Intrigue and Revolution

Thisis a book of unexpected drama: all eleven chief rabbis appointed in this periodof unprecedented change in the Jewish communities of the Fertile Crescentbecame the subject of controversy and were subsequently dismissed. This tookplace against a background of events rarely discussed in the context of Jewishsociety: crime, hooliganism, slander, power struggles, sexual promiscuity, andeven assaults and assassination attempts on rabbis. Using a wide range oftestimonies gleaned from Ottoman Jewish