Description
Book SynopsisJewish law has a history stretching from the early period to the modern State of Israel, encompassing the Talmud, Geonic and later codifications, the Spanish Golden Age, medieval and modern response, the Holocaust and modern reforms. Fifteen distinct periods are separately studied in this volume, each one by a leading specialist, and the emphasis throughout is on the development of the institutions and sources of the law, providing teachers with the essential background material from which a variety of sources, from many different perspectives, may be taught. Most chapters are written to a common plan, with treatment of the political background of the period and the nature of Jewish judicial autonomy, the character (literary and legal) of the sources, the legal practice of the period, its principal authorities, and examples of characteristic features of the substantive law (especially in family law).
Trade Review'a book that not only succeeds eminently in satisfying a general educational purpose but also innovative amd enriching the approach it adopts and in the insight it provides...this books represents an outstanding attempt to illustrate and explain the creation and evolution of those categories in a way which is accessible to the non-specialist reader. The researcher who is not fluent in Hebrew will find the bibliographies at the end of the chapter extremely useful.'
