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How Jewish comedy found religion, from Philip Roth to ‘Broad City’
(JTA) — In the 2020 comedy “Shiva Baby,” a 20-something young woman shows up at a house of Jewish mourners and gently offers her condolences. When she finds her mother in the kitchen, they chat about the funeral and the rugelach before the daughter asks, “Mom, who died?”
While “Shiva Baby” explores themes of sexuality and gender, the comedy almost never comes at the expense of Jewish tradition, which is treated seriously by its millennial writer and director Emma Seligman (born in 1995) even as the shiva-goers collide. It’s far cry from the acerbic way an author raised during the Depression like Philip Roth lampooned a Jewish wedding or a baby boomer like Jerry Seinfeld mocked a bris.
These generational differences are explored in Jenny Caplan’s new book, “Funny, You Don’t Look Funny: Judaism and Humor from the Silent Generation to Millennials.” A religion scholar, Caplan writes about the way North American Jewish comedy has evolved since World War II, with a focus on how humorists treat Judaism as a religion. Her subjects range from writers and filmmakers who came of age shortly after the war (who viewed Judaism as “a joke at best and an actual danger at worst”) to Generation X and millennials, whose Jewish comedy often recognizes “the power of community, the value of family tradition, and the way that religion can serve as a port in an emotional storm.”
“I see great value in zeroing in on the ways in which Jewish humorists have engaged Jewish practices and their own Jewishness,” Caplan writes. “It tells us something (or perhaps it tells us many somethings) about the relationship between Jews and humor that goes deeper than the mere coincidence that a certain humorist was born into a certain family.”
Caplan is the chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Cincinnati. She has a master’s of theological studies degree from Harvard Divinity School and earned a Ph.D. in religion from Syracuse University.
In a conversation last week, we spoke about the Jewishness of Jerry Seinfeld, efforts by young women comics to reclaim the “Jewish American Princess” label, and why she no longer shows Woody Allen movies in her classrooms.
Our conversation was edited for length and clarity
[Note: For the purpose of her book and our conversation, this is how Caplan isolates the generations: the Silent Generation (b. 1925-45), the baby boom (1946-65), Generation X (1966-79) and millennials (1980–95).]
Jewish Telegraphic Agency: Let me ask how you got into this topic.
Jenny Caplan: I grew up in a family where I was just sort of surrounded by this kind of material. My dad is a comedic actor and director who went to [Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s] Clown College. My degrees were more broadly in American religion, not Jewish studies, but I was really interested in the combination of American religion and popular culture. When I got to Syracuse and it came time to start thinking about my larger project and what I wanted to do, I proposed a dissertation on Jewish humor.
The key to your book is how Jewish humor reflects the Jewish identity and compulsions of four sequential generations. Let’s start with the Silent Generation, which is sandwiched between the generation whose men were old enough to fight in World War II and the baby boomers who were born just after the war.
The hallmark of the Silent Generation is that they were old enough to be aware of the war, but they were mostly too young to serve. Every time I told people what I was writing about, they would say Woody Allen or Philip Roth, two people of roughly the same generation.
In “Funny, You Don’t Look Funny: Judaism and Humor from the Silent Generation to Millennials,” Jenny Caplan explores how comics treated religion from the end of World War II to the 21st century. (Courtesy)
The Roth story you focus on is “Eli, the Fanatic” from 1959, about an assimilated Jewish suburb that is embarrassed and sort of freaks out when an Orthodox yeshiva, led by a Holocaust survivor, sets up in town.
Roth spent the first 20 to 30 years of his career dodging the claim of being a self-loathing Jew and bad for the Jews. But the actual social critique of “Eli, the Fanatic” is so sharp. It is about how American Jewish comfort comes at the expense of displaced persons from World War II and at the expense of those for whom Judaism is a real thriving, living religious practice.
That’s an example you offer when you write that the Silent Generation “may have found organized religion to be a dangerous force, but they nevertheless wanted to protect and preserve the Jewish people.” I think that would surprise people in regards to Roth, and maybe to some degree Woody Allen.
Yeah, it surprised me. They really did, I think, share that postwar Jewish sense of insecurity about ongoing Jewish continuity, and that there’s still an existential threat to the ongoing existence of Jews.
