The Mahamad as an Arbitration Court

London’s eighteenth-century Portuguese Jewish community numbered about two thousand souls living near their synagogue in Bevis Marks, in Aldgate Ward in the City of London, and was ruled by the four Parnassim (wardens) and a Gabai (treasurer) who made up its executive committee, the Mahamad. It was accepted that the Congregation supported the poor families of the community, who received regular allowances from the Sedaca fund and free matsot at Passover. The Gentlemen of the Mahamad presided over the synagogue services, managed the Congregation’s business affairs and also acted as the community’s magistrates.

The Ascamot (bye-laws) of the Congregation were taken very seriously. The London community aptly fits Professor Bernadete’s description of a Sephardi community as an ascamatocracy.1 The Ascamot prohibited its members from suing each other in the secular courts without the prior permission of the Mahamad. There were good reasons for this. It was in everyone’s interest that

Written by

Edgar Samuel

Published in

Volume 41

2007

Other articles within the volume

• In memoriam: Lionel Kochan, 1922-2005
• Kindertransport: Tylers Green Hostel for young Jewish refugees
• Mac Goldsmith
• Addendum III: Lieutenant Marcus Bloom: a Jewish hero of the SOE
• Addendum II: More than just a few: Jewish pilots and aircrew in the Battle of Britain
• Addendum I
• Captain Isidore Newman, SOE
• A Jewish contribution to British psychiatry: Edward Mapother, Aubrey Lewis and their Jewish and refugee colleagues at the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital and Institute of Psychiatry, 1933-66
• Hagedud Ha-Sini: The Jewish Company of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, 1932—42
• Jewish missionary activity in Portugal between the Wars
• Izak Goller (1891—1939): Zionist poet, playwright and preacher
• Two Hebrew grammars and the Enlightenment
• England expects…: British Jews under the white ensign from HMS Victory to the loss of HMS Hood in 1941
• John Braham — from meshorrer to tenor
• An eighteenth-century Sephardi lady: her relations and her property
• The Mahamad as an Arbitration Court
• The Domus Conversorum: the personal interest of Henry III
• Preface