Ideals face reality
Subtitle: Jewish law and life in Poland, 1550-1655
By: Edward Fram.
Series: Monographs of the Hebrew Union College ;; no. 21
Publisher: Hebrew Union College Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Cincinnati
Language: eng
Number of pages: 186
Subjects: Jews -- Poland -- History -- 16th century.; Jews -- Poland -- History -- 17th century.; Jews -- Poland -- Politics and government.; Jewish law -- Cases.; Jews -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Poland.; Poland -- Ethnic relations.
Description: In this scholarly study, Fram draws upon the ordinances of Polish Jewry's political leadership, Polish legal records, and the responsa of some of the outstanding poseqim of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to show how Polish jurists responded to those complexities.

His case studies, gleaned from a period of exceptional creativity in the annals of Polish Jewry, deal with weddings on the Sabbath, the rights of daughters to familial wealth, women in the marketplace, the personal reliability of those who dealt in the sale of kosher wine, competition among Jews for sources of livelihood obtained through leases (arendy), the transfer and payment of personal debts via bills payable to bearers (membrany), and personal insolvency.

Fram shows how the Polish community, at times consciously and at times unconsciously, transformed some of its traditional values until they may have been unrecognizable to Jews from an earlier age.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 165-178) and indexes.
"An I. Edward Kiev library foundation book"--P. [i].