I hear that and I think of Woody Allen’s characters, atheists who are often on the lookout for antisemitism. But you don’t focus on Allen as the intellectual nebbish of the movies. You look at his satire of Jewish texts, like his very funny “Hassidic Tales, With a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar” from 1970, which appeared in The New Yorker. It’s a parody of Martin Buber’s “Tales of the Hasidim” and sentimental depictions of the shtetl, perhaps like “Fiddler on the Roof.” A reader might think he’s just mocking the tradition, but you think there’s something else going on.
He’s not mocking the tradition as much as he’s mocking a sort of consumerist approach to the tradition. There was this sort of very superficial attachment to Buber’s “Tales of the Hasidim.” Allen’s satire is not a critique of the traditions of Judaism, it’s a critique of the way that people latch onto things like the Kabbalah and these new English translations of Hasidic stories without any real depth of thought or intellect. Intellectual hypocrisy seems to be a common theme in his movies and in his writing. It’s really a critique of organized religion, and it’s a critique of institutions, and it’s a critique of the power of institutions. But it’s not a critique of the concept of religion.
The idea of making fun of the wise men and their gullible followers reminds me of the folk tales of Chelm, which feature rabbis and other Jewish leaders who use Jewish logic to come to illogical conclusions.
Yes.
You write that the baby boomers are sort of a transition between the Silent Generation and a later generation: They were the teenagers of the counterculture, and warned about the dangers of empty religion, but also came to consider religion and tradition as valuable. But before you get there, you have a 1977 “Saturday Night Live” skit in which a bris is performed in the back seat of a luxury car, and the rabbi who performs it is portrayed as what you call an absolute sellout.
Exactly. You know: Institutional religion is empty and it’s hollow, it’s dangerous and it’s seductive.
Jerry Seinfeld, born in 1954, is seen as an icon of Jewish humor, but to me is an example of someone who never depicts religion as a positive thing. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
“Seinfeld” is more a show about New York than it is necessarily a show about anything Jewish. The New York of Seinfeld is very similar to the New York of Woody Allen, peopled almost entirely by white, middle-class, attractive folks. It’s a sort of Upper West Side myopia.
But there’s the bris episode, aired in 1993, and written by Larry Charles. Unless you are really interested in the medium, you may not know much about Larry Charles, because he stays behind the camera. But he also goes on to do things like direct Bill Maher’s anti-religion documentary “Religulous,” and there’s a real strong case for him as having very negative feelings about organized religion which feels like a holdover from the Silent Generation. And so in that episode you have Kramer as the Larry Charles stand-in, just opining about the barbaric nature of the circumcision and trying to save this poor baby from being mutilated.
The few references to actual Judaism in “Seinfeld” are squirmy. I am thinking of the 1995 episode in which a buffoon of a rabbi blurts out Elaine’s secrets on a TV show. That was written by Larry David, another boomer, whose follow-up series, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” is similarly known for its irreverence toward Judaism. But you say David can also surprise you with a kind of empathy for religion.
For the most part, he’s classic, old school, anti-organized religion. There’s the Palestinian Chicken episode where the Jews are rabidly protesting the existence of a Palestinian-run chicken restaurant near a Jewish deli, and where his friend Funkhouser won’t play golf on Shabbos until Larry gets permission by bribing the rabbi with the Palestinian chicken. There, rabbis are ridiculous and can be bought and religion is hollow and this is all terrible.
But then there’s this bat mitzvah montage where for one moment in the entire run of this show, Larry seems happy and in a healthy relationship and fulfilled and enjoying life.
That’s where he falls in love with Loretta Black during a bat mitzvah and imagines a happy future with her.
It’s so startling: It is the most human we ever see Larry over the run of the show, and I believe that was the season finale for the 2007 season. It was much more in line with what we’ve been seeing from a lot of younger comedians at that point, which was religion as an anchor in a good way — not to pull you down but to keep you grounded.
So for Generation X, as you write, Judaism serves “real, emotional, or psychological purpose for the practitioners.”
I wouldn’t actually call it respect but religion is an idea that’s not just something to be mocked and relegated to the dustbin. I’m not saying that Generation X is necessarily more religious, but they see real power and value in tradition and in certain kinds of family experiences. So, a huge amount of the humor can still come at the expense of your Jewish mother or your Jewish grandmother, but the family can also be the thing that is keeping you grounded, and frequently through some sort of religious ritual.
Who exemplifies that?
