JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

economic history
ment and business opportunities. (2) The community had the
right of enforcing the principle of *ḥazakah – of seniority or
preferential option granted in the bidding or negotiation of
a new contract to the previous partner over his competitors.
This was a rule that benefited the previous or current party
over any new entrant and effectively limited competition
among Jewish businessmen. (3) There was a right and obligation
to guarantee the solvency of the members of the community
in business transactions whenever such guarantee were
required or requested. In practice such guarantees helped
members of the community avail themselves of business opportunities
and strengthen their credit position, but in some
cases the community, by indicating the limits of credit, was
both protecting itself and preventing its members from engaging
in high-risk operations. (4) There was a right to distribute
the tax burden of the community among its members both for
the purposes of poll tax payments and for its intracommunity
needs (see *Taxation).
The paradox of the situation is that most of the cited examples
appear to be in conflict with the liberal idea of granting
freedom of economic activity to individuals. It is, however,
congruent with the conviction that for a minority to survive as
a distinct group it has to place the interests of group survival
above the short-run interests of the individual members. It
is also plausible that when the state was regulating economic
life and practicing economic discrimination, an autonomous
group could not afford a laissez-faire practice and still maintain
its identity and internal cohesion. In fact, when during a
later period the state started to withdraw from the positions
of control and regulation, the Jewish communities also had
to give up most of their regulatory functions under the pressure
of the individual members in order to survive at least as
voluntary associations. But during the period under consideration
the Jewish community organization was still very strong
in enforcing its control over an economically heterogeneous
and socially stratified population.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION WITHIN THE JEWISH COM MU-
NITY. Since the Jewish community was differentiated in respect
to economic functions, it would be well to inquire into
the pattern of social stratification among the Jews during this
period. The society at large was hierarchically organized, and
the social conditions of its members were largely predetermined
either by birth (by hereditary status) or by the role
and functions assigned to them by prevailing custom or by
the state. There was no perfect identity, however, between the
stratification of the society at large and the Jewish community
for the simple reason that the Jews were excluded from land
ownership and were therefore lacking the equivalent of the
nobility, gentry, and serf-peasantry. Within the Jewish community
there was the equivalent of three large groups which
had their counterparts in the society at large, namely: the
equivalent of the urban patricians, the equivalent of the small
producers (craftsmen) and middlemen (merchants), and the
wage earners and paupers.
The first group, in terms of wealth, was represented by
rich merchants and entrepreneurs engaged in international
and interregional trade, in ownership of industrial establishments,
in banking and moneylending, as court factors, tax
farmers, etc. In terms of social prestige this group also included
famous rabbinical scholars and book publishers, although
the last two categories were far inferior in terms of
wealth. The second group, representing the majority of the
Jewish population, included all the owners of some capital,
in the form of tools or stocks of goods, to which their own or
family labor was applied and who employed a small number
of workers. They were the ones who, like the vast majority of
the first group, came into direct contact with the market and
were exposed to all the irregularities of the early, imperfect
markets of the time. Although social mobility from this group
into the upper stratum was not prevented by any legal means,
the dichotomy between the two groups was noticeable both in
the economic and the social spheres, and the grievances voiced
by this group against the upper stratum are a clear witness to
the cleavage existing between them. The third group included
wage earners engaged in crafts, trade, transportation, services
(including domestics), and a large number of unemployables
for whom the community had to provide a livelihood. While
social mobility from the third group into the second was a
possibility, the “plebs” of the community constituted a distinct
group, inferior not only in terms of income, but also in education
and skills and separated by many social and cultural barriers
from the ones who were economically independent.
While the intergroup mobility was limited by economic
factors and perhaps also by some cultural factors, intragroup
mobility was much more free and frequent; and in this respect
the Jewish community was ahead of its times in comparison
with the society at large. There were also special reasons why
the tensions among the various groups and social classes were
dampened and less explosive than in the society at large. Two
reasons were especially significant: first, the generally oppressive
attitudes of the society at large, which apart from exceptional
cases and special situations was hardly in a mood to
differentiate among the various categories and groups within
the Jewish community; secondly, the institutionalized system
of welfare within the Jewish community acted as a form of income
redistribution and provided for the most basic needs of
its indigent members. But even this mitigation of the internal
tensions could not eliminate the intensity of the discord
and the deep resentment that existed among the various social
groups within the community, contrary to the superficial
impressions of casual outside observers who were convinced
that the Jewish community was a model of internal harmony
and solidarity. The internal conflicts were at times so intense
that external, governmental authorities were called upon to
take sides and intervene either to strengthen the forces of
authority within the community or to curb the arbitrariness
of the decisions and limit the authority of the ruling bodies.
The various intellectual and religious movements within the
Jewish community also exhibited strong social overtones and
126 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6