2 - The Hebrew Peace Courts

Summary

Chapter 2 recounts the failure of the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine prior to the establishment of the state of Israel, to establish an autonomous system of arbitration, the Hebrew Peace Courts. The early and ringing failure of these courts indicates the inability to agree about what is Jewish and what is Jewish law. In the absence of such agreement, it is impossible to develop a binding system of “Jewish” norms, and in the absence of such a system, the Hebrew Peace Courts could not provide the people of the Yishuv with predictable, stable, and coherent rulings, thus sealing the courts’ fate. Even though the Hebrew Peace Courts were autonomous Zionist courts that promised quick and efficient adjudication by Jewish judges, the people of the Yishuv preferred the formalized British system, based on a clear system of substantive and procedural norms—despite their non-Jewish origin—along with binding precedents and an efficient system of enforcement and implementation.