The concept of "Righteous Gentiles" (
gerim toshavim) has a few precedents in the
history of Judaism, primarily during
Biblical times and the
Roman domination of the Mediterranean. In the
Hebrew Bible, it is reported that the legal status of (, : "foreigner" or "alien" + : "resident", ) was granted to those
Gentiles (non-Jews) living in the
Land of Israel who did not want to convert to Judaism but agreed to observe the Seven Laws of Noah. The or
God-fearers of the
Roman Empire were another ancient example of non-Jews being included within the Jewish community without converting to Judaism. During the
Golden Age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula, the
medieval Jewish philosopher and
rabbi Moses Maimonides (1135–1204) wrote in the
halakhic legal code that Gentiles (non-Jews) must perform exclusively the Seven Laws of Noah and refrain from
studying the Torah or performing any
Jewish commandment, including resting on the
Shabbat; however, Maimonides also states that if Gentiles want to perform any Jewish commandment besides the Seven Laws of Noah according to the correct halakhic procedure, they are not prevented from doing so. According to Maimonides, teaching non-Jews to follow the Seven Laws of Noah is incumbent on all Jews, a commandment in and of itself. an
Italian Sephardic Orthodox rabbi and renowned
Jewish Kabbalist. Between the years 1920s–1930s, French writer adopted the Noahide laws at the suggestion of his teacher Elijah Benamozegh; afterwards, Pallière spread Benamozegh's doctrine in Europe and never formally converted to Judaism. Modern historians argue that Benamozegh's role in the debate on Jewish universalism in the history of
Jewish philosophy was focused on the Seven Laws of Noah as the means subservient to the shift of
Jewish ethics from particularism to universalism, although the arguments that he used to support his universalistic viewpoint were neither original nor unheard in the history of this debate. According to
Clémence Boulouque, Carl and Bernice Witten Associate Professor of Jewish and Israel Studies at
Columbia University in the City of New York, Benamozegh ignored the
ethnocentric biases contained in the Noahide laws, whereas some contemporary
right-wing Jewish political movements have embraced them. ==Modern Noahide movement==