Monday, August 20, 2018

Bornstein-Makovetsky on Illicit Sex in Ottoman & Jewish Law

Leah Bornstein-Makovetsky, Ariel University, has posted Ottoman and Jewish Authorities Facing Issues of Fornication and Adultery: 1700-1900, which appeared in the International Journal of the Jurisprudence of the Family 4 (2013): 159-176:
The purpose of this article is to discuss the ways in which the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ottoman authorities, on the one hand, and Jewish community (secular) leaders and rabbinical courts of law (whose members are called dayanim), on the other, handled cases of adultery and fornication among Jews. The topic is obviously related to the status of Jewish law and to the history of the Jewish family as an institution in the Ottoman Empire. Our sources- primarily Responsa literature, as well as divorce lists from Jewish courts and other Jewish legal court records, and documents produced by Muslim courts of law (shari'a courts), which were the official Ottoman courts-provide a wealth of information on the topic.