MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL

SAMUEL M. GOLLANCZ COPY OF MENASSEH’S CLASSIC MIKVEH ISRAEL FIRST HEBREW EDITION of Esperança de Israel, Menasseh ben Israel’s treatise on the Ten Lost Tribes and the related revelations of Antonio Montezinos (Aaron Levi), a Marrano interloper in New Spain (today Ecuador). An important work that laid the groundwork for the Re-admission of the Jews to England in 1656. See L. M. Friedman, Jewish Pioneers and Patriots (1948), pp. 155-158; EJ, Vol. XII, col. 278. Rev. Samuel Marcus Gollancz (1820-1900), an ordained rabbi and Talmudic scholar, was born in Witkovo, Province of Posen (Prussian Poland). He studied in several yeshivoth in the Posen area, including that of the Talmudist par excellence, R. Akiva Eiger. In England, he served as minister of London’s Hambro Synagogue from 1855 to 1900. S.M. Gollancz was the father of Sir Hermann Gollancz (1852-1930), rabbi at the Bayswater Synagogue and Professor of Hebrew at University College, London; and of Sir Israel Gollanz (1864-1930), an outstanding Shakespearean scholar, lecturer in English at University College, London, then at Cambridge, and finally appointed Professor of English Language and Literature at King’s College, London. Into the next generation, a grandson of S.M. Gollancz was Sir Victor Gollancz (1893-1967), English publisher and author. See Todd M. Endelman, The Jews of Britain 1656 to 2000 (2002), pp. 119-120; Paul H. Emden, Jews of Britain (1943), p. 123; EJ, Vol. VII, cols. 760-762