An illuminating biography of the great Amsterdam rabbi and celebrated popularizer of Judaism in the seventeenth century Menasseh ben Israel (1604-1657) 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 mercantile and scholarly vitality. Born in Lisbon, Menasseh and his family were forcibly converted to Catholicism but suspected of insincerity in their new faith. To avoid the horrors of the Inquisition, they fled first to southwestern France, and then to Amsterdam, where they finally settled. Menasseh played an important role during the formative decades of one of the most vital Jewish communities of early modern Europe, and was influential through his extraordinary work as a printer and his efforts on behalf of the readmission of Jews to England. In this lively biography, Steven Nadler provides a fresh perspective on this seminal figure

The foundation for this work is Koheleth America (KA), the standard bibliography of pre-1927 American Hebrew imprints and have thus included almost all the items it lists. Having decided to inspect all the books catalogued rather than rely on previous bibliographic works, works in KA that could not be located have been omitted. Books that were difficult to access were included only if a photocopy could be obtained. A few volumes that are no longer extant were catalogued from microfilms. The initial decision to follow KA accounts for the inclusion of a few works with little or no Hebrew text, as well as a few printed in Europe or the Land of Israel. Also later editions were catalogued only if they appear in KA. A special effort was also made to catalogue additional Hebrew books printed in North America prior to 1927 that do not appear in KA, partcularly volumes of rabbinics, derash and Americana. The following items were generally excluded from this expanded search: Haggadot, prayer books, educational works, and book catalogues; such items are included only if they appear in KA. The first calendar, periodical and derash are included even though these volumes contain little Hebrew text because they are the first publications of their genres. The first Hebrew calendar is catalogued, but later ones are omitted, as are all unfolded broadsides - p. xix.