As Ashkenazic Judaism developed, rabbinic scholars and affluent laity
formed a natural communal leadership, largely because of the corporate status
of the Jewish community. Scholarly and wealthy families often intermarried,
forming communal dynasties. Jewish self-government reflected the overall
corporate organization of medieval society: an amalgamation of corporate
groups, each with its own set of privileges and obligations.
As a corporate entity, each Jewish community paid a single corporate tax
to the governing sovereign. The leadership of the Jewish community was
empowered by the sovereign to assess and collect taxes on its constituent
members, the kehilla. The ability of a Jewish community to meet this annual
obligation was the linchpin of its existence. For this reason, the ability of the
few affluent families to cover much or all of the communal tax obligation and,
when necessary, to secure protection through their connections with powerful
people made them the guarantor of the community’s very existence. In addi-
tion, wealthy Jews periodically contracted with the sovereign to collect taxes
from individual Jewish households in exchange for a portion of the tax
revenue – an occupation known as tax farming.
The other pillar of corporate Jewish autonomy, the Jews’ right to govern
themselves according to their own laws, elevated the scholarly elite into a
position of communal leadership. In this situation, who better to interpret
and adjudicate disputes and other matters in a situation where Jewish law had
actual authority? Among other things, this meant that the communal leader-
ship had the ability to enforce Jewish law. Observance of Jewish law, like
affiliation with the Jewish community, was mandatory – a situation that
would remain universal until the end of the eighteenth century.
The Jewish community also imposed its own taxes on its members, largely
to help maintain a network of Jewish communal institutions, typically
synagogue, school, and cemetery. In addition, individual members formed
voluntary societies for predominantly religious purposes. These voluntary
societies provided the means for social life and ordinary social intercourse
among Jews. That these voluntary societies were almost exclusively formed
for religious purposes – the study of rabbinic texts, collecting charity, caring
for orphans, visiting the sick – reflects the all-encompassing nature of Jewish
life in this world.
Jewish communal authority was based on a combination of state
sponsorship – to go against communal leaders was to go against the king –
and the threat of excommunication, a real threat because religion was
mandatory. In addition, the rabbis derived their legal authority from a
divine source, a belief in a chain of tradition that dated back to Moses and
the revelation at Mount Sinai. The rabbis themselves were ordinary men; but
their teachings were seen as divine. This was a common theme in the Middle
Ages: power of the past over the present. Precedent and tradition were
all-powerful. The authority of the rabbis and wealthy was symptomatic of
80 The Jews of medieval Christendom