Authority beyond Autonomy: Re-thinking Jewish Power in the Medieval and Modern Mediterranean

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

Jewish historiography of the Mediterranean basin has often focused on the nature of Jewish communities’ autonomy. The question of its extent and limits has been lent meaning by the assumption that until the creation of the state of Israel, Jews overwhelmingly lacked political authority. Notwithstanding individual Jews who attained great power—Samuel the Nagid in medieval Iberia immediately comes to mind—Jews as a collective were always “others” living under the rule (and even at the whim) of non-Jewish governments. Whatever political authority Jews were thought to have possessed arose in the context of “Jewish communities,” in the ability of Jewish communal leaders to administer Jewish legal institutions and charitable organizations.
This panel posits that it is productive to turn this question around; how have governments relied upon Jews or Jewish authorities to maintain their own hegemony? More broadly, under what circumstances have Jews exercised formal or informal power or authority over gentiles? Such instances could occur, for instance, when Jews possessed exceptional demographic or economic weight in a given city, or when they held a privileged position as linguistic, cultural, and economic intermediaries between colonizers and colonized—one which made their cooperation indispensable to the colonial authorities. This inquiry goes beyond recent work that looks at how Jewish communal leaders relied on non-Jewish governments to assert authority over their fellow Jews. Rather, we look at circumstances where the question of Jewish “autonomy” would be beside the point, as Jews wielded authority and power outside the strict confines of the Jewish community.
The papers in this panel re-examine Jewish power across the Mediterranean over five centuries. Rena Lauer looks at official and unofficial authority wielded by Jewish doctors in late medieval Venetian Crete. Joshua Schreier shows how the Jews of Oran, Algeria, in the early nineteenth century were a dominant force in the city’s life. Jessica Marglin argues that Jews in nineteenth-century Morocco were so successful at mobilizing foreigners on their behalf that ordinary Moroccans feared being accused of crimes against Jewish victims. Jonathan Ray will act as discussant and chair. By reevaluating extracommunal Jewish authority over many centuries, these papers offer a new lens onto Mediterranean Jewish life.

Sub Unit

• Interdisciplinary, Theoretical, and New Approaches

Chair

• Jonathan Ray, Georgetown University

Individual Presentations

• Medical Authority and Jewish Power in Fifteenth-Century Venetian Crete - Rena Nechama Lauer, Oregon State University

• Jews, Power, and Commerce in Oran, 1820-1831 - Joshua Samuel Schreier, Vassar College

• Fearing Jewish Plaintiffs: International Intervention and Jewish Power in Nineteenth-Century Morocco - Jessica M. Marglin, University of Southern California

Respondent

• Jonathan Ray, Georgetown University