The Authority to Define a Jew

Abstract

Abstract This article focuses on a rabbinic controversy between the Greek Jewish scholar Elijah Mizrah.i and his Iberian colleague Jacob Ibn Ḥabib in the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The case at hand concerned specific legal questions regarding levirate marriage. These had become particularly difficult with the involvement of converts, posing fundamental questions about Jewish group affiliation. Analysing the related but contrasting legal opinions of Mizrah.i and Ibn Ḥabib, I suggest distinguishing between an intellectual approach and a traditionalist approach to answering these questions. Whereas earlier scholarship has attributed the scholars’ diverging conclusions mainly to their different cultural backgrounds, I argue that Mizraḥi and Ibn Ḥabib chose different lines of reasoning for strategic reasons, grounded in their particular political situations.