Mikveh Israel is a popular name for colonial Jewish synagogues. The most famous examples are the original congregation in Curaçao (founded 1651) and in Philadelphia (founded 1740). One inspiration for this name came from an influential seventeenth-century work by Dutch Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel (1604-57). His book Mikveh Israel supported his plea to readmit Jews to England. In Mikveh Israel, Manasseh ben Israel argued that the establishment of synagogues in England and the Americas fulfilled the prophesy that before the messianic in gathering of the Jews could occur, the scattered of Israel would establish synagogues in the four corners of the earth. Notably the Hebrew pun embedded in mikveh for ritual bath/hope is lost when it is translated into Spanish as a choice must be made: the ritual bath is referred to as baño (banho in Portuguese), whereas the mikveh in the title of Manasseh ben Israel’s book is translated as esperanza.
