“The Law of the Land and Jewish Law” 77
were in the spirit of earlier ones; others were considered invalid.* Of course even these authorities understood the royal need for additional revenue.
The Ashkenazic community faced the same problem as the Sephardim as royal appointees to positions of communal leadership or to the communal rabbinate, but they fought it with partial success through takanot.** The smaller size of the community and their compact nature made this possible. The appointee might not be removed and his power of taxation remained, but otherwise, no one paid any attention to him. In fact unfit individuals regularly applied to the king for such positions and then had to be accepted by the communities. The practice of recognizing the power of the government to appoint continued and we find individuals from Isserles to the nineteenth century Hatam Sofer accepting it, albeit reluctantly.?> On the other hand, in the German lands communal autonomy nevertheless prevailed.*
In Poland , Lithuania , as well as some other lands, the communities began to cooperate by the middle of the sixteenth century; they formed national tribunals, organized synods and governing councils. This was encouraged by the rulers as it simplified the collection of taxes. In turn they provided a higher degree of autonomy for the Jewish community and so dina demalkhuta dina played a smaller role than elsewhere for several centuries.*?
In the main, Samuel's principle was limited to civil law outside the realm of family law as it had been codified by Mai monides. ** The boundaries became vaguer from the seventeenth century onward, so we find purely Gentile witnesses to a death, or the state’s declaration of death in the case of a soldier accepted for purposes of releasing an agunah; similarly dina demalkhuta dina was also invoked in the commercial aspects of the redemption of the first born, the sale of leavened items, Gentile wine, ele
The Gentile governments were often not trusted, so we find contradicting decisions and interpretations of dina demalkhuta dina: it was possible for a scholar to decide that it was not permitted to hide a Jew sought by the government, but one could advise him and presumably not turn him in when one knew Where he was.#
The parameters provided by earlier times were interpreted Testrictively and this succeeded in the Ashkenazic lands until the Nature of the state changed. The ancient stability began to disap