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Aljama is a Spanish-language term of Arabic-language origin used in old official documents to designate the self-governing communities of Moors and Jews living under Spanish Christian rule. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of Muslim (and earlier non-Muslim people of Berber and Arab descent PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth In some present-day Spanish cities, the name is still applied to the quarters where such communities lived, though they are many centuries gone.

The Jewish communities of Spain, owing to their social isolation and to the religious and political regulations imposed upon them, had always formed groups apart from the rest of the population. The authority exercised by their own rabbis and the system of tax-collection by the heads of the congregations for the administration of communal affairs, placed them almost completely without the jurisdiction of the government of the country; and, as a result, they soon came to be dealt with by the officials not as subjects amenable to the general law of the land, but as collective bodies with special privileges and special duties. Rabbi (pronunciation, although in English usually) in Judaism, means a religious ‘teacher’ or more literally ‘my great one’ when addressing any master

Thus, the Visigothic kings imposed a tax not upon each individual Jew or upon the heads of families, but upon the community as a whole, allowing the communal authorities to fix the individual rate of taxation. The Visigoths (Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, or Wisi were one of two main branches of the Goths, an East But both under the Visigoths and under the Moors there was neither regularity in the transactions of the rabbis and elders nor system in the attitude of the government toward the Jewish communities. With the reestablishment of Christian rule, however, the relation between the government and its Jewish subjects gradually became a well-defined one.

In 1219 and 1284 in Toledo, in 1273 in Barcelona, in 1290 at Huete, and on more than one occasion during those years in Portugal, councils were held of Spanish officials and Jewish representatives for the purpose of establishing a just rate of taxation for Jewish communities, and of devising adequate means for tax-collection. Toledo Spain locationpng|thumb|right|200px|Location of Toledo in Spain Barcelona ( Catalan bəɾsəˈlonə Spanish baɾθeˈlona is the capital and most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia Huete is a Municipality in Cuenca, Castile-La Mancha, Spain. It has a population of 2097 Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic (República Portuguesa is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. This first official recognition by the government of the Jewish communities as separate bodies led to a still further change in the treatment of the Jewish congregations and in the legislation, both local and national, regarding them.

The bishops of the various districts assumed immediate authority over them, and, in conjunction with Jewish representatives, formed rules which were henceforth to govern the communities. A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight The elections of rabbis and judges were to be held at stated intervals, and the names of these dignitaries submitted to the bishop for approval; there was to be a "rabbi of the court" for the presentation of communal questions before the proper authorities; and the heads of the congregation were made answerable for the conduct of the community. A judge, or justice, is an Official who presides over a Court of law In all government action, whether local or general, the unit considered was in most cases the community, not the individual Jew.

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Ethymology and development of the concept

The word aljama is derived from the Arabic jama ("gather") plus the definite article al, which meant originally "congregation", "assembly", "group", but which, even before the establishment of Spanish rule, was applied by the Arabs to their own religious bodies and the larger mosques, and especially to the Jewish communities in the midst of them, and to the synagogues and schools which formed the center of all Jewish life. A "mosque" in English refers to all types of buildings dedicated for Islamic worship although there is a distinction in Arabic between the smaller privately owned mosque and the larger A synagogue (from Greek: grc συναγωγή transliterated synagogē, "assembly" he בית כנסת beit knesset, "house of The term was adopted by the Christians, and its meaning extended so as to designate also the quarters that Jews and Arabs had made their own. In some Spanish cities, the former Jewish quarters are still known by that name, even though the Jews were excpelled in 1492.

