Menasseh ben Israel

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Menasseh ben Israel (probably the first Zionist)

Menasseh ben Israel, a Dutch Jewish scholar widely respected in both Christian and Jewish circles, played a central role in strengthening the association of the American Indians with the Lost Tribes. Deeply influenced by Montezinos' report and stimulated by his own mystical disposition, Ben Israel gradually fashioned his most important and best-selling book: The Hope of Israel. In 1655 Menasseh ben Israel met with Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, at Westminster. He dedicated The Hope of Israel to Parliament and submitted his petition for the recall of the Jews who had been expelled from England.

Ben Israel's approach was shrewd indeed. He reiterated the belief that the dispersion of Jews to all corners of the Earth was the beginning of the redemption. The first stage had been realized—Israelite tribes had been discovered in the Americas! By completing the dispersion of the Jews, Cromwell himself could hasten the messianic era. He must readmit the Jews to England. Ben Israel associated the Hebrew word for "the end of the Earth" with the medieval term "Angle-Terre" or England. He wrote, "...All which things of necessity must be fulfilled, that so Israel at last being brought back, to his own place, peace which is promised under the Messiah may be restored to the world; and concord, which is the only Mother of all good things."

These words echoed the hopes for a better world, awakened in the second half of the 18th Century during the American and French revolutions. Many abolitionists, for example, claimed that the Messianic Age would be ushered in when the slaves were freed and when the native Americans, descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes, were converted to Christianity. It would have given Menasseh Ben Israel considerable satisfaction to know how deeply his ideas had influenced social theory and the human rights movement.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/losttribes2.html

[Helphand]

Cromwell = the greatest ever English traitor.

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=menasseh%20ben%20israel%20mediatype%3Atexts

Menasseh Ben Israel's "Mission to Oliver Cromwell" (find one or more downloadable - but GoogleBooks' PDFs not downloadable of course).