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June 5, 2013

Takkanot Ha-Kahal: Communities Creating Halakhah

Rachel Furst

Rachel Furst

Rachel Furst is a post-doctoral fellow at the Freie Universitaet Berlin, having completed her PhD in Medieval Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  She received a BA in Medieval Studies from Barnard College and an MA in Jewish History from Hebrew University and is a graduate of the Advanced Talmud Institute at Matan. Rachel teaches Jewish history, Jewish law, and rabbinic literature at institutions in Israel and abroad.

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Throughout the medieval and the early modern periods, autonomous Jewish communities around the world used the legal mechanism known as takkanat ha kahal to shape the culture and character of their societies by enacting new legislation on a wide array of civil, criminal, and public matters. What gives a community the authority to create law? Who is bound by these communal directives? What is the relationship between local takkanot and universally recognized halakhah? After examining this legal phenomenon in historical context, we will also consider its utility and value to Jewish communities today.

- 06/05/2013
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