ABSTRACT
Rabbinic legal tradition, known as Halakhah, self-understands as an organic outgrowth of Torah whose existence and authority are recognized by Torah. The Emancipation, Jews were treated by almost all states as a separate political community within the non-Jewish state rather than as part of a politically undifferentiated citizenry. Negotiating jurisdiction generally involved carving out spheres where the state would support the autonomous operation of Jewish law. The democratic secular state's regulations regarding those ancillary issues tend to track the changing ethical and practical opinions of secular society. The upshot is that all contemporary Jewish divorces involve both the rabbinic and the secular courts, whether directly or by implication. The secular legal system claims primary jurisdiction over any matter of divorce that it is not precluded from, without regard to the jurisdictional claims of the Jewish legal system. Jewish law gives rabbinic courts primary jurisdiction in all cases where both parties are Jewish, regardless of the civil or political setting.
