"[2] The respected founder of the modern academic field of historical studies on the Kabbalah in Jerusalem, Gershom Scholem, following Avraham Ya'ari, articulated his origins and importance in the following manner: Meyer Kayserling, who is actually the main secondary source for the rather scant extant biographical information on the subject, writes that his name before leaving Spain was Thomas Rodriguez Pereyra and that he was "persecuted by the Inquisition.
"[6] Herbert Bloom, a student of the famous Jewish social historian Salo W. Baron, based on primary sources/documents which he researched, states that in 1655 the two brothers, Abraham and Isaac Pereyra, petitioned the government of Amsterdam for permission to establish a sugar refinery in the city.
Based on a Dutch economic research work from 1908 about the Amsterdam sugar trade of the 17th century, Bloom adds the following insight: "The Pereyras are described by their fellow Jews as merchants of wealth and influence, who occupied an important place on the Exchange [Bank].".
[8] Back to the initial period of Abraham Pereyra's mercantile activities in Amsterdam, both Roth and Méchoulan point out that he provided the main financial backing for the famous printing and publishing enterprise, as well as for the other varied intellectual activities of Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel all over Europe, until the latter's demise at the relatively young age of 52, in 1657.
Abraham Pereyra, as the main personal benefactor of Menasseh, must have been also directly involved in helping finance and support the enterprise from its inception, and throughout its period of activity.