Menachem Mendel

While this post is about the Gabbai family who was previously mentioned with regard to Hebrew printing in Izmir, I want to actually talk about two very important books which they actually printed in Latin letters and in the Spanish language. In 1659 Avraham Gabbai printed two books which were the first books printed in the Latin alphabet in all of Western Asia, excluding China and India. The first book was Esperanca de Israel (Hope of Israel), the Spanish version of Menasseh ben Israel’s Mikveh Yisrael (one can find a copy of the Spanish and a Hebrew translation here). Ben Israel was a converso from Portugal who settled in Amsterdam and became one of the most colorful and important figures in early-modern Jewish history, playing an important role in the readmission of the Jews to England in 1656. His book Esperanca de Israel argued among other things that in order for the Messiah to come the Jews had to be dispersed, and that included living in England. The Izmir edition was almost identical to the first Spanish edition published in Amsterdam with a few minor additions.

The other book published together with Esperanca de Israel was a book titled Apologia Por La Noble Nacion de los Iudios (An Apology for the Honorable Nation of the Jews). In 1648 a 15 page pamphlet was published in London attributed to Edward Nicholas, but it was soon realized to be a pseudonym. The pamphlet pleaded for the return of the Jews to England based upon the economic benefit that it would bring to England. At around the same time a Spanish version of the pamphlet was also circulated in London and Amsterdam. Scholars have been unclear as to the author of this pamphlet and its original language. A number of scholars have claimed that the actual author of this tract was Menasseh ben Israel and that it was originally written in Spanish.