The Third Charter of the Jewish Merchants of Venice, 1611: A Case Study in Complex Multifaceted Negotiations
For over twenty years, the Jewish “projector” Daniel Rodriga sought to convince the Venetian government that it could revive its declining commerce with the Levant, which had once been the source of the greatness of Venice, and thereby also greatly increase its diminishing customs revenues, by issuing a charter allowing Levantine and Ponentine Jews (the euphemism used for Iberian New Christians) to settle in Venice as Venetian subjects. Finally, in 1589, the Venetian government responded favorably, as the Senate approved, for
ten years, a slightly changed version of a charter-text that Rodriga had proposed. The Venetian government was pleased with the results, and consequently, at Rodriga’s request, it routinely renewed the charter for another ten years in 1598.
Politics and Perfection: Gersonides vs. Maimonides
Gersonides (1288-1344) is consistent in seeing the pure life of the mind as the highest end to which a human being can aspire. Maimonides (11$8-1204) certainly presented the vita contemplativa as a crucially important goal but made room in his view of the perfected life for what we would call today statesmanship or politics. Gersonides’
view is surprising because he refuses to follow the Platonists in their call for some sort of integration between the vita contemplativa and the vita activa, the Aristotelians who called for their separation, or ibn Bajja in his insistence that the philosopher withdraw from society.
John Selden and the Biblical Origins of the Modern International Political System
John Selden, one of seventeenth century England’s foremost jurists and legal scholars, wrote many monographs treating the interrelationship between the universe of the Hebrew Bible and that of contemporary Protestant Europe. As we demonstrate, Selden analogized relations among the states of Europe to relations among the biblical nations. Indeed, in defining and in applying the concept of sovereignty to the modern world, Selden relied heavily on the biblical ideal of artificial boundaries and separations in international relations, even
locating the very origins of sovereignty in the biblical narrative’s affirmation of the principle of boundaries.
Max Weber’s Conception of Covenant in Ancient Judaism, with Reference to the Book of Judges
Max Weber provided an important methodological tool for the modern study of the Jewish political tradition: a predominantly socio political analysis of Israelite covenants. Yet in emphasizing a functional analysis of covenanting, Weber problematized covenant as a theological concept. Arriving at an appropriate balance of political and theological elements in the analysis and interpretation of covenant is crucial to any adequate account of the Jewish political tradition. This essay offers an explication of Weber’s views, a contemporary critique of them by Julius Guttmann, who was sensitive to the methodological problem, and a challenge to future writing on the Jewish tradition.
The Strategic Implications of the Peace Process for Israel
Fighting the Administration’s Use of Power
What is Israel’s Education Policy?
A Commodity in Scarcity: The Politics of Water in the Middle East
The problem of water scarcity is a growing worldwide phenomenon. Net renewable water resources per capita have declined dramatically over a single generation, and in little more than thirty years from now will reach dangerously low levels. By the year 2025 the average net water resources in the Middle East are expected to be less than 700 cubic meters per person per year, half of what they are today.
