Law Commons^™

Jewish Law And Socially Responsible Corporate Conduct, Steven H. Resnicoff

Steven Resnicoff

No abstract provided.

Same-Sex Marriage And Jewish Law: Time For A New Paradigm?, Doron M. Kalir

Doron M Kalir

In recent years the Supreme Court, as well as important segments of society, has come to accept and even celebrate same-sex relations that in the past, and for some still today, have generated contempt, hostility, and violence. This change in law and culture poses a unique challenge for those who are moved by the plight of gay people yet concomitantly feel bound by their religious convictions and therefore prevented from providing religious legitimacy to people who yearn to be part of their community. Professor Kalir meets this challenge by proposing that the Torah (and Jewish law), read in context, accepts …

Between Law And Religion: Procedural Challenges To Religious Arbitration Awards, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

This Essay presented at the Sharia and Halakha in America Conference explores the unique status of religious law as a hybrid concept that simultaneously retains the characteristics of both law and religion. To do so, the Article considers as a case study how courts should evaluate procedural challenges to religious arbitration awards. To respond to such challenges, courts must treat religious law as law when defining the contractually adopted religious procedural rules and treat religious law as religion when reviewing precisely what the religious procedural rules require. On this account, constitutional and arbitration doctrine combine to insulate religious arbitration awards …

Arbitration's Counter-Narrative: The Religious Arbitration Paradigm, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

Arbitration theory and doctrine is dominated by an overarching narrative that conceptualizes arbitration as an alternative to litigation. Litigation, one the one hand, is more procedurally rigorous, but takes longer and costs more; arbitration, on the other hand, is faster and cheaper, but provides fewer procedural safeguards. But notwithstanding these differences, both arbitration and litigation ultimately serve the same purpose: resolving disputes. Indeed, this narrative has been pervasive, becoming entrenched not only in recent Supreme Court decisions, but also garnering support from both arbitration critics and supporters alike.

This Article, however, contends that this exclusive focus on arbitration’s standard narrative …

Religious Institutionalism, Implied Consent And The Value Of Voluntarism, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

Increasingly, clashes between the demands of law and aspirations of religion center on the legal status and treatment of religious institutions. Much of the rising tensions revolving around religious institutions—exemplified by recent Supreme Court decisions such as Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby—stem from conflicts between the religious objectives of those institutions and their impact on third parties who do not necessarily share those same objectives. This Article aims to provide a framework for analyzing the claims of religious institutions by grounding those claims in the principle of voluntarism. On such an account, religious institutions deserve protection because …

The Murkiness Of The Hobby Lobby Ruling, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

No abstract provided.

Moderator, “Religious Law In U.S. Courts”, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

No abstract provided.

Beit Din's Gap-Filling Function: Using Beit Din To Protect Your Client, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

This article considers how rabbinical courts play an important gap-filling role by providing parties with a forum to adjudicate a subset of religious disputes that could not be resolved in court. Under current constitutional doctrine, civil courts cannot adjudicate disputes that turn on religious doctrine and practice. By contrast, rabbinical courts can resolve such disputes--and the decisions of rabbinical courts can then be enforced by civil courts even as those same civil courts could not resolve the dispute in the first instance. In this way, rabbinical courts--like other religious arbitration tribunals--fill a void created by constitutional law, ensuring that parties …

"The Interface Of Halakha And The Secular Legal System: The Australian Experience" Published As Chapter 14 In Jewish Law Association Studies Vii: The Paris Conference Volume, Harry Reicher

Harry Reicher

No abstract provided.

Between Law And Religion: Procedural Challenges To Religious Arbitration Awards (Video), Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

No abstract provided.

Is The Jewish Tradition Intellectual Property?, Roberta R. Kwall

Roberta R Kwall

Speaker, “Taking Beth Din Judgments Into Secular Court”, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Military Conquest On Private Ownership: Jewish And Islamic Law, Amal Mohamad Jabareen, Israel Zvi Gilat

Amal Mohamad Jabareen

This article presents the legal outlooks of two fundamental religious judicial systems – Jewish (Halakha) and Muslim (Shari'a) – on the effect of war on private ownership. To be precise, this is when the conquered inhabitants are Jews or Muslims and halakhah or shari’a are their religion, respectively, but the conqueror is a non-believer or secular sovereign. Such situations evoke the following questions: To what extent the transfer of ownership by the conquering sovereign is recognized by the religious laws of the conquered population? May a member of the conquered religion acquire property that was seized by the non-believer sovereign …

Religious Arbitration And The New Multiculturalism: Negotiating Conflicting Legal Orders, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

This Article considers a trend towards what I have termed the "new multiculturalism," where conflicts between law and religion are less about recognition and symbolism and more about conflicting legal orders. Nothing typifies this trend more than the increased visibility of religious arbitration, whereby religious groups use current arbitration doctrine to have their disputes adjudicated not in U.S. courts and under U.S. law, but before religious courts and under religious law. This dynamic has pushed the following question to the forefront of the multicultural agenda: under what circumstances should U.S. courts enforce arbitration awards issued by religious courts in accordance …

Jewish Law From Out Of The Depths: Tragic Choices In The Holocaust, Samuel J. Levine

Samuel J. Levine

No abstract provided.

Capital Punishment In Jewish Law And Its Application To The American Legal System: A Conceptual Overview, Samuel J. Levