Wills, Trusts & Estates

In modern law, the terms inheritance and heir refer exclusively to succession to property
by descent from a deceased dying intestate. Takers in property succeeded to under a
will are termed generally beneficiaries, and specifically devisees for real property,
bequestees for personal property (except money), or legatees for money.
Except in some jurisdictions where a person cannot be legally disinherited (such as the
United States state of Louisiana, which allows disinheritance only under specifically
enumerated circumstances), a person who would be an heir under intestate laws may
be disinherited completely under the terms of a will (an example is that of the will of
comedian Jerry Lewis; his will specifically disinherited his six children by his first wife,
and their descendants, leaving his entire estate to his second wife).
History
Detailed anthropological and sociological studies have been made about customs of
patrilineal inheritance, where only male children can inherit. Some cultures also employ
matrilineal succession, where property can only pass along the female line, most
commonly going to the sister's sons of the decedent; but also, in some societies, from
the mother to her daughters. Some ancient societies and most modern states employ
egalitarian inheritance, without discrimination based on gender and/or birth order.
Jewish Laws
The inheritance is patrilineal. The father —that is, the owner of the land— bequeaths
only to his male descendants, so the Promised Land passes from one Jewish father to
his sons.
If there were no living sons and no descendants of any previously living sons, daughters
inherit. In Numbers 27:1-4, the daughters of Zelophehad (Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah,
and Tirzah) of the tribe of Manasseh come to Moses and ask for their father's
inheritance, as they have no brothers. The order of inheritance is set out in Numbers
27:7-11: a man's sons inherit first, daughters if no sons, brothers if he has no children,
and so on.
Later, in Numbers 36, some of the heads of the families of the tribe of Manasseh come
to Moses and point out that, if a daughter inherits and then marries a man not from her
paternal tribe, her land will pass from her birth-tribe's inheritance into her marriagetribe's.
So a further rule is laid down: if a daughter inherits land, she must marry
someone within her father's tribe. (The daughters of Zelophehad marry the sons' of their
father's brothers. There is no indication that this was not their choice.)
The tractate Baba Bathra, written during late Antiquity in Babylon, deals extensively with
issues of property ownership and inheritance according to Jewish Law. Other works of
Rabbinical Law, such as the Hilkhot naḥalot : mi-sefer Mishneh Torah leha-Rambam,
and the Sefer ha-yerushot: ʻim yeter ha-mikhtavim be-divre ha-halakhah be-ʻAravit uve-
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