Publication of Protocols of Justice: The Pinkas of the Metz Rabbinic Court, 1771-1789

Pages from the Pinkas (Register) of the Metz Rabbinic Court, 1771-1789. (YIVO Archives)

In Fall 2013, Professor Jay Berkovitz of the University of Massachusetts presented a series of programs at YIVO and the Center for Jewish History about the Pinkas (register) of Metz, two leather-bound volumes preserved in the YIVO Archives.

His book on the topic has now been published by Brill Academic Publishers. Presented here to the public for the first time in print, the Pinkas of the Metz Beit Din is the official register of civil cases that came before the Metz rabbinic court in the two decades prior to the French Revolution. Brimming with details of commercial transactions, inheritance disputes, women’s roles in economic life, and the interplay between French law and Jewish law, the Metz Pinkas offers remarkable evidence of the engagement of Jews with the surrounding society and culture. The two volumes of Protocols of Justice comprise the complete text of the Metz Pinkas Beit Din, which is fully annotated by the author, and a thorough analysis of its significance for history and law at the threshold of modernity.

Buy the book.

Watch a video of  a lecture by Professor Berkovitz:
Sex, Yiddish, and the Law: Jewish Life in Metz in the 18th Century

Listen to audio of  a lecture by Professor Berkovitz:
French and Jewish: Defining a Modern Jewish Identity in the 19th Century

Read interviews with Jay Berkovitz:
Protocols of Justice: The Pinkas of the Metz Rabbinic Court 1771-1789
Sex, Yiddish, and the Law: Jewish Life in Metz in the 18th Century
French and Jewish: Defining a Modern Jewish Identity in the 19th Century