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This book presents the Italian Rabbinate in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as a link in the chain of the development of Jewish leadership in the Diaspora. The book deals with subjects such as the ordination of rabbis and its sociological impact, the rabbis appointed by the community, and the role of the rabbi in the organization of the kehilah and its institutions (from a social, judicial and spiritual point of view). These subjects are discussed on the basis of a wide range of manuscripts, most of which are published here for the first time.