My favorite example is the 2009 Jonathan Tropper novel, “This Is Where I Leave You.” I’m so disappointed that the film adaptation of that sucked a lot of the Jewish identity out of the story, so let’s stick with the novel. In that book, where a family gathers for their father’s shiva, the characters are horrible people in a dysfunctional family writ large. They lie to each other. They backstab each other. But in scene where the protagonist Judd describes standing up on the bimah [in synagogue] to say Kaddish [the Mourner’s Prayer] after the death of his father, and the way he talks about this emotional catharsis that comes from saying the words and hearing the congregation say the words — it’s a startling moment of clarity in a book where these characters are otherwise just truly reprehensible.
Adam Sandler was born in 1966, the first year of Generation X, and his “Chanukah Song” seems like such a touchstone for his generation and the ones that follow. It’s not about religious Judaism, but in listing Jewish celebrities, it’s a statement of ethnic pride that Roth or Woody Allen couldn’t imagine.
It’s the reclamation of Jewish identity as something great and cool and fun and hip and wonderful and absolutely not to be ashamed of.
From left, Ilana Glazer, Abbi Jacobson and Seth Green in an episode of “Broad City” parodying Birthright Israel. (Screenshot from Comedy Central)
Which brings us to “Broad City,” which aired between 2014 and 2019. It’s about two 20-something Jewish women in New York who, in the case of Ilana Glazer’s character, anyway, are almost giddy about being Jewish and embrace it just as they embrace their sexuality: as just liberating. Ilana even upends the Jewish mother cliche by loving her mother to death.
That’s the episode with Ilana at her grandmother’s shiva, which also has the B plot where Ilana and her mother are shopping for underground illegal handbags. They spend most of the episode snarking at each other and fighting with each other and her mother’s a nag and Ilana is a bumbling idiot. But at the moment that the cops show up, and try to nab them for having all of these illegal knockoff handbags, the two of them are a team. They are an absolute unit of destructive force against these hapless police officers.
I think all of your examples of younger comics are women, who have always had fraught relationships with Jewish humor, both as practitioners and as the target of jokes. You write about “The JAP Battle” rap from “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” which both leans into the stereotype of the Jewish-American Princess — spoiled, acquisitive, “hard as nails” — and tries to reclaim it without the misogyny.
Rachel Bloom’s character Rebecca in “Girlfriend” self-identifies as a JAP, but she doesn’t actually fit the category. It’s her mother, Naomi, who truly is the Philip Roth, “Marjorie Morningstar,” Herman Wouk model of a JAP. So Bloom is kind of using the term, but you can’t repurpose the term when the original is still there.
So as an alternative, I offer up a new term: the Modern Ashkenazi American Woman. It’s very New York, it’s very East Coast, it’s very particular to a type of upbringing and community that in the 1950s and ’60s would have been almost exclusively Conservative Jews, and then may have become a bit more Reform as we’ve gotten into the ’90s and 2000s. They went to the JCC. They probably went to Jewish summer camp.
But even that doesn’t even really speak to the American sense of what Jewish is anymore, because American Jews have become increasingly racially and culturally diverse.
There is also something that’s happening historically with Generation X, and that’s the distance from the two major Jewish events of the 20th century, which is the Holocaust and the creation of Israel.
The Silent Generation and baby boomers still had a lingering sense of existential dread — the sense that we’re not so far removed from an attempted total annihilation of Jews. Gen X and millennials are so far removed from the Holocaust that they don’t feel that same fear.
But the real battleground we’re seeing in contemporary American Judaism is about the relationship to Israel. For baby boomers and even for some older members of Gen X, there’s still a sense that you can criticize Israel, but at the end of the day, it’s your duty to ultimately support Israel’s right to exist. And I think millennials and Zoomers [Gen Z] are much more comfortable with the idea of Israel being illegitimate.
Have you seen that in comedy?
I certainly think you can see the leading edge of that in some millennial stuff. The “Jews on a Plane” episode of “Broad City” is an absolute excoriation of Birthright Israel, and does not seem particularly interested in softening its punches about the whole idea of Jews going to Israel. I think we can see a trend in that direction, where younger American Jewish comedians do not see that as punching down.
You’re teaching a class on Jewish humor. What do your undergraduates find funny? Now that Woody Allen is better known for having married his adoptive daughter and for the molestation allegations brought by another adoptive daughter, do they look at his classic films and ask, “Why are you teaching us this guy?”
For the first time I’m not including Woody Allen. I had shown “Crimes and Misdemeanors” for years because I think it’s his most theological film. I think it’s a great film. And then a couple years ago, I backed off, because some students were responding that it was hard to look at him with all the baggage. He’s still coming up in conversation because you can’t really talk about the people who came after him without talking about him, but for the first time I’m not having them actually watch or read any of his stuff.
They have found things funny that I didn’t expect them to, and they have not found things funny that I would have thought they would. They laughed their way through “Yidl mitn fidl,” the 1936 Yiddish musical starring Molly Picon. I also thought they’d enjoy the Marx Brothers’ “Duck Soup” and they did not laugh once. Some of that is the fact that Groucho’s delivery is just so fast.
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Are We Paying Attention to Iran’s Strategy?
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of late Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attends a meeting in Tehran, Iran, July 18, 2016. Photo: Amir Kholousi/ISNA/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Far too much attention has been given to President Donald Trump’s strategy in the current conflict, and far too little to that of the Islamic Republic.
It is an underestimation of Iran and an indictment of the West.
The common belief is that Iran’s original goal was nuclear capability, either to prevent the US from attacking it (the North Korea strategy) or to use it against the Great and the Little Satan. Perhaps.
But the mullahs had/have a second strategic goal — which appears to be working quite well: The undermining and elimination of political, military, economic, and social ties between the US and what has always been their alliance base: primarily NATO, the EU, and the UN, but also the Gulf Arab States and parts of South America.
October 7th
The horrors of Oct. 7 were not designed to destroy Israel — neither Iran nor Hamas believed the terror organization could do that, even if Hezbollah had helped. After years of relatively small-scale attacks and limited Israeli responses followed by ceasefires, this monstrosity was designed to ensure massive Israeli retaliation that would produce a significant political cost on the Jewish State.
With quick and organized PR, Palestinian civilian suffering became the central image of the conflict. The images and the lies they told were designed to isolate Israel diplomatically, erode its standing in Western societies, and reignite deeply rooted hostility across the Arab and Muslim worlds.
While Israel, in fact, conducted perhaps the most careful military campaign in history, both real and (mostly) false images and stories were used to cast Israel as a villain, which committed “genocide.” Even though casualty statistics by independent groups show that never happened, and ample proof that Israel never had a goal to kill civilians intentionally.
In many spheres, the Iranian and Hamas objective against Israel was achieved. France, the UK, Canada, Australia, Italy, the EU as a body, Denmark, and many more all pulled away from Jerusalem. (Norway, Spain, and Ireland were always hostile, so they don’t count. The UN doesn’t either.) This group extends to Democrats in our own Congress, leftists on campus, and the journalistic chattering class.
The damage calculation is not complete.
Fighting America
The same principle exists for Iran’s 47-year war against the US. Iranian attacks against America have been carefully structured to do damage, but only enough to claim bragging rights — not enough to produce a backlash. Until now.
- In 1979, Americans were held hostage for 444 days in the US Embassy in Tehran.
- The Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut killed 241 US servicemembers and 58 French soldiers.
- William Francis Buckley (1984), US Navy diver Robert Stethem (1985), and Colonel William R. Higgins (1988) were tortured and murdered. In 2007, Robert Levinson was presumed kidnapped by Iran and killed.
- In 1996, the Khobar Towers attack occurred.
- Iran was responsible for the construction, strategy, and use of IEDs during the Iraq war.
- In 2011, Iranian plots in Washington, D.C, involved killing a Saudi diplomat and attacking the Israeli and Saudi embassies. That year, Iran also began taking steps to mine the Persian Gulf.
- US Naval Intelligence shows Iranian warships in the Red Sea — where Iran has no border — since 2011 — as part of Iran’s support for the Houthi rebellion in Yemen.
- In 2012, chairman of the Iranian chiefs of staff, Hassan Firuzabadi, said, “We do have the plan to close the Strait of Hormuz, since a member of the military must plan for all scenarios.”
- Iranian war games in 2015 were designed against American forces and passed skills along to proxy forces. Beginning in 2016, swarms of Iranian fast boats harassed American ships and others in the Persian Gulf. Iran captured American sailors and released video footage of them — a violation of their rights under the Geneva Convention.
- In 2018, US intelligence revealed that Iran was responsible for more than 600 American military deaths and thousands wounded by Iranian IEDs in Iraq.
- In 2024, three military contractors working in Jordan as contractors were killed in a drone attack, and 40 others were injured.
Each damaging, most deadly. None, in isolation, enough to engender an American military response. But all of these — including many unlisted incidents — showed that Tehran had the US in its sights.
