Gershom ben Judah
Gershom ben Judah, (b. c. 960, Metz,
Lorraine [now in France]—d. 1028/40,
Mainz, Franconia [Germany]), eminent
rabbinical scholar who proposed a
far-reaching series of legal enactments
(taqqanot) that profoundly molded the
social institutions of medieval European
Jewry.
He was called the light of the exile
and also Rabbenu (“Our Teacher,” a title
of reverence). As head of the rabbinic
academy at Mainz, he was a pioneer in
bringing the learning of the Talmudic
academies at Babylon and Palestine to
western European schools. At synods of
community leaders he proposed his
taqqanot, which included the prohibition
of polygamy (permitted by biblical and
Talmudic law but already mostly
unpracticed), interdiction of the
husband’s right to divorce without the
wife’s consent, prohibition of reading
another’s mail without his consent (mail
then was usually carried by travelers),
and prohibition against taunting Jews
who had been forcibly converted to
another religion and had then returned
to Judaism.
He wrote many responsa (authoritative
answers in response to questions about
Jewish law), worked on a critical text
of the Talmud and the Masora, and
transmitted to his students an extensive
oral commentary on the Talmud. All
subsequent rabbinic students in western
Europe considered themselves, in the
words of the renowned medieval French
Jewish commentator Rashi (1040–1105),
“students of his students.”