Takkanot Kahal and the origin of communal structures in a Franconian village community in the 17th century

Yeshiva University, New York

Takkanot Kahal are clearly a phenomenon of early modern Jewry in Europe. Throughout the Ashkenazi world there were four common ways to enact them. By elaborating takkanot, Jewish leaders copied the Gentile custom of creating legal digests in that time, thus adapting the communities to the administrative structures of the early modern state. The short statutes of the community in Ühlfeld, dating fromm 1688, are a rare example for takkanot enacted in an early stage of the local Jewish history. The text clearly shows the efforts of the author, R. Asher Enslen of Schnaittach, to strenghten the ties in the small Jewish group and thus to found communal institutions. The Yiddish text provides rich information on this process, as well as some insights into the administrative practice, since the takkanot open the earliest Pinkas Kahal of Ühlfeld.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Takkanot Kahal/Community Statutes of Ühlfeld (1688)

https://research.library.fordham.edu/emw/emw2008/emw2008/6