During the eighteenth century, French courts expanded their competence over Jewish disputes in order to consolidate the kingdom’s hegemony over Alsatian Jewry. In Metz, the expansion was sanctioned by a royal order for the composition of the Recueil des Loix, Coutumes, et Usages Observes par les Juifs de Metz (1742). A blend of Jewish law and French customary law tailored for ancien regime Alsatian courts, the Recueil enabled a Jewish claimant to sue in either the beit din or a French tribunal. These judicial alternatives posed strategic dilemmas. French rulings were frequently vehicles for persecuting Jewish claimants and debasing their law, while rabbinical enforcement mechanisms typically lacked the aggressive bite of their French judicial counterparts. This article examines how the law, and these options, worked in practice.

在 18 世纪，法国法院扩大了对犹太人争端的管辖权，以巩固王国对阿尔萨斯犹太人的霸权。在梅斯，皇家命令批准了Recueil des Loix, Coutumes, et Usages Observes par les Juifs de Metz (1742) 的组成。犹太法律和量身定制的法国习惯法的融合旧制度阿尔萨斯法院，海牙讲义集启用一个犹太方起诉无论是在拜特嚣或法国法庭。这些司法选择造成了战略困境。法国的裁决经常是迫害犹太索赔人和贬低他们的法律的工具，而拉比执法机制通常缺乏法国司法同行的侵略性。本文研究了法律和这些选项在实践中是如何运作的。