The rabbinate is not mentioned in the Bible. Talmudic literature and the New Testament know of scholars and teachers who are called 'rav' or 'rabbi', but they have no responsibility in the religious life of the community.

It was only towards the end of the eleventh century that a community rabbinate which was not a new priesthood began to appear in the new Jewish settlements of the renascent medieval city, and since the Middle Ages the rabbi has become a ubiquitous presence in the history of the various Jewish communities. With this title or another he has ensured the continuity of Jewish communal life

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This is the first general history of an institution which has become central in Judaism. Schwarzfuchs traces its origin and development from early Judaism (Talmud to the eighteenth century), through the Hakham (Sefardic religious leadership) to its modern manifestation.

He addresses contemporary problems (the role of the rabbi in a modern assimilated community; the relevance of the founding of the State of Israel to the rabbinate outside that country) as well as historical ones, and provides a history of the socio-economic forces which shaped the rabbinate.