glimpses lost jewish communities myanmar

The Rome community seems to have been divided up, and organized in and around the synagogues. The Berenice ( *Benghazi) community in Cyrenaica had nine archons at the head of its politeuma. In the beginning of Roman rule, the leadership of the Alexandria community was in the hands of an ethnarch later, in the days of Augustus, the main leadership passed to the council of elders ( gerousia), which had scores of members.

At the head of the Alexandria community at first were the elders.

In *Alexandria, Egypt, there existed a large Jewish community, which did not however embrace all the Jews living within the city the synagogue became a center of communal leadership and at the same time a focal point for the emergence of a separate synagogue-community, existing alongside similar synagogue-communities within the same city.īy Ptolemaic times the Jews in Alexandria were already organized as a politeuma (πολίτευμα), one of a number of such administrative (non-Jewish) units in the city. In the Hellenistic-Roman Diaspora the element of *autonomy granted by the non-Jewish sovereigns became a basic constitutive element in the life of the Jewish community, remaining central to it throughout centuries of Jewish history. At the head of the executive branch stood the archon and supervision of economic life was in the hands of the agoranomos. From its foundation *Tiberias was a city with a decisive Jewish majority, structured and organized on the model of the Greek polis, with a city council and popular assemblies which sometimes met in the synagogue. In the Second Temple period the *Sanhedrin had the function of municipal council of the holy city, Jerusalem, as well as its more central functions in national life. Later, under the Ptolemaic and Seleucid rule and influence, Hellenistic institutions began to shape local social life. 26) who had judicial power and the right to lead the defense of the city. The Book of *Judith tells of local self-government in the town of Bethulia in the days of Persian influence. For more on community structure in the Bible see *Congregation (Assembly). It would seem that this local leadership, which combined preeminence in the town with noble family descent, was a central element in the life of the exiles in *Babylon. King *Ahab had to turn to 'the elders and nobles, which are of his town, who sit with Naboth' (i Kings 21:8) and they passed judgment on Naboth ( ibid. However, in *Shechem it was apparently the Ba'alei Shekhem who ruled the town, determining its enemies and friends (Judg. While the central and centralistic institutions of *kingship, *patriarchs, *prophets, *Temple, *tribe, and academies predominated – each in its time and its own way – there is only occasional mention of local leadership among the Jews. This entry is arranged according to the following outline: antiquity From the Middle Ages on the community was a 'Jewish city,' parallel to and within the Christian and Muslim ones. Particularly after the loss of independence, as the Jews became predominantly town dwellers, the community became more developed and central to Jewish society and history. Ideally the community denoted the 'Holy Community' ( Kehillah Kedoshah), the nucleus of Jewish local cohesion and leadership in towns and smaller settlements. The muslim countries in the west (egypt and maghreb)ĭevelopments in North Africa from the 19 th CenturyĬommunity organization since world war iiĬommunity Structure in a Voluntaristic EnvironmentĬOMMUNITY, the designation of Jewish social units, used for the Hebrew terms edah, kehillah, and kahal.

Glimpses lost jewish communities myanmar