RT Article
T1 Mediating Jewish Knowledge: Menasseh ben Israel and the Christian Respublica litteraria
JF The Jewish quarterly review
VO 102
IS 4
SP 561
OP 588
A1 Rauschenbach, Sina
LA English
PB Penn Press
YR 2012
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1802097058
AB Cooperation between Christian and Jewish scholars was common in the world of Early Modern Christian Hebraica. Ever since Christians decided to study the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the Kabbala and the commentaries and treaties of the Medieval Jewish philosophers there were rabbis to teach them or to help them edit the Hebrew books they needed. Still, outside of grammars, only a few rabbis went as far as authoring books for Christian audiences. Menasseh ben Israel (1604–1657), the famous Amsterdam rabbi known above all for his negotiations with Oliver Cromwell and the London parliament about the renaturalization of the Jews to England, was one of the first systematically to publish Latin books for a Christian audience and to “translate” Judaism into Christian contexts. In my essay I explain how Menasseh proceeded, how he merged Jewish knowledge into the knowledge of the Christian Respublica litteraria, and how he finally interconnected his scholarly and his political activities. Of special interest is Menasseh’s idea of an Abramite theology, a common subset of shared Jewish and Christian teachings which could be used as something like a “third space” in intercultural translation processes. Finally, I discuss some aspects of the failure of Menasseh’s project, reflected in the ambivalent reactions of the Christian world, and reconsidered with regard to the conditions early modern cultural mediators generally had to meet, but which Menasseh didn’t.
K1 Third Space
K1 Early Modern Mediators
K1 Cultural Translation
K1 Transmission of Knowledge
K1 Cultural Exchange
K1 Respublica litteraria
K1 Abramites
K1 Hebraica Veritas
K1 Christian Hebraists
K1 Re-Naturalization of the Jews in England
K1 Dutch Jews
K1 Sefardim
K1 Sefardic History
K1 Dutch Golden Age
K1 17th Century Amsterdam
K1 Menasseh ben Israel
DO 10.1353/jqr.2012.0032