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enforced through communal fakanot that went into great detail including the confiscation of food stock, punishment for hoarding, etc.” The medieval Jewish community accepted this mandate to alleviate poverty. Although some efforts were undertaken on an individual basis, most of it was on a communal mandatory level. We see this in the Sefer Hassidim with its broad popular appeal and can readily follow it in the influential codifications of Jewish law along with many others. Jacob ben Asher ’s(d. 1340) Turim devoted a section to tzedakah and dealt with many details. There were other influential work in the Middle Ages as well and they too treated the details necessary to be effective.

The vast response literature along with communal fakanot, which dealt with these communal problems through the millenia, constantly return to the issue of wide spread poverty and provide communal solutions which obligated everyone’s participation. Communal legislation also dealt with these problems.

MARKET SUPERVISION, PRICE CONTROL, AND RATIONING

This legislation was, of course, not confined to one issue, but regulated many other financial dealings of those that lived in the community as well as new settlers as it was concerned with the broader welfare of the community. Such legislation always demonstrates a keen awareness of the broader implications from excessive or unfair competition or its restriction. It began with the demands of the Torah and the prophetic books for market supervision of weights and measures was well as some price controls. Price controls were established in talmudic times."

The legislation extended further to the storage of necessities which were collected and distributed by three individuals who were above suspicion(Jer. Peah 8:7). Contributions could be compelled