Antonio de Montezinos, also known as Aharon Levi, or Aharon HaLevi was a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

traveler and a Marrano Sephardic Jew who in 1644 persuaded

Menasseh Ben Israel Manoel Dias Soeiro (1604 – 20 November 1657), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh ben Israel (), also known as Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, also known with the Hebrew acronym, MB"Y or MBI, was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, wri ...

, a rabbi of

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

, that he had found one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel living in the jungles of the "Quito Province" (that is, the

Pichincha Province Pichincha () is a province of Ecuador located in the northern Sierra region; its capital and largest city is Quito. It is bordered by Imbabura and Esmeraldas to the north, Cotopaxi and Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas to the south, Napo and ...

) of

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ' ...

. This supposed discovery gave a new impulse to Menasseh's Messianic hopes. Menasseh wrote a book about this narrative, ''The Hope of Israel''. In it Menasseh argued, and tried to give learned support to the theory that the native inhabitants of America at the time of the European discovery were actually descendants of the ostTen Tribes of Israel. The book was originally published in Latin (''Mikveh Israel, hoc est Spes Israelis'') and Spanish (''Esperança de Israel'') in 1650, but its publication in English in 1652 in London caused great controversy and polemics in England.Wilensky 1951, p. 401.

Notes

References

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External links

Menassah ben Israel, ''The Hope of Israel'' (London, 1650, English translation)
scanned text online at Oliver's Bookshelf website
''The Hope of Israel'' (Vilnius, 1836 in the original Hebrew text)
online at Hebrewbooks.org Portuguese Jews Year of death unknown 17th-century Portuguese people Year of birth unknown {{Judaism-bio-stub