The Denouement
At the same time, Israeli and American intelligence were monitoring the enrichment of Iranian uranium beyond Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) limits and ballistic missile ranges beyond UN sanctions. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), as loud an opponent of President Trump and this war as there is, acknowledged that Iran had enough uranium to make nuclear bombs, but added there was no reason to do anything about it because Iran’s missiles couldn’t yet reach the United States.
This is not an uncommon view — if Iran couldn’t reach us with a nuclear weapon, it was not our war.
But as Iran’s capabilities grew, the margins narrowed. And the United States and Israel found themselves in a war they didn’t ask for, didn’t want, but have to win.
Unfortunately, the allied response in Europe and across the world produced the diplomatic response Iran wanted.
The mullah government doesn’t care how many of their people die — they killed 35,000+ civilians in the streets in January — they care about the ultimate “victory.” The more European countries and institutions, plus the UN, castigate and punish Israel and the US, the happier the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards Corp are. The histrionic anti-American and anti-Israel and antisemitic caterwauling has Iran claiming it is winning.
The Other World
To be fair, there is another world.
Venezuela’s presidential candidate, Maria Corina Machado, received a large welcome in Spain by an estimated 100,000 people after she refused to meet with Spain’s Prime Minister. And Israel’s relations with Latin American countries are on the upswing. Increasingly concerned about China, Japan and South Korea have signaled that they are ready to step in and purchase Israeli defense systems. India is a reliable ally.
Most importantly, the people of the Arab states themselves, and the people of Iran and Africa, have moved in the opposite direction from Europe, the UN, and American leftists. And, while it remains tentative, even the Lebanese government has banned Hezbollah and has announced itself ready to find peace with Israel.
Syria, while a very unfinished product, appears unwilling to antagonize Israel and has, apparently, ceased its attacks on the Druze areas in the south.
No country has left the Abraham Accords, and Kazakhstan joined in November 2025. Israel maintains trade and diplomatic relations with all Central Asian countries.
And finally, the Palestinians appear to have lost favor among the Arab states as Iran’s influence and money — and Qatar’s money — have crashed.
The American strategy has yet to play out. Depending on how the rest of the war goes, Iran could find itself even worse off than before the war started.
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of the Jewish Policy Center.
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A Ceasefire Is Not a Strategy: What It Will Take to Turn the Israel–Lebanon Truce into a Turning Point
Lebanese army members and residents inspect the damages in the southern village of Kfar Kila, Lebanon, Feb. 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Karamallah Daher
The direct talks and ceasefire announced last week between Israel and Lebanon present a historic opportunity for welcome de-escalation and a dramatically improved relationship between the two countries; however, as long as Hezbollah retains its weapons, along with the power to decide when war begins and ends, no agreement between the two governments will hold.
A truce that leaves that reality untouched is not a solution. It is a pause.
Importantly, the terms of the current arrangement reflect that reality. The ceasefire does not require Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory, effectively allowing it to maintain a buffer zone along the border. It also reiterates Israel’s inherent right to self-defense. In the days since the ceasefire was announced, Israel has already conducted self-defense strikes in Lebanon against Hezbollah operatives following the deaths of two IDF soldiers killed in explosive attacks. Hezbollah also reportedly killed a French UNIFIL peacekeeper and wounded several others.
This reflects the usual pattern: Previous arrangements between Israel and Lebanon, mediated through third parties, reduced violence in the short term while leaving the primary driver of the conflict — Hezbollah (funded and armed by the Iranian regime) — in place. The central question now is whether this moment can break that pattern.
For decades, Hezbollah has operated as both a powerful military force and a dominant political actor inside Lebanon. It has positioned itself as Lebanon’s defender against Israel. That narrative has been central to its legitimacy, but it is also the source of Lebanon’s instability.
There is a potential path — narrow, but real — in which Israel can weaken Hezbollah not only through military pressure, but by bypassing it politically. By engaging, directly or indirectly, with the Lebanese state, Israel helps reestablish a distinction that Hezbollah has long sought to erase: the difference between Lebanon and the terror group that claims to act in its name. If that distinction begins to take hold, it has strategic implications.
A ceasefire that allows Israel to maintain a buffer zone while reducing active hostilities creates a more controlled security environment along the border. If that space is used to enable a more active role for the Lebanese Armed Forces in southern Lebanon, supported by international partners, it could begin to shift the balance, however gradually, toward state sovereignty.
