ABSTRACT
The kehillah (literally, community—parallel term: kahal) is the distinctive Jewish form of local organization and government. The kehillah assumed the forms by which it was best known in Europe in the eleventh century and flourished for nearly a millennium until the twentieth century. The kehillah as the local unit of that body politic was invariably important, although its precise role at any given time depended on the overall political structure of the people as a whole. Under Jewish law as it developed early in the development of the European kehillot, a kehillah was considered to be either a limited purpose partnership or a covenanted community. The rules regarding eligibility and mode of election of borerim represent a substantial part of the literature on kehillah governance from the Middle Ages. Foreign affairs of the kehillah were handled first by the officers of the community, or informally by some prominent member of the community who had the ear of the local ruler.
