Читать книгу History of the Jews in Russia and Poland (Vol. 1-3) - Dubnow Simon - Страница 22

The peculiar position occupied by the Jews in Poland made their social autonomy both necessary and possible. Constituting an historical nationality, with an inner life of its own, the Jews were segregated by the Government as a separate estate, an independent social body. Though forming an integral part of the urban population, the Jews were not officially included in any one of the general urban estates, whose affairs were administered by the magistracy or the trade-unions. Nor were they subjected to the jurisdiction of Christian law courts as far as their internal affairs were concerned. They formed an entirely independent class of citizens, and as such were in need of independent agencies of self-government and jurisdiction. The Jewish community constituted not only a national and cultural, but also a civil, entity. It formed a Jewish city within a Christian city, with its separate forms of life, its own religious, administrative, judicial, and charitable institutions. The Government of a country with sharply divided estates could not but legalize the autonomy of the Jewish Kahal, after having legalized the Magdeburg Law of the Christian urban estates, in which the Germans constituted the predominating element. As for the kings, in their capacity as the official "guardians" of the Jews, they were especially concerned in having the Kahals properly organized, since the regular payment of the Jewish taxes was thereby assured. Moreover, the Government found it more to its convenience to deal with a well-defined body of representatives than with the unorganized masses.

As early as the period of royal "paternalism," during the reign of Sigismund I., the king endeavored to extend his fatherly protection to the Jewish system of communal self-government. The appointment of Michael Yosefovich as the "senior" of the Lithuanian Jews, with a rabbi as expert adviser65, was designed to safeguard the interests of the exchequer by concentrating the power in the hands of a federation of Kahals in Lithuania. On more than one occasion Sigismund I. confirmed the "spiritual judges," or rabbis (judices spirituales, doctores legis), elected by the Jews in different parts of Poland, in their office. In 1518 he ratified, at the request of the Jews of Posen, their election of two leading rabbis, Moses and Mendel, to the posts of provincial judges for all the communities of Great Poland, bestowing upon the newly-elected officials the right of instructing and judging their coreligionists in accordance with the Jewish law. In Cracow, where the Jews were divided into two separate communities—one of native Polish Jews and another of immigrants from Bohemia—the King empowered each of them to elect its own rabbi. The choice fell upon Rabbi Asher for the former, and upon Rabbi Peretz for the latter, community, and when a dispute arose between the two communities as to the ownership of the old synagogue, the King again intervened, and decided the case in favor of the native community (1519). In 1531 Mendel Frank, the rabbi of Brest, complained to the King that the Jews did not always respect his decisions, and brought their cases before the royal starostas. Accordingly Sigismund I. thought it necessary to warn the Jews to submit to the jurisdiction of their own "doctors," or rabbis, who dispensed justice according to the "Jewish law," and were given the right of imposing the "oath" (herem, excommunication) and all kinds of other penalties upon insubordinates. In the following year the King appointed as "senior," or chief rabbi, of Cracow the well-known scholar Moses Fishel—who, it may be added parenthetically, had taken the degree of Doctor of Medicine in Padua—to succeed Rabbi Asher, referred to previously. Pursuing the same policy of centralization, the King, a few years later, in 1541, confirmed in their office as chief rabbis (seniores) of the whole province of Little Poland two men "learned in the Jewish law," the same Rabbi Moses Fishel of Cracow, and the famous progenitor of Polish Talmudism, Rabbi Shalom Shakhna of Lublin.

In the same measure, however, in which the communal organization of the Jews gained in strength, and the functions of the rabbis and Kahal elders became more clearly defined, the Government gradually receded from its attitude of paternal interference. The magna charta of Jewish autonomy may be said to be represented by the charter of Sigismund Augustus, issued on August 13, 1551, which embodies the fundamental principles of self-government for the Jewish communities of Great Poland.

According to this charter, the Jews are entitled to elect, by general agreement,66 their own rabbis and "lawful judges" to take charge of their spiritual and social affairs. The rabbis and judges, elected in this manner, are authorized to expound all questions of the religious ritual, to perform marriages and grant divorces, to execute the transfer of property and other acts of a civil character, and to settle disputes between Jews in accordance with the "Mosaic law" (iuxta ritum et morem legis illorum Mosaicae) and the supplementary Jewish legislation. In conjunction with the Kahal elders they are empowered to subject offenders against the law to excommunication and other punishments, such as the Jewish customs may prescribe. In case the person punished in this manner does not recant within a month, the matter is to be brought to the knowledge of the king, who may sentence the incorrigible malefactor to death and confiscate his property. The local officers of the king are enjoined to lend their assistance in carrying out the orders of the rabbis and elders.

This enactment, coupled with a number of similar charters, which were subsequently promulgated for various provinces of Poland, conferred upon the elective representatives of the Jewish communities extensive autonomy in economic and administrative as well as judicial affairs, at the same time insuring its practical realization by placing at its disposal the power of the royal administration.

The firm consolidation of the régime of the self-governing community, the Kahal, dates from that period. In this appellation two concepts were merged: the "community," the aggregate of the local Jews, on the one hand, and, on the other, the "communal administration," representing the totality of all the Jewish institutions of a given locality, including the rabbinate. The activity of the Kahals assumed particularly large proportions beginning with the latter half of the sixteenth century.