Very often, for purposes of distinction, such phrases as Aljama de los Judíos ("Aljama of the Jews") and Aljama de los Moros ("Aljama of the Moors") were used. But the circumstance that the Arabs of Spain had by the term designated more especially the Jewish community has left its trace in the use of the word in the Spanish language; for in Spanish literature Aljama, without any further specification, stands for Sanedrin or for Judería ("Jewry"), or even for the Jewish place of worship, in the concrete as well as in the abstract sense. This use occurs at a very early date. In the "Poem of Alexander", in the "Milagros de Nuestra Señora", and in the "Duelo de la Virgen" of Gonzalo de Berceo, all of the 13th century, Aljama or Alfama is employed to designate the people of ancient Jerusalem; and the historian of the 16th century, Mariana, uses Aljama for the synagogue: "they devastated their houses and their aljamas. Gonzalo de Berceo (ca 1190&ndash before 1264 was a Spanish Poet born in the Riojan village of Berceo, close to the major Benedictine monastery Jerusalem (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, he-Latn Yerushaláyim; Arabic: ar القُدس, ar-Latn al-Quds) is the "

Tecana of Valladolid

A good example of how much self-government was granted to the Jewish Aljamas is afforded by the "resolution of the meeting" or tecana (תקנה) (a Hebrew word that, like sanedrin, has been incorporated into the Spanish language) arrived at by the Aljama of Valladolid in 1432. The Sanhedrin (סנהדרין συνέδριον ''synedrion'', "sitting together" hence " assembly " or "council" was an assembly ||-||} is an industrial city and it is a Municipality in north-central Spain, upon the Pisuerga River and within the Ribera del Duero wine-making region This report is written partly in Hebrew, and partly in Spanish with Hebrew characters, and is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris ("Fonds Hébreux," No. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city 585).

From this document it is learned that, at Valladolid, electoral meetings were held by the community every ten years, and that the particular meeting of which an account is given in the document took place in the latter part of Iyar (end of May) and lasted for ten days. Iyar ( Hebrew: אִייָר or אִיָּר, Standard Iyyar Tiberian ʾIyyār; The following were some of the matters decided or discussed:

  1. The necessity of the Talmud Torah, or Hebrew school, and the rate of taxation for the maintenance of the same, which was decided upon as follows: five maravedis for each of the cattle killed, and one for each sheep; five maravedis for every flask of wine. Talmud Torah schools were created in the Jewish world both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, as a form of public primary School for boys of modest backgrounds Hebrew school can be either (1 the Jewish equivalent of Sunday school - an educational regimen separate from secular education focusing on topics of Jewish The maravedí was the name of various Iberian coins of gold and then silver between the 11th and 14th centuries and the name of different Iberian accounting units between the Five maravedis were also to be paid by a married couple on the day of their wedding, and by a boy on the day of his bar mitzvah. In Judaism, Bar Mitzvah ( Hebrew: בר מצוה "one (m to whom the commandments apply" Bat Mitzvah (בת מצוה "one (f A certain tax was also laid upon inheritances, and various other means of revenue were devised. In connection with this question the employment and salary of private or itinerant teachers were discussed.
  2. The election of the judges and of the rab de la corte (rabbi of the court), to which much space is accorded in this tecana.
  3. The attitude of the individual Jew in his relations with the state. This was by far the most important question discussed. Since permission to decide civil and criminal cases before Jewish judges had been granted by the Spanish government, and since "the Christians, though they be well versed in law, know nothing of Jewish laws," no Jew might plead before a Christian judge, whether religious or civil, except in cases where the taxes and imposts due to the ruler were in litigation, or where special permission was obtalned from the dayyan, or chief judge of the Aljama. Private law (Civil law is that part of a Legal system that involves relationships between individuals The term criminal law, sometimes called penal law, refers to any of various bodies of rules in different Jurisdictions whose common characteristic is the potential Halakha ( הלכה; alternative transliterations include Halocho and Halacha) is the collective body of Jewish Religious law Canon law is internal ecclesiastical law governing the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Anglican Communion of churches A Jew who arrested another Jew with the aid of a Christian was to be apprehended by the dayyan; for a second offense of the same nature, he was to be branded on the forehead and expelled; while the third offense was made punishable by death.

This ability to impose a capital punishment in indicative of how wide was the Jewish comminity's authonomy. Capital punishment, the death penalty or execution, is the Killing of a person by judicial process as Punishment.

Derived words

From aljama are derived:

Similar unrelated words

References

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