Theqahal (Hebrew:קהל), sometimes spelledkahal, was atheocraticorganizational structure inancient Israelite society according to theHebrew Bible,[1] and anAshkenazi Jewish system of a self-governing community orkehila from medieval Christian Europe (France, Germany, Italy). This was adopted in thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (16th–18th centuries) and its successor states, with an elected council of laymen, the 'qahal', at the helm of each kehila.[2] This institution was exported also further to the east as Jewish settlement advanced.[2] InPoland it was abolished in 1822,[2] and in most of theRussian Empire in 1844.[3]
TheHebrew word qahal, which is a closeetymological relation of the name ofQoheleth (Ecclesiastes), comes from aroot meaning "convoked [group]";[4] itsArabic cognate,قَالَqāla, meansto speak.[1] Where theMasoretic Text uses the term qahal, theSeptuagint usually uses theKoine Greek termekklesia,ἐκκλησία,[1] which means "assembly", "gathering", or "congregation",[5] later used forchurch. In one particular part of thePriestly Code, the Septuagint instead uses the termσυναγωγή,[6] also meaning "gathering" or "congregation"[7] where the Masoretic Text uses qahal.[8] This last term is the origin of the word for "synagogue" in Hebrew.
Thus, the usual translation of qahal is "congregation" or "assembly", althoughאֲסֻפּ֑וֹתasuppoṯ,[9]עֲצָרָהʻaṣārā,[10]עֵדָהʻēḏā,[11]מוֹעֵדmoʻēḏ,[12]מִקְרָאmiqrā,[13] andסוֹדsoḏ[14] are also usually translated like this.[1] In particular, the Biblical text consistently distinguishes betweenʻēḏā and qahal.[1] One passage especially makes the distinction clear;[1] part of the Priestly Code discusses what to do if "the whole Israelite [ʻēḏā] commits a sin and the [qahal] is not aware of it[.]"[15] Scholars conclude that the qahal must be a judicial body composed of representatives of theʻēḏā;[1] in some biblical passages,ʻēḏā is more accurately translated as "swarm".[1][16]
TheBook of Deuteronomy prohibits certain members of theʻēḏā from taking part in the "qahal ofYahweh". In particular, it excludesmamzers, and men who were forciblyemasculated.[17] The descendants ofmamzers, up to the tenth generation, were also prohibited by this law code from taking part in the "qahal of Yahweh".[17]
The term employed in theSeptuagint for 'eunuch' (Koinē Greek:σπάδωνες,romanized: spadones,lit. 'castrate'[18]) most commonly refers to forcibly emasculated men, but it is also used there to denote certain foreign political officials (resembling the meaning of eunuch).[19] This category does not includemen who were born without visible testicles (conditions includingcryptorchidism), or without a visible penis (conditions includinghermaphroditism).[19][20] There is a dispute, even in traditional Judaism, about whether this prohibited group of men should include those who have become, at some point since their birth, emasculated as the result of a disease.[21]
No explanation of the wordmamzer is given in theMasoretic Text, but theSeptuagint translates it as "son of a prostitute" (Ancient Greek:wikt:ἐκ πόρνης).[22] In theTalmud, it is suggested that the wordmamzer derives frommum zar "a strange blemish",[23][24] and thus suggesting illicit parentage in some sense. There are differing opinions in the Talmud as to what this consists of, but the universally accepted ruling[25][failed verification] refers to the offspring ofadultery (defined as relations with a married woman) or incest, as defined in theBook of Leviticus.[citation needed]
In the Talmud, there is a fierce dispute about whether or not the termmamzer included a child with a Jewish mother but a non-Jewish or enslaved father (or both);[26][27] although the Talmud eventually concludes that this is not the case,[28] a number of scholars now suspect that this was actually the original definition ofmamzer.[29]Abraham Geiger, a prominent Jewish scholar and rabbi of the mid 19th century, suggested that the etymological origin ofmamzer might beme'am zar, "belonging to a foreign people".[30]
The Talmud interprets the exclusion of certain people from the qahal as a prohibition against ordinary Jews marrying such people.[19] Additionally, the biblical reference to the "tenth generation" was interpreted, by the classical rabbis, as anidiom meaning "forever";[19] thus the Talmud forbids all the descendants - forever - of these people, from being married to ordinary Jews.[19]
