When the Rabbi went Medieval on a Deadbeat Dad in 15th Century Algeria

• In Event: The Sephardic Mediterranean from the 13th to the 16th Century

Abstract

In a paper entitled “Illegitimate Births, Socioeconomic Status, and Questions of Agency among Early Modern Jewish Women” which she presented at the 2023 AJS Conference, Dr. Jordan R. Katz demonstrated the plight of unmarried pregnant women in Early Modern Ashkenaz. Often, the community was insufficiently supportive of single mothers, whose familial and financial circumstances were often precarious from the outset. What’s more, as Dr. Katz showed, a practice of sending these women abroad ultimately served to punish the women and protect the interests of the men known, or suspected, to have been intimate with these women. A starkly different picture emerges from two responsa written by R. Simeon b. Zemah Duran (1361-1444) in Algiers in the early 15th century (Tashbetz II, §18-19). In these responsa, R. Duran consciously defies some precedent established by his older colleague and predecessor as chief rabbi, R. Isaac b. Sheshet Perfet (1326-1408), whose applications of Talmudic law seemed to make it easy for a man to deny paternity. In a case shrouded in some mystery, in which identities and other details are first hidden from him to protect the relevant parties, R. Duran uses Rabbinic principles of civil law to override the man’s presumed position of superior authority in establishing a child’s lineage and personal status. This case demonstrates not only R. Duran’s creative interpretation of case law, but also his bold leadership in combating a man who sought to use his position of power to marginalize and victimize the mother of his child. These findings would be of interest to scholars of Medieval halakha and of social history, particularly as it relates to women’s rights and family law.

Author

• Jonathan Kohn, Ben Gurion University of the Negev