Abstract:

The following broad--and admittedly rather superficial--survey of Jewish leadership types spans several millennia, from the biblical period to the present. A wide variety of positions with varying claims to authority will be reviewed: biblical charismatic 'judges', elders, priests, and prophets; rabbis and Exilarchs, emerging in late antiquity; wealthy laymen and courtiers in the Middle Ages; Hasidic rebbes and maskilim as new modes of leadership in the modern era. In each case the nature of leaders' claim to authority and the extent of their power within the Jewish community will be assessed. Different types of leaders often coexisted with a kind of division of labour, but cases of strong conflicts are of special interest.

Introduction

As a historian, my personal approach to any topic relating to the Jewish experience is based on historical analysis. I therefore propose to present a kaleidoscopic survey of Jewish leadership types over many centuries, from the biblical period to the present, in order to assess the nature of their authority and the extent of their power, and to highlight elements of continuity and change. The most interesting test of power and authority is when conditions of conflict arise between different claims, and I will mention a few specific examples of such conflict, as a test of how leadership functions not just in theory but in practice.

1. Biblical Period

I begin with the biblical period. Our source for this critical, formative era in the history of the Jewish people is of course the Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians call the Old Testament. I use this text not as an infallible source of literal truth, but rather as a collection of historical documents, comparable to all other historical documents. When, for example, we read in the books of Kings I and II that without exception, every king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and most of the kings of the Southern Kingdom of Judea, 'did what was evil in God's sight', the historian cannot accept these assertions as self-evidently true but would need to raise such questions as the following: Who were the authors of the texts that make these assertions? What groups or interests did such authors represent? What might texts such as 'The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel'--mentioned in our Bible, but no longer extant--have said about those kings? How might they themselves have explained what they were doing?

My discussion will not include the patriarchal period, when we are dealing not with a nation needing institutions of government but with a single large family. Nor will I speak of the wilderness period, which raises complex problems regarding the historicity of the Pentateuchal accounts. Rather I will quickly survey the leadership figures during the centuries following the entrance into the land of Canaan, which can be divided into two periods:

a. 'Judges'

The first is known as the period of the "Judges", before the establishment of the monarchy. The shoftim, to use the Hebrew term, were not...