Judaism
The nature of the Sanhedrin in the last years of the Jewish commonwealth is a much disputed matter. The several councils mentioned in Talmudic literature are equally difficult to define with any precision. References scattered throughout medieval literature suggest the existence of councils and synods, but their composition and authority are uncertain. About the year 1000 a synod was held in the Rhineland in which French and German communities participated under the guidance of Rabbenu Gershom, the leading rabbinic authority of the region. In the late Middle Ages, representatives from the communities of Great Poland, Little Poland, Russian Poland (Volhynia), and Lithuania came together to form the Waʿad Arbaʿ Aratzot (Council of the Four Lands). At the beginning of the modern era, Napoleon in 1806 summoned the Assembly of Notables—representatives of communities under French dominion—to deal with questions arising from the dissolution of the older status of the Jews and their naturalization as individuals into the new nation-states. Decisions of the assembly that involved questions of Jewish law were subsequently submitted to a Grand Sanhedrin called by Napoleon to provide Halakhic justification for acts that the French imperial government had required of the ... (200 of 86,975 words)General councils or conferences