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

Jews used batei din not only as notary publics, but also as tribunals where they sued—and
were sued by—their coreligionists. The remaining 20% of the documents (54 total) concern
litigious matters—that is, pisqei din regarding lawsuits ranging from debts to inheritance to
disputes over privacy, as well as questions of judicial procedure and jurisdiction. 29 The notarial
documents which individuals previously had written up by sofrim constituted the evidence they
brought to these courts. A bill of debt, for example, served to prove that a Jew was indeed owed
the sum of money he claimed, and a bill of sale confirmed a Jew’s ownership of a piece of real
estate she asserted was hers.
These Jewish legal documents show that not only did Jewish legal institutions exist in
nineteenth-century Morocco, but that they were vibrant institutions which Jews frequented for a
range of matters. Batei din served as notary publics for all manner of contracts among Jews,
from marriage to debts to transfers of real estate to inheritance. They were also the courts of first
instance where Jews usually brought other Jews to resolve legal disputes.
No formal hierarchy existed among batei din in different cities of Morocco. 30 While the
decision of a beit din was binding, it could be revoked by appeal to other halakhic authorities.
Jews sometimes appealed to the courts of other cities in the hopes of receiving a more favorable
ruling. 31 Despite efforts to prevent this kind of appeal, rabbis in Morocco generally seem to have
accepted that their decisions might be overturned by their peers. 32 Undoubtedly, the authority of
a given beit din had much to do with the prestige of its judges, the importance of the city in
29
I have included in this category those documents which record the testimony of Jews about criminal matters, such
as theft, though strictly speaking these are not decisions regarding a legal case.
30
The batei din of different cities sometimes cooperated on a given case, especially if it was important: Bashan,
Yahadut Maroko, 81.
31
Deshen, The Mellah Society, 76-8.
32
An exception occurred in cases in which the litigants swore an oath to accept the ruling of the judge they had
chosen: ibid., 77-8.
55