Resources for 2008
Evasion as a Legal Tactic: The 1616 Amsterdam Regulations Concerning the Jews
ABSTRACT: Early modern rulers (or ruling bodies) who chose to readmit Jews in places where they had long been banned were faced with theological dilemmas and practical problems. Although it is true that the principle of freedom of conscience was gaining increasing acceptance, its adherents were rarely clear about whether it could be applied to non-Christians. And while the economic interests of rulers favored the settlement of Jews in their lands, the opposition of guilds and clergy could not be ignored. In these circumstances, a rather striking policy of evasion was adopted - in France, in the Netherlands, and in England. The legal status of the Jews remained formally unclear, while in practice Jews were allowed to establish themselves with unprecedented rights. To illustrate this legal tactic, I will present the Amsterdam Regulations of 1616 concerning the Jews - a rather meager document which constituted the legal basis for Jewish settlement in that city for nearly two centuries. This presentation is for the following text(s): The Regulations for the Jews of Amsterdam (1616)
Expanding Legal Horizons?
No description available.
Challenging Herem in Hamburg, 1732
These documents represent one of the earliest calls for state intervention by the Hamburg authorities into the internal decisions of the bet din. The bed din of the Triple Community of Hamburg-Altona-Wandsbek compelled Joseph Jonas, a resident of Hamburg, to divorce his wife after she was suspected of adultery. When he refused, the chief rabbi and kahal put him and his wife in the ban (herem). Jonas turned to the Hamburg Senate for assistance in reversing the decision and removing himself from the ban. The documents comprise letters from Jonas and the Hamburg kahal in defense of their respective positions as well as the internal Senate records regarding the case. **This presentation is for the following text(s):** * Decree of the Hamburg Senate in Response to Josel Joseph Jonas' Petition * Letter of Josel Joseph Jonas to the Senate in Hamburg * Petition of the Jewish Elders of the Ashkenazi Synagogue in Hamburg * Supplication of Josel Josef Jonas of Hamburg
The Herem as the Source of Authority of the Lay Governing Council
A treatise on the herem composed by Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, the head rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam. Specifically, this pamphlet defends the authority of the lay leadership council to do so, arguing against unnamed members of the community who are causing scandal by denying that authority. This presentation is for the following text(s): * Exhortation to those who fear the Lord, not to fall into sin due to lack of understanding of the precepts of his Holy Law.
Jews at the Court of the Kadi
No description available.
When the Indelible Sacrament of Baptism Met Mercantile Raison d'Etat
In theory, under almost all circumstances, once a Jew had been baptized, s/he became a Christian and any relapse constituted heresy and was liable to severe punishment, often by death. However, in the mid-sixteenth century the Papacy adopted a far more lenient policy out of considerations of commercial raison d' état and invited New Christian merchants to assume Judaism in Ancona with assurance of complete freedom from any persecution. At the same time, Venice expelled all Marranos from the city and forbade them to return. The papal attitude changed with the Counter- Reformation and former New Christians who had reverted to Judaism in Ancona were burned at the stake. However, slightly later in a step that was followed by the Medici for Pisa-Livorno, the Venetian government invited New Christians to settle in Venice freely on the condition that they assumed Judaism and resided in the ghetto as Jews and assured them that their past conduct would not be investigated. In justification, among other arguments the Venetians pointed out that since Popes had once granted such permissions, it could not be claimed that they were forbidden by canon law. An examination of select passages from the documents preserved regarding the issuing of the first charter of the Levantine and Ponentine merchants in Venice in 1589, the two opening passages of the second charter in 1598, and a consulto of the Venetian consultore in iure Paolo Sarpi will illustrate the ideological background and practical manifestations of the new attitude toward New Christians assuming Judaism and their resulting legal status, which can be seen as one of the harbingers of a new attitude of European states toward Jews determined by economic considerations of raison d’état rather than by religious concerns. **This presentation is for the following text(s):** * Paolo Sarpi, the Venetian Consultore in Iure, on the case of Simon Gomez * The Expulsion of the Marranos From Venice * The First Charter of the Levantine and Ponentine Jewish Merchants of Venice * The Second Charter of the Levantine and Ponentine Jewish Merchants of Venice
Under Imperial Protection? Jewish Presence on the Imperial Aulic Court in the 16th and 17th Centuries
From the middle ages on Jewish life in the holy roman empire was characterized by their egal status as servants of the imperial chamber (servi camerae, Kammerknechte). Paying taxes to the imperial chamber, the Jews stood under special protection of the Emperor. The so-called Speyrer Jew Privilege (1544) stated the legal framework of the Jewish community of the Empire, prohibiting expulsion, and „unjustified“ acusations of ritual murder and securing undisturbed religious practice, and imperial conduct and protection. But what was this privilege along with other privileges from indiviuals worth in reality? Based on two cases from the Imperial Aulic Court (Reichshofrat) my lecture will focus the implementation of imperial law as well as the opportunities of Jews using the imperial court to push through their right against local authorities. This presentation is for the following text(s): * Supplication of Samuel Ullman to Emperor Ferdinand II in case of restitution ct. the Landgraf Wilhelm of Leuchtenberg, s. D. * Supplication of the Franconian Jews to Emperor Maximilian II in case of a ritual murder accusation, s. D.
The Jews and Ius Commune
From the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, there was a gradually increasing integration of Jews into systems of ius commune, loosely, the law of the land, but actually a legal tradition based on Roman law, which subsumed local law, usually called ius proprium. The integration might be purely theoretical or in fact, as certainly occurred in the papal state and it seems elsewhere in Italy, too. This legal integration prepared the way for the major legal upheaval worked by the French Revolution. The implications are many. The details mostly unresearched. The Tractatus de Iudaeis of Giuseppe Sessa (Turin, 1713) is the fullest introduction to the issues. The Tract on Jews of Giuseppe Sessa is a watershed text. It lauds the medieval restrictions on Jews, perceives them in the most negative theological terms, yet equally anticipates full Jewish participation as citizens of a state, living under the identical laws as do others. The tradition of Jews as cives, citizens, actually began in the ancient world, but was properly resurrected only in the early fourteenth century in the writings of the major legal scholar Bartolus. The passage from Bartolus to full emancipation, however, took four centuries. The special worth of Sessa’s tract is that writing in 1716, he was on the edge, looking backward and forward simultaneously, intimating, but never quite reaching. We see in him, therefore, the final resistance to the passage from the restricted Jew, living in a confessional state, where religion determines politics, to the Jew made a fully fledged citizen in a deconfessionalized, modern, post-emancipatory civil unit, where the secular government determines the state’s direction. **This presentation is for the following text(s):** Tract on the Jews
Law: Continuity and Change in the Early Modern Period
No description available.
The Legal Status of the Wife in Ashkenazi Jewish Legal Tradition: Continuity and Change in the Sixteenth Century
No description available.
Takkanot Kahal and the Origin of Communal Structures in a Franconian Village Community in the 17th Century
No description available.
Trying Issues: Polish-Lithuanian Jews Under Multiple Jurisdictions
The texts presented here highlight issues of multiple jurisdiction Jews were subjected to in early modern Poland-Lithuania **This presentation is for the following text(s):** * Privilege for the Jews of Lwów * Privilege for the Jews of the Przemyśl Region and Rus'