Policing Lineage in Rabbinic Literature

Abstract

This article examines the topic of exposing Jews of tainted lineage and of maintaining genealogical knowledge in rabbinic literature. Recent scholarship on lineage in rabbinic literature focused on rabbinic attitudes towards lineage and towards revealing invalid Jews. A consensus emerged according to which Babylonian rabbis encouraged exposing Jews of invalid lineage, while Palestinian rabbis preferred to conceal this information. The first part of this article shows that in fact, Palestinian rabbinic sources offer a range of voices regarding exposing invalid Jews. The second section focuses on the issue of maintenance of genealogical knowledge. Scholars assumed that the Rabbis were the central repository of genealogical knowledge, and that they controlled its flow to the community. I show that rabbinic sources do not assume that the rabbis possessed genealogical knowledge. Rather, it is the community as a collective, and the individuals that make it up, that preserve, transmit, and reveal, genealogical information.