Menashe is the Hebrew form of Manasseh, meaning 'causing to forget,' from a biblical name.
Menashe is the Hebrew form of Manasseh, a name whose origin story is embedded in one of Genesis's most poignant moments. When Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers and risen against all odds to become Pharaoh's viceroy, had his firstborn son, he named him Menashe — from the Hebrew root n-sh-h, meaning "to cause to forget." He explained: "God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house."
The name thus encodes an act of divine mercy: the ability to move forward from trauma without being consumed by it. Manasseh became the name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel, and in biblical tradition the tribe of Manasseh was divided into two half-tribes, settling on both sides of the Jordan River — a geographic peculiarity that gave rise to considerable rabbinic discussion. The name also belongs to a Judean king (Manasseh of Judah) who reigned for 55 years and whose story in Chronicles includes a dramatic arc of sin, exile, repentance, and restoration.
The Hebrew form Menashe is used primarily in Israeli, Sephardic, and traditional Ashkenazic Jewish communities, where it retains a warmth and familiarity that the English Manasseh has largely lost. In Israel it is a common enough name to feel grounded while remaining meaningfully biblical. A 2017 Israeli film titled Menashe brought the name to international art-house audiences, depicting life in Brooklyn's ultra-Orthodox community with rare nuance. The name carries both forgetting and remembering simultaneously — which is perhaps its deepest gift.