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![handle is hein.religion/glkhst0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
GULAK'S HISTORY OF THE JEWISH LAW OF
PROPERTY.1
[Contributed by GEORGE J. WEBBER, ESQ., LL.B., Barrister-at-Law,
Lecturer in Law at the University of Manchester.2]
Introdutory.-Dr. A. Gulak, formerly an advocate of Odessa, and since
1925 Lecturer in Jewish Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
has during the last ten years produced two standard works of Jewish
legal research. For an authoritative exposition of the whole of Jewish
law, one will always refer to the mediaval codes of Maimonides and of
Joseph Caro. But for a terse restatement, illustrated by Greek and
Roman parallels, the student will increasingly turn to Gulak's Institutes
(1923).3 Then, in 1926, came the Osar Hashetarot.4 This Treasury of
Medieval Jewish Deeds is a veritable expression of law in daily life.
These documents of domestic affairs-marriage, divorce, guardianship,
inheritance-these instruments of the business community-of sale and
gift, mortgage and partnership-these precedents of claims, and orders
of the court portray in the quaint variety and tautology of their terms
a lively picture of Jewish life in the Middle Ages. Moreover, the Osar is
a standard source book of Jewish conveyances and precedents.
In his Inaugural Lecture at Cambridge in 1888, Maitland, speaking of
English law, asked: And now why is our history unwritten? It
was not until forty years later that the nine volumes of Holdsworth's
History were completed. For somewhat similar reasons the history of
Jewish law is still unwritten. Hitherto the devotees of that system were
mainly Rabbinical judges whose primary function was to administer the
law. In Palestine to-day there is also a group of advocates who practise
before the Rabbinical courts. But the practitioner usually cares little
. Lehker teledit hamishat haivri bittekufat hatalmud. M t Aser Gulak. Hlek
Rishon: dfni karkaot. Junovitch: Jerusalem, 1929. (Sifriah Mishpatit No. 7.)
Pp. xvi, 145, 6s. (Prolegomena to the study of the History of Jewish Law in the
Talmudic Age. By Asher Gulak. Part I: The Law of Immoveable Property.)
0 Paper read before the Society for Jewish Jurisprudence, in the Inner Temple,
on March 19, 1931.
3 Yes6di Hamishpat Haivri. Berlin, 4 vols. See International and Interreligious
Private Law in Palestine, by Frederic M. Goadby, M.A., B.C.L., ( Haxadpis Press.
Jerusalem, 1926,) pp. 135, 136.
' Junovitch's Legal Library, No. 5, PP. xlviii, 362. Jerusalem, xSs.
5 Why the History of English Law is not Written, at pp. 480, 487 and ff. The
Collected Papers of Frederick William Maitland, vol. i. (Camblidge: At the Univer-
sity Press, 191I.)](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.religion/glkhst0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)