IN THE COURTS OF THE NATIONS - DataSpace - Princeton ...

This dissertation shifts the focus onto Jews as resourceful individuals who developed strategies
to navigate the legal institutions available to them. In so doing, I offer an alternative to either the
lachrymose or rosy views of Jewish history.
Rethinking Jewish legal autonomy
Understanding how Jews participated in the broader Moroccan legal system requires a
discussion of the relationship between batei din and the various non-Jewish courts which existed
in Morocco. The application of halakhah in a context in which Jews possessed only limited
political power—which was the case throughout most of Jewish history—necessarily leads to the
question of how much authority Jewish leaders exerted over other Jews. This conversation is
broader than legal history alone, as it covers all aspects of the relationship between Jewish
communal leaders and non-Jewish authorities. 46 Yet the law and its application are at the heart
of the matter; the ability of Jews to maintain their own legal system, and hence the degree of
authority over other Jews which Jewish legal officials possessed, are central to almost any
discussion of how much independence Jews had from their rulers.
The present study seeks to move away from prevailing paradigms of Jewish communal
autonomy. Rather than focusing on the extent to which the Jewish legal system was
independent, I attempt to understand how Jewish courts functioned alongside non-Jewish legal
institutions and within the context of a non-Jewish state. I suggest legal pluralism as an
46
For a useful re-thinking of Jewish autonomy which does not focus on the legal dimension, see Marina Rustow,
Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008),
Chapter 3.
18