The Emergence of Medinat Mehren

Abstract

This chapter examines the existence of a specific quasi-political entity, the Moravian Landesjudenschaft or, to use the language of Shai takanot, Medinat Mehren (the Land of Moravia). The chapter explores the emergence of this concept and sets it in its political and historical context. First, the chapter describes the Moravian community of the mid-seventeenth century in its historical, political, and cultural context and the relation of the takanot to the General Ordinance Regarding Moravian Jewry of 1754, the Habsburg government's replacement for Jewish internal legislation. It then comments in more detail on the collection of texts now known as Takanot medinat mehren and assesses their textual history and the role of Israel Halperin in preparing the critical edition. After a detailed overview of the collection's contents and language, the chapter analyses how the original Shai takanot regulated one specific issue, namely the authority of community offices and office-holders and, more specifically, how it established a balance of power between the respective communities and districts into which the Jewry of the land was divided.