Majority Rule in the Jewish Legal Tradition
The principle of majority rule is considered to have deep roots in Jewish tradition. The present article reexamines its development as a principle of decision-making and as a political principle as well. The article takes the reader on a legal-historical journey from late antiquity, when the foundat...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
HUC
2014
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| In: |
Hebrew Union College annual
Year: 2011, Volume: 82/83, Pages: 161-201 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | The principle of majority rule is considered to have deep roots in Jewish tradition. The present article reexamines its development as a principle of decision-making and as a political principle as well. The article takes the reader on a legal-historical journey from late antiquity, when the foundations of the Jewish community were laid down, through the Middle Ages, when these foundations evolved and crystallized, until the late Middle Ages, when the principle of majority rule was widely accepted. The foundations of Jewish communal government are rooted in the encounter between Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions. The talmudic “people of the city” were organized under the influence of the Roman polis, and its democratic nature is still visible in the city's legal structure. But this democratic nature had become almost completely eradicated by the early Middle Ages. The halakhic authorities of that period confirmed the oligarchic structure of the communities and the “majority” was counted among a thin leadership layer of the community. Only during the thirteenth century was the principle of the majority extended such that a wider group of community members took part in its decision-making. This development was influenced by an external European process through which the leadership of the cities took shape and corporations were founded. Jewish legal authorities continued to argue about the nature of majority rule and about the precise mechanism whereby to implement it, but by the late Middle Ages majority rule was widely accepted as the main political principle of Jewish public domain. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Hebrew Union College annual
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