Qahal

The Hebrew word qahal, which is a close etymological relation of the name of Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes), comes from a root meaning "convoked [group]"; its Arabic cognate, qāla, means to speak. later used for church. In one particular part of the Priestly Code, the Septuagint instead uses the term , also meaning "gathering" or "congregation" where the Masoretic Text uses qahal. This last term is the origin of the word for "synagogue" in Hebrew. Thus, the usual translation of qahal is "congregation" or "assembly", although asuppoṯ, ʻaṣārā, ʻēḏā, moʻēḏ, miqrā, and soḏ are also usually translated like this. Scholars conclude that the qahal must be a judicial body composed of representatives of the ʻēḏā; ==Biblical exclusions==

The Book of Deuteronomy prohibits certain members of the ʻēḏā from taking part in the "qahal of Yahweh". In particular, it excludes mamzers, and men who were forcibly emasculated. The descendants of mamzers, up to the tenth generation, were also prohibited by this law code from taking part in the "qahal of Yahweh".) most commonly refers to forcibly emasculated men, but it is also used there to denote certain foreign political officials (resembling the meaning of eunuch). This category does not include men who were born without visible testicles (conditions including cryptorchidism), or without a visible penis (conditions including hermaphroditism). There is a dispute, even in traditional Judaism, about whether this prohibited group of men should include those who have become, at some point since their birth, emasculated as the result of a disease. No explanation of the word mamzer is given in the Masoretic Text, but the Septuagint translates it as "son of a prostitute" (). In the Talmud, it is suggested that the word mamzer derives from mum zar "a strange blemish", and thus suggesting illicit parentage in some sense. There are differing opinions in the Talmud as to what this consists of, but the universally accepted ruling refers to the offspring of adultery (defined as relations with a married woman) or incest, as defined in the Book of Leviticus. In the Talmud, there is a fierce dispute about whether or not the term mamzer included a child with a Jewish mother but a non-Jewish or enslaved father (or both); although the Talmud eventually concludes that this is not the case, a number of scholars now suspect that this was actually the original definition of mamzer. Abraham Geiger, a prominent Jewish scholar and rabbi of the mid 19th century, suggested that the etymological origin of mamzer might be ''me'am zar'', "belonging to a foreign people". The Talmud interprets the exclusion of certain people from the qahal as a prohibition against ordinary Jews marrying such people. Additionally, the biblical reference to the "tenth generation" was interpreted, by the classical rabbis, as an idiom meaning "forever"; thus the Talmud forbids all the descendants - forever - of these people, from being married to ordinary Jews. ==In Poland-Lithuania==

The legal basis for the existence of kahals in the Polish lands was the Statute of Kalisz of 1264 issued by Duke Bolesław the Pious, which was extended by King Casimir III the Great in 1364 to Jews in towns throughout the whole Polish Kingdom. The kahals were the organising body of the Jewish community in a given locality, and were primarily concerned with the collection of head tax and the exercise of jurisdiction within the community. In the 16th century, the kahals spread to the territory of Ukraine. Strictly speaking, the qahal was the elected lay leadership of the kehila (community). a ritual bath (mikveh), and interest-free loans (gemachen). Kahals even had sufficient authority that they could arrange for individuals to be expelled from synagogues, excommunicating them (herem). However, rich and powerful individuals gradually began to dominate the qahals, abusing their position for their own benefit. As a result, by the 18th century, many ordinary Jews had begun to clamour for the abolition of those institutions. Researchers are still debating to what degree the official abolition of the qahal system (1822 in Congress Poland, and 1844 throughout the Russian Empire) was circumvented by Jewish communities, who had internalised very deeply the spirit of local communal rule and gathered around legal associations such as the Ḥevrā qaddishā (burial society). Some see the qahal-style self-administration reach far into the second half of the nineteenth century; others however, claim that the magnates of Poland and Lithuania had usurped much of the qahals autonomy well before 1800, and others still see deep inner changes predating even the Polish partitions (1770s-90s). After the 1844 official abolition in the Russian Empire, qahals "continued to exist only in the Baltic region [of Russia]. Afterwards, Jewish communities were only given jurisdiction over religious and charitable affairs, and occasionally over education." ==Conspiracy theories==

The qahal exists as a theme in the antisemitic conspiracy theory literature. The theme originated with Jacob Brafman, a Lithuanian Jew who had a falling out with Minsk qahal tax-agents, and to get revenge converted first to Lutheranism and then to Russian Orthodoxy, authoring polemics against the Talmud and the qahal. Brafmann authored the books The Local and Universal Jewish Brotherhoods (1868) and The Book of the Kahal (1869), claiming that the qahal was an international network under the control of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, its aim being to undermine Christian entrepreneurs, take over their property and ultimately seizing power. This theory was taken up by anti-Jewish publications in Russia and by some Russian officials, such as P. A. Cherevin and Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev, who in the 1880s urged governor-generals of provinces to seek out a supposed "universal Jewish kahal." Brafmann's image of the qahal spread throughout the world, making its way to the United States by 1881, as it was translated by Zénaïde Alexeïevna Ragozin in The Century Magazine. It prepared the groundwork for The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and the word qahal features in that text. It is also discussed in other conspiracy works such as Edith Starr Miller's Occult Theocrasy (1933), which ties it to the Illuminati. ==See also==