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, an illuminating biography of the great Amsterdam rabbi and celebrated popularizer of Judaism in the seventeenth century Menasseh ben Israel (16041657) was among the most accomplished and cosmopolitan rabbis of his time, and a pivotal intellectual figure in early modern Jewish history. He was one of the three rabbis of the Portuguese Nation in Amsterdam, a community that quickly earned renown worldwide for its