Jewish Law Responds to American Law 141
to Israel.®® Therefore the communities of the Diaspora utilized non-ordained judges,’ constituting a court of arbiters.” This was clearly the pattern for the hundred generations of the European Jewish experience.”
A cursory examination of the literature and legal activities of the early Jewish immigrants to the United States reflects an interesting contradiction. The earliest settlers of New England deliberately chose to have their laws reflect Biblical law.>* Jewish residents of the colonies, and then of the new republic, took their legal difficulties to the founded courts. 55 Was it in the nature of the Jews who crossed the ocean during those early colonial and American centuries? It may have well been that“[aJccommodation, after all was an integral part of Jewish history and a pervasive theme of Jewish experience.”” With the arrival of the first wave of the immense Jewish migration which flooded the United States between 1880 and 1914 there was a subtle but significant change.“Among the various immigrant groups for whom internal dispute-settlement procedures were vital for community cohesion, none migrated with as strong a historical commitment to law, and as deep a distrust of alien legal systems,” as the Jews of Eastern Europe. ”*® While the principle that the law of the state was supreme® had been articulated as a basic legal doctrine for centuries, there had been a strong tradition of avoiding to appear before the European national courts. 61 A guiding principle of the European Jewish community was Maimonides ’ warning that a Jew who turned to Gentile judges,“ca used the walls of the Law to fall.”62 His advice to his community, with its echo through the centuries, was clear. He emphasized his concern that justice be sought through arbitration.
Jewish law considers it to be commendable at the outset of a trial to inquire of the litigants whether they desire adjudication according to law or settlement by arbitration. If they prefer arbitration, their wish is granted. A court that always resorts to arbitration is pre; worthy. Concerning such a court, it is said:“Execute the justice ud peace in your gates.”® What kind of justice carries peace with it? Undoubtedly, it is arbitration. So, too, with reference to David it is said:“And David executed justice and charity unto
all his people.”#* What kind of justice carries charity with it? Undoubtedly, it is arbitration, i.e. compromise.”
1 order and communal