Takkanah (Regulation)

Whereas the members of the mahamad [board of governors] and those accompanying them, including Ḥakham Azaria Picho, have convened and constituted a minyan [quorum of ten], and have affixed their signature below, upon having witnessed the havoc and great scandal often occasioned and engendered by Jews going to eat and drink in non-Jewish inns, taverns, and homes, it is ordered and mandated that henceforth at no time shall any great (or small) Jew, married or single (or a woman), eat or drink in such non-Jewish inns, taverns, and homes—a Jew shall not go either with non-Jews or with another Jew or alone, under pain of shunning, excommunication, or ostracism, and the payment of ten ducats or more, half to be applied toward the ransom of Jewish slaves and the other half for charity, each time they contravene this ruling. And if there be two or more Jews who act in this way, one accusing the other, the accuser shall be absolved and, under the said pain of excommunication whereby any Jew who sees or knows anything and any Jew (or Jewess) who goes to such places for the aforementioned purposes shall be obligated, within twenty-four hours, to come forward and disclose this to the gentlemen constituting the mahamad at that time and the latter shall be empowered to act. It is further stated that any of the aforementioned Jews may freely sample the said wine solely for the purpose of taking it home and for no other purpose, subject to the aforesaid penalty. And it is further declared that any person coming or going on the road may eat and drink in rural inns provided that they not leave the city for the expressed purpose of eating and drinking in these inns under pain of the aforesaid penalty. And that all this be adhered to truly and forthrightly without anyone being able to engage in any of the aforementioned acts under protest of error or craftiness. And if too little or too much appears in this agreement, may it all go toward bolstering and enhancing the aforesaid agreement. Thus, they have provided, mandated, and affixed their names and I, David Abenine, scribe, have so written by order of the aforementioned gentlemen on the aforesaid day and year.