A diplomatic pathway with real teeth that addresses border security, enforcement mechanisms, and accountability for Hezbollah violations would reinforce that shift.
Over time, these steps could do something that military force alone cannot: reduce Hezbollah’s relevance within Lebanon itself.
That is the theory of success, but it comes with significant constraints.
First, military pressure on Hezbollah cannot disappear prematurely. It is precisely that pressure that has helped create the current diplomatic opening. The fact that Israel retains both a physical presence in key areas and an explicitly recognized right to act in self-defense reflects a continued need for deterrence. If that posture weakens too quickly, Hezbollah will have both the time and the narrative space to regroup and reassert itself.
Second, diplomacy must lead somewhere tangible. A ceasefire that simply pauses hostilities without establishing mechanisms to prevent rearmament, cross-border attacks, or escalation will not hold. The details here really matter, and the absence of follow-on arrangements has been a defining weakness of past efforts.
Third, and most difficult, the issue of Hezbollah’s Iranian-backed military capability cannot be indefinitely deferred. Whether through formal disarmament, military defeat by Israel, or a gradual reassertion of state control by the Lebanese Armed Forces, this issue will ultimately determine whether stability is temporary or sustainable.
Hezbollah’s strategic alignment with Iran means that developments in Lebanon are closely tied to a wider regional dynamic. Iran’s model has long relied on projecting influence through armed non-state actors embedded within fragile states. To the extent that Lebanon moves — even incrementally — toward stronger state control and direct engagement with Israel, that model comes under pressure.
A successful diplomatic track between Israel and Lebanon would carry implications beyond the immediate conflict and would represent not just a stabilization of the border, but a significant strategic setback for Iran’s broader architecture of regional instability. However, that outcome is far from guaranteed.
Israel must maintain a difficult balance: continue to degrade Hezbollah’s military capabilities while avoiding the destruction of the Lebanese state, and — at the same time — opening space for that state to reassert itself, independent of Hezbollah and Iran. Each of these objectives is complex on its own. Pursued simultaneously, they create tensions that will be difficult to manage.
If this moment leads to a sustained reduction in violence, it could mark the culmination of a trajectory in which Hezbollah is weakened not only on the battlefield, but within the political system it has long dominated.
Alternately, if Hezbollah emerges from this ceasefire intact, with its arsenal replenished, the region will simply be resetting the clock.
A ceasefire can stop a war, but by itself it cannot end one. That requires a strategy, and the willingness to follow through while the window for action is still open.
Anne Dreazen is Vice President, Center for a New Middle East at American Jewish Committee.
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England Was the First European Country to Expel Jews; Here’s the Full Story
UK Parliament in London. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
A small number of Jews had lived in England since Roman and Anglo-Saxon times, but they only became an organized community under William the Conqueror in 1066. He encouraged Jewish merchants and artisans to move from northern France to England, where they fared very well financially.
Shortly afterward, English Jews began to experience severe antisemitism; they were subject to several blood libels and accusations that they desecrated Christian religious symbols.
Concurrent with the coronation of Richard I (the Lion-Hearted) in 1189, anti-Jewish riots broke out in London and spread to other towns. The Jews of York were locked in a castle and, knowing that they were trapped, Rabbi Yom Tov of Joigny urged them to kill themselves rather than face painful death at the hands of the mob or forced baptism.
Under Henry III of England, Jews were required to wear a marking badge. They were also subject to tremendous financial persecution. The Second Barons’ War in the 1260s brought a series of attacks on Jewish communities in England — and, in London alone, 500 Jews were tragically killed.
Expulsion
Ultimately, the Jews were banished from England by Edward I. His motivation was partly financial: once they were expelled, their possessions became the crown’s property.
England was the first European country to expel Jews.
On July 18, 1290, the Edict of Expulsion was issued. Writs were issued to the sheriffs of all English counties ordering them to enforce the edict, which expelled Jews from the country by November 1. Jews were only permitted to carry with them their movable property.
Sadly, the Edict of Expulsion was widely popular and met with little resistance by the non-Jewish population. The majority of the expelled English Jews settled in France and Germany. The process of their return would not begin until almost 400 years later, thanks in part to Rabbi Menashe Ben Israel.
Rabbi Menashe was born on Portugal’s Madeira Island in 1604 with the marrano/converso name Manoel Dias Soeiro. His family moved to the Netherlands in 1610.
