Boundaries of Loyalty

Rabbi Saul J. Berman is Professor of Jewish studies at Stern College of Yeshiva University, New York and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University Law School where he is the Rotter Fellow of Talmudic Law. As an Orthodox Rabbi in Berkeley, California, Brookline, Massachusetts, and at Lincoln Square Synagogue, New York, Berman was an early participant in the Soviet Jewry and Civil Rights movements. His research and teaching is focused on women in Jewish law, Jewish social and medical ethics, and the connections between law and spirituality, on each of which he has published articles.

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The use of non-Jewish courts: the Tannaitic period; 2. Legislative constraint on testimony: the Amoraic period; 3. Rejected rationales of testimonial restriction: the Gaonic period into the period of the Rishonim; 4. Creation of a duty to testify against fellow Jews in non-Jewish courts in the period of the Rishonim: i.e. under what circumstances could testimony in an honest non-Jewish court be required by Jewish law (and testimony then be permissible even in corrupt non-Jewish courts)?; 5. The tension between responsa and codification: not every good ruling makes a good rule Maharam Mintz, Rabbi Joseph Caro and Rabbi Moshe Isserlis; 6. Further expansion of the duty to testify against fellow Jews in non-Jewish courts in the period of the Acharonim: R. Yaacov Emden; 7. Contemporary attempts to revert to the original law of Rava: expanding the boundaries of loyalty; 8. Conclusion: reflections on loyalty and law; Bibliography; Index.