Walter Jacob

issued by Napoleon when he assembled a Sanhedrin in 1806. The very use of this title for the assembly indicated that Napo­ leon sought to re-establish an old institution and to infuse it with

new power. Napoleon wished to propel the Jewish subjects of

his vast empire into the modern nation state; it was also an experiment as he was dealing with the smallest religious group and later would face the Protestants with their factions and then the Roman Catholic church . The meeting of the Sanhedrin took place in Paris in 1807; twelve questions were placed before the assembled Jewish dignitaries. The first three dealt with family law and so indirectly with women. Napoleon obviously wished to bring about changes and limit the power of religion; the assembled dignitaries sought to preserve the Tradition and Jew­ ish rights, even while integrating themselves into the broader French community. They avoided the question raised by the title “Sanhedrin;” to do so would have led them into endless debates for which most of the delegates, who were not Jewish scholars, were unqualified. They took the title as honorific and an effort on the part of Napoleon to raise the status of the Jewish com­munity. As Jews in the next generations continued to refer to the assembly as“Sanhedrin,” they gave it greater authority than a mere assembly.

The initial question,“Are Jews allowed to marry several wives?” was easily answered by citing the prohibition of Rabenu Gershom against polygamy.” The next two dealt with divorce and intermarriage and, of course, were more difficult to answer. The answers were straightforward and did not deal with femi­nist issues. They show us that the assembled delegates were not concerned with women’s rights at all. No women were among the delegates, as was to be expected. The group was eventually dominated by the Orthodox rabbinic representation, especially in matters concerning family law. The document reveals a strug­gle between modernization and tradition; the issue of women’s rights or participation was not on their agenda or, for that matter, on the agenda of Napoleon .

Those who framed the responses were divided into two groups; one was principally interested in equal rights and had no halakhic concerns. On the other hand the rabbis were keenly aware of the halakhic consequences. No halakhic discussions were car­