Alegerile rabinice din oraşul Bălţi în anul 1877, după documente inedite
Election of a rabbi in the city of Balti in 1877 according to unpublished documents

Summary/Abstract: This article analyzes the process of holding and recognizing the election of a rabbi. This study reflects all the components of the decision-making process in great detail, including the actions of each participant in the inauguration ceremony. Using this example, it becomes clear that in the process of drafting legislation regarding the Jewish community in the Russian Empire in the XIX century, state bodies were very meticulous. Legislation provided even the smallest subtleties in all areas of Jewish life, including the choice of a rabbi by the community. The thoroughness with which laws were developed exceeds all expectations. According to some experts on the confessional history of Bessarabia, this should be explained by the need for the imperial authorities to create a common legislative framework on the periphery, so that it would be easier for the center to manage a mass of different faiths on a vast territorial scale, such as the Russian Empire. In our opinion, this policy at the imperial level, even if it had administrative reasons, was by its nature an assimilation of religious and national minorities. Thus, the function of the rabbi has transformed from the exclusive prerogative of the Jewish community at the end of the XIX century into the function used at the state level. From a simple spiritual leader of the Jews, the rabbi became a promoter of imperial law and normativity

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