A term “minyan” in Venetian Hevrat Shomerim la-Boker minute book (16–17th centuries)

Research on the early modern Italian Jewish communities shows that this period witnessed a decline of rabbinic authority. From our point of view, one of the signs of this process is the widened scope of situations in which terms previously bound mostly to ritual contexts appear. The article deals with the usage and meaning of the term “minyan” (a quorum of ten men who have reached the age of the religious adulthood necessary for public liturgy) in the first part of the Hevrat Shomerim la-Boker minute book manuscript. Hevrat Shomerim la-Boker is one of the voluntary communal associations of the Venetian Jewish community that was active in the 16–17th centuries. The article examines textual contexts from both chapter and dated notes that contain the term as well as the broader historical context in which these formulae exist. In the first part of the minute book, the term is mentioned five times, three times at the dated notes, two times in the chapter. The analysis of the usage contexts of the term “minyan” revealed that this meaning starts to appear at a wider scope, namely, in administrative contexts. The term also became a part of an idiom that the compiler of the dated notes or scribe used to highlight that a certain procedure was carried out according to the procedural norm and its results are legitimate and accurate.