The legal basis for the existence of kahals in the Polish lands was theStatute of Kalisz of 1264 issued by DukeBolesław the Pious, which was extended by KingCasimir III the Great in 1364 to Jews in towns throughout the whole Polish Kingdom.[31] The kahals were the organising body of the Jewish community in a given locality, and were primarily concerned with the collection of head tax and the exercise of jurisdiction within the community.[31] In the 16th century, the kahals spread to the territory of Ukraine.[32]
Strictly speaking, the qahal was the elected lay leadership of thekehila (community).[2] A qahal had a minimum of 8 members, and in average Jewish communities had a membership of 22–35 individuals.[32] Theirexecutives were elected by the local Jewish community, and consisted of 4elders (Hebrew:zeqenim) with a further 3–5honorary members (Hebrew:tovim).[32] There was one qahal for each Jewish community, although smallerkahals were often made subject to larger ones.[32]
These Polish-Lithuanian qahals quickly came to bepolitically autonomous bodies with major regulatory control over Jewish communities in the region.[32] The qahals acted as autonomous administration within each town, having jurisdiction over the local Jewish population and the legal right to regulate the contact between Poles and Jews in all their social, economical and political aspects.[2] Within the community, they administered commerce, hygiene, sanitation, charity (cf.tzedakah,mitzvot,halukka),Jewish education, application of dietary laws (kashrut), and relations between landlords and their tenants.[32] They provided a number of community facilities, such as arabbi,[33] a ritual bath (mikveh), and interest-free loans (gemachen).Kahals even had sufficient authority that they could arrange for individuals to be expelled fromsynagogues,excommunicating them (herem).[32]
However, rich and powerful individuals gradually began to dominate the qahals, abusing their position for their own benefit.[32] As a result, by the 18th century, many ordinary Jews had begun to clamour for the abolition of those institutions.[32]Researchers are still debating to what degree the official abolition of the qahal system (1822 in Congress Poland, and 1844 throughout the Russian Empire) was circumvented by Jewish communities, who had internalised very deeply the spirit of local communal rule and gathered around legal associations such as theḤevrā qaddishā (burial society).[2][3] Some see the qahal-style self-administration reach far into the second half of the nineteenth century; others however, claim that themagnates of Poland and Lithuania had usurped much of the qahal's autonomy well before 1800, and others still see deep inner changes predating even thePolish partitions (1770s-90s).[3]After the 1844 official abolition in the Russian Empire, qahals "continued to exist only in theBaltic region [of Russia]. Afterwards, Jewish communities were only given jurisdiction over religious and charitable affairs, and occasionally over education."[32]
The qahal exists as a theme in theantisemitic conspiracy theory literature. The theme originated withJacob Brafman, a Lithuanian Jew who had a falling out withMinsk qahal tax-agents, and to get revenge converted first toLutheranism and then toRussian Orthodoxy, authoring polemics against theTalmud and the qahal.[34] Brafmann authored the booksThe Local and Universal Jewish Brotherhoods (1868) andThe Book of the Kahal (1869), claiming that the qahal was an international network under the control of theAlliance Israélite Universelle, its aim being to undermine Christian entrepreneurs, taking over their property and ultimately seizing power. This theory was taken up by anti-Jewish publications in Russia and by some Russian officials, such as P. A. Cherevin andNikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev, who in the 1880s urged governor-generals of provinces to seek out a supposed "universal Jewish kahal."[citation needed]Brafmann's image of the qahal spread throughout the world, making its way to theUnited States by 1881, as it was translated byZénaïde Alexeïevna Ragozin inThe Century Magazine. It prepared the groundwork forThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion,[34] and the word qahal features in that text. It is also discussed in other conspiracy works such asEdith Starr Miller'sOccult Theocrasy (1933), which ties it to theIlluminati.[citation needed]
{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)...three varieties of eunuchs were recognized in antiquity: 1) castrati, clean-cut, both penis and testicles were removed; 2) spadones, testicles only were removed; and 3) thlibiae, testicles were bruised and/or crushed.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906)."marriage laws".The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906)."Bastard".The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.