Resettlement of the Jews in England

The resettlement of the Jews in England was an informal arrangement during the Commonwealth of England in the mid-1650s that allowed Jews to practice their faith openly. It forms a prominent part of the history of the Jews in England. It happened directly after two events. First, a prominent rabbi, Menasseh ben Israel, came to the country from the Netherlands to make the case for Jewish resettlement, and second, a Spanish marrano (a Jew forcibly conververted to Christianity who still practiced Judaism in secret) merchant, Antonio Robles, requested that he be classified as a Jew rather than Spaniard during the war between England and Spain.

Historians have disagreed about the reasons behind the resettlement, particularly regarding Oliver Cromwell's motives, but the move is generally seen as a part of a current of religious and intellectual thought moving towards liberty of conscience, encompassing philosemitic millenarianism and Hebraicism, as well as political and trade interests favouring Jewish presence in England. The schools of thought that led to the resettlement of the Jews in England are the most heavily studied subject of Anglo-Jewish history in the period before the eighteenth century.^[1]