November 20 1657 – 14 Kislev 5418
Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel died in Middelburg, Holland, in a dismal final chord to a life of outstanding scholarship and leadership. Famous as the Jewish leader responsible for the re-establishment of a Jewish community in England, Rabbi Menasseh was on his way home from negotiating with Oliver Cromwell over extending his unofficial tolerance of Jews to give them official rights to protection, freedom of worship and burial. His efforts bore fruit only after his death, in Charles I’s royal dispensation in 1664, and by parliamentary legislation in 1698. But the great scholar and publisher from Amsterdam died on his way back home, impoverished and exhausted by his efforts, while bringing the dead body of his son Samuel who’d come to assist him in England, for burial in Amsterdam.