Amsterdam was an important center of Jewish life in Europe at this time. It was here that Rabbi Menashe’s family openly returned to Judaism. Rabbi Menashe was given the best possible education in the Sephardic tradition. He excelled in his Talmudic studies and possessed a thorough knowledge of Tanach. He was fluent in the spectrum of Jewish thought from the rationalistic school of the Rambam to the writings of the later kabbalists.
Rabbi Menashe also received a comprehensive secular education. He was fluent in 10 languages and had a broad knowledge of medicine, mathematics, and astronomy. He was also well-read in classical literature and the writings of early Christian theologians.
When Chacham Uziel died in 1620, Rabbi Menashe was proclaimed rabbi of the Sephardic community at the astonishingly young age of 18, and soon became one of the most famous preachers in the new center of Sephardic Jewry.
Shortly after taking this position, Rabbi Menashe married Rachel Soeiro, a direct descendant of Rabbi Don Yitzchok Abarbanel, with whom he had three children.
Rabbi Menashe rose to eminence, not only as a rabbi and an author, but also as a printer. In 1626 he established the first Hebrew press in Amsterdam (indeed, in all of Holland), named Emes Me’Eretz Titzmach (truth will sprout from the ground). His printing press employed a new typeface that was later copied by many European printing houses. Although it eventually became a flourishing business, it couldn’t support his family and Rabbi Menashe suffered from poverty most of his life.
One of Rabbi Menashe’s earliest works, El Conciliador, published in 1632, won immediate acclaim. Written in Spanish, the work refutes the arguments of self-proclaimed Bible critics. The book was among the first written by a Jew in a modern language that also was of interest to Christian readers. Accordingly, it earned Rabbi Menashe a reputation in the learned non-Jewish world.
Over time, his fame as a scholar and expert on all matters of learning and science spread far beyond Holland. Some of the most outstanding scholars and figures of the world sought his friendship and advice. Queen Christina of Sweden, the painter Rembrandt, and the statesman and philosopher Hugo Grotius were among his non-Jewish correspondents and friends.
Yet, with all his secular knowledge and fame, Rabbi Menashe ben Israel devoted most of his time to Torah studies. In addition to defending the Torah against many critics, Rabbi Menashe wrote many other memoranda in defense of Torah ideas, including resurrection, reincarnation and the divine origin of the soul.
And his thorough knowledge of Kabbalah motivated him to hasten the coming of the Messiah, which ultimately led to the Jews’ return to England.
In 1644, Rabbi Menashe met Antonio de Montezinos, a Portuguese Marrano Jew who had been in the New World. Montezinos convinced him that the South American Andes’ Indians were descendants of the 10 lost tribes of Israel. This purported discovery gave a new impulse to Rabbi Menashe’s messianic hopes, as the settlement of Jews throughout the world was understood to be a sign that the Messiah was coming.
Taken by this idea, Rabbi Menashe turned his attention to England, from where Jews had been expelled since 1290 and worked to get permission for them to resettle there, hoping to thus hasten the Messiah’s arrival.
In 1650, he wrote The Hope of Israel — which was first published in Amsterdam in Latin and Spanish — in response to a 1648 letter from Scottish theologian John Dury asking about Montezinos’ claims. In it, he expressed the hope that the Jews would return to England to hasten the final redemption. Rabbi Menashe also stressed his kinship with Parliament and explained that he was driven by amity for England rather than financial gain.
Along the same lines, in 1651 Rabbi Menashe offered to serve Queen Christina of Sweden as her agent of Hebrew books. In his discussions with her, he asked her to consider opening Scandinavia as a haven for Jewish refugees. He described the Jews being forced to wander from one country to another. He almost succeeded in his appeal, but Christina abdicated the throne and the plan didn’t come to fruition.
Yet, Christina continued to have a positive relationship with Judaism and protected the Jewish community of Rome when she moved there, using her power as a former regent to do so.
Advocates Readmission of Jews to England
Rabbi Menashe attracted the notice of many Protestant theologians who, like him, were convinced of the Messiah’s imminent arrival and naturally desired to know the views of Jewish theologians on the matter.
With the onset of the Puritan Commonwealth, the question of the readmission of the Jews found increased Puritan support. Therefore, Rabbi Menashe wrote an introductory epistle to the English version of his Hope of Israel in 1650 addressed to the Parliament of England hoping to gain its favor and goodwill so the Jews could be readmitted to the country.
A response — “An Epistle to the Learned R’ Menashe ben Israel” (1650), written by Sir Edward Spencer, member of Parliament for Middlesex — insisted upon conversion to Christianity before Messianic prophecies about Israel could be fulfilled. Clearly, that wasn’t up for discussion and it’s possible that the matter was dropped for a while for this reason.
Yet, Rabbi Menashe’s efforts drew the interest of England’s Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell was especially sympathetic to the Jewish cause due to his Puritan views, more tolerant leanings, and pragmatic view that the Jewish merchant would benefit English commerce.
Cromwell’s representative at Amsterdam was put into contact with Rabbi Menashe and a pass was issued to enable him to go to England.
Arrival in London
In November 1655, Rabbi Menashe arrived in London where he published his “Humble Addresses to the Lord Protector,” a memorandum in which he refuted prejudices against the Jews. He also pointed out the advantages England could derive from granting the Jews permission to resettle in England and permitting Jews to observe Jewish practice.
Cromwell summoned the Whitehall Conference in December of 1655. (It doesn’t appear that R’ Menashe spoke at this conference, though his pamphlet was submitted to it.) A formal declaration was made by the lawyers present at the meeting that nothing in English law prevented the settlement of Jews in England. However, the question of its desirability was ingeniously evaded by Cromwell. Public opinion was against admitting Jews, and Cromwell wished to avoid defeat on this issue in Parliament.
But the door had been opened for the Jews’ gradual return. John Evelyn even entered in his diary under the date December 14, 1655, “Now were the Jews admitted.”
Nevertheless, the process was slow — despite Cromwell’s support and Rabbi Menashe’s advocacy — as the British clergy and wealthy merchants did everything in their power to prevent its realization.
The Robles Case
The first major positive result of R’ Menashe’s efforts was seen in the “Robles case.” Antonio Rodrigues Robles (1620-1690) was a Marrano merchant born in Fundão, Portugal. His family had suffered at the hands of the Inquisition, yet he had settled in London as a merchant in the mid-17th century and had no connection to the crypto-Jewish community.
When his property was seized as that of an enemy alien after the outbreak of war with Spain in 1656, he successfully obtained an exemption on the grounds that, although uncircumcised, he was not a Spaniard but a Portuguese “of the Hebrew nation.” He won the case and his land was returned to him.
In theory, the successful outcome of the “Robles Case” established the right of professing Jews to live in England without interference.
As a result, Jews from Holland, Spain, and Portugal came to Britain, where over time they became more and more integrated into British society. However, it was only in 1753 that English Jews were formally granted citizenship and in 1858 formal emancipation.
Despite his failure in obtaining formal permission for the resettlement of the Jews in England, R’ Menashe had brought the subject prominently before the ruling minds of England. He also elicited recognition of the fact that nothing in English law prevented the readmission of Jews and in 1656 a verbal promise from Cromwell, backed by the Council of State in the Robles case, to allow Jews to return to England and freely practice their faith.
In time, the results of his advocacy would prove to be even more far-reaching.
Opening America to Jews
If no law forbade the Jews’ return to England, that meant no law forbade Jews from relocating to the New World and living in British-controlled territories and colonies.
Thus, just as the British North American colonies were being settled by English settlers in the late 17th century, Rabbi Menashe’s work laid the foundation for Jews to be part of the settlement in the future United States and Canada.
Thus, in addition to reopening England to Jews, R’ Menashe’s actions also arguably opened the door for what would become the largest community of Jews in the Diaspora in the future United States of America and Canada.
Sadly, despite the historic achievement he is now known for, Rabbi Menashe left England a broken and penniless man, feeling he had not accomplished his purpose. He also experienced a personal tragedy when his son, Shmuel, who had accompanied him, passed away on the second day of Rosh Hashanah in 1657.
Rabbi Menashe sailed to Middelburg, Holland, where his brother-in-law lived, to bury his son. A few months later, Rabbi Menashe himself passed away, on the 14th of Kislev. He was buried in the Beis Chaim of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel.
Rabbi Menachem Levine is the CEO of JDBY-YTT, the largest Jewish school in the Midwest. He served as Rabbi of Congregation Am Echad in San Jose, CA, from 2007 to 2020. He is a popular speaker and writes for numerous publications on Torah, Jewish History, and Contemporary Jewish Topics. Rabbi Levine’s personal website is https://thinktorah.org A different version of this article was originally published at Aish.