All cities and towns with a Jewish population had their separate Kahal boards. Their size corresponded roughly to that of the given community. In large centers the membership of the Kahal board amounted to forty; in smaller towns it was limited to ten. The members of the Kahal were elected annually during the intermediate days of Passover. As a rule the election proceeded according to a double-graded system. Several electors (borerim), their number varying from nine to five, were appointed by lot from among the members of all synagogues, and these electors, after taking a solemn oath, chose the Kahal elders. The elders were divided into groups. Two of these, the rashim and tubim (the "heads" and "optimates"), stood at the head of the administration, and were in charge of the general affairs of the community. They were followed by the dayyanim, or judges, and the gabbaim, or directors, who managed the synagogues as well as the educational and charitable institutions. The rashim and tubim formed the nucleus of the Kahal, seven of them making a quorum; in the smaller communities they were practically identical with the Kahal board.

The sphere of the Kahal's activity was very large. Within the area allotted to it the Kahal collected and turned over to the exchequer the state taxes, arranged the assessment of imposts, both of a general and a special character, took charge of the synagogues, the Talmudic academies, the cemeteries, and other communal institutions. The Kahal executed title-deeds on real estate, regulated the instruction of the young, organized the affairs appertaining to charity and to commerce and handicrafts, and with the help of the dayyanim and the rabbi settled disputes between the members of the community. As for the rabbi, while exercising unrestricted authority in religious affairs, he was in all else dependent on the Kahal board, which invited him to his post for a definite term. Only great authorities, far-famed on account of their Talmudic erudition, were able to assert their influence in all departments of communal life.

The Kahal of each city extended its authority to the adjacent settlements and villages which did not possess autonomous organizations of their own. Moreover, the Kahals of the large centers kept under their jurisdiction the minor Kahals, or prikahalki,67 as they were officially called, of the towns and townlets of their district, as far as the apportionment of taxes and the judicial authority were concerned. This gave rise to the "Kahal boroughs," or gheliloth (singular, galil). Often disputes arose between the Kahal boroughs as to the boundaries of their districts, the contested minor communities submitting now to this, now to the other, "belligerent." On the whole, however, the moderate centralization of self-government benefited the Jewish population, since it introduced order and discipline into the Kahal hierarchy, and enabled it to defend the civil and national interests of Judaism more effectively.

The capstone of this Kahal organization were the so-called Waads,68 the conferences or assemblies of rabbis and Kahal leaders. These conferences received their original impetus from the rabbis and judges. The rabbinical law courts, officially endowed with extensive powers, were guided in their decisions by the legislation embodied in the Bible and the Talmud, which made full provision for all questions of religious, civil, and domestic life as well as for all possible infractions of the law. Yet it was but natural that even in this extensive system of law disputed points should arise for which the competency of a single rabbi did not suffice. Moreover there were cases in which the litigants appealed from the decision of one rabbinical court to another, more authoritative, court. Finally lawsuits would occasionally arise between groups of the population, between one community and another, or between a private person and a Kahal board. For such emergencies conferences of rabbis and elders would be called from time to time as the highest court of appeal.

Beginning with the middle of the sixteenth century these conferences met at the time of the great fairs, when large numbers of people congregated from various places, and litigants arrived in connection with their business affairs. The chief meeting-place was the Lublin fair, owing to the fact that Lublin was the residence of the father of Polish rabbinism, the above-mentioned Rabbi Shalom Shakhna, who was officially recognized as the "senior rabbi" of Little Poland. As far back as in the reign of Sigismund I. the "Jewish doctors," or rabbis, met there for the purpose of settling civil disputes "according to their law." In the latter part of the sixteenth century these conferences of rabbis and communal leaders, assembling in connection with the Lublin fairs, became more frequent, and led in a short time to the organization of regular, periodic conventions, which were attended by representatives from the principal Jewish communities of the whole of Poland.

The activity of these conferences, or conventions, passed, by gradual expansion, from the judicial sphere into that of administration and legislation. At these conventions laws were adopted determining the order of Kahal elections, fixing the competency of the rabbis and judges, granting permits for publishing books, and so forth. Occasionally these assemblies of Jewish notables endorsed by their authority the enactments of the Polish Government. Thus, in 1580, the representatives of the Polish-Jewish communities, who assembled in Lublin, gave their solemn sanction to the well-known Polish law barring the Jews of the Crown, of Poland proper, from farming state taxes and other public revenues, in view of the fact that "certain people, thirsting for gain and wealth, to be obtained from extensive leases, might thereby expose the community to great danger."

Towards the end of the sixteenth century the fair conferences received a firmer organization. They were attended by the rabbis and Kahal representatives of the following provinces: Great Poland (the leading community being that of Posen), Little Poland (Cracow and Lublin), Red Russia (Lemberg), Volhynia (Ostrog and Kremenetz), and Lithuania (Brest and Grodno). Originally the name of the assembly varied with the number of provinces represented in it, and it was designated as the Council of the Three, or the Four, or the Five, Lands. Subsequently, when Lithuania withdrew from the Polish Kahal organization, establishing a federation of its own, and the four provinces of the Crown69 began to send their delegates regularly to these conferences, the name of the assembly was ultimately fixed as "the Council of the Four Lands" (Waad Arba Aratzoth).

The "Council" was made up of several leading rabbis of Poland,70 and of one delegate for each of the principal Kahals selected from among their elders—the number of the conferees altogether amounting to about thirty. They met periodically, once or twice a year, in Lublin and Yaroslav (Galicia) alternately. As a rule, the Council assembled in Lublin in early spring, between Purim and Passover, and in Yaroslav at the end of the summer, before the high holidays.