ABSTRACT
In 1645 a book was printed by Menasseh ben Israel, a rabbi, scholar and diplomat who also had a publishing house. Thesovro dos dinim presented an accessible elucidation of Jewish precepts and was an almost literal translation of the Shulchan Aruch or Code of Jewish Law by Joseph Karo. It enabled former Conversos to familiarize themselves with the rules of normative Judaism. The subject was dear to ben Israel’s heart, as was the Portuguese language in which the book was written. It was the language in which he had grown up before fleeing from Portugal to Amsterdam with his Converso parents in about 1614. Having trained as a rabbi in Amsterdam, in 1622 he succeeded Isaac Uziel in the Portuguese congregation Neve Salom. In the United Portuguese Congregation, however, he never occupied a prominent position within the rabbinate, although he worked there in other functions, as a teacher for example.
