Mark Washofsky

20. Rabbi Waldenberg, perhaps best known for his multi-volume responsa collection 7zitz Eliezer, authored a three-volume work entitled Hilkhot Medinah(Jerusalem , 1952-1955). On this subject, see Mark David Strauss-Cohn, Hilkhot Medinah: Halalkhah and The Modern State of Israel, Rabbinical Thesis, HUC-JIR , Cincinnati , 1998

21. At first, the journal was brought out by the Rabbinical Council of Hapo'el Hamizrachi Eventually, the sponsorship passed to the National Religious Party and the Department for Torah Education and Culture in the Diaspora of the World Zionist Organization , with financial assistance from Mosad Harav Kook

22. See the introductory remarks of Rabbi K. P. Techorsh in HTM 1(1949), 8

23. One who called for takanot was the noted Orthodox philosopher Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz , who portrayed the halakhah as a Diaspora product. Jewish public law in its current form reflected the situation of a community enjoying legal autonomy while dwelling under the sovereignty of another people. As such, it was essentially silent on the requirements facing a sovereign government, and this lacuna could be filled only by means of active legislation on the part of rabbinical authorities. As his prime example, Leibowitz pointed to difficulties surrounding the observance of Shabbat in the Israeli public realm. See his“Hashabbat Bamedinah,” Beterem no. 128(1951), 6-15, reprinted in his Yahadut, Am Yehudi Umedinat Yisrael(Jerusalem : Schocken. 1975), 108-120.

24. Most prominent among those who advocated this step was the Mizrachi activist Rabbi Yehudah Leib Hakohen Maimon, author of Chidush Hasanhedrin Bemedinateinu Hamechudeshet(Jerusalem : Mosad Harav Kook. 1951). On this work see Lawrence Alan Bach,“The Renewal of the Sanhedrin in Our Renewed State”, Rabbinical Thesis, HUC-JIR , Cincinnati , 1998.

25. For example, R. Moshe Tzvi Neryah, a leading rabbinical figure in Hapo'el Hamizrachi and a leader of the Benei Akiva youth movement, rejected Leibowitz ’s assertion that the founding of a sovereign state posed a“crisis” for Judaism that could be addressed only by means of radical rabbinical legislation. Indeed, Neryah charged, Leibowitz ’s proposed changes smacked of reformist tendencies. See“Hilkhot Shabbat Vehalikhot Hamedinah” in Beterem, no. 145 (1932), 22 ff.

26. Elon devotes eight chapters of his Jewish Law(pp. 477-879) to the subject of takanah and suggests that the reinvigoration of this rabbinical power in our day would do much to solve some pressing halakhic problems.

27. A major exception was Rabbi Yitzchak Halevy Herzog, who sought to convince the rabbinical community to institute by way of takanah some fundamental changes into the traditional Jewish law of inheritance. Herzog realized that the Toraitic standard, under which daughters are excluded as heirs, could not possibly be adopted by the new state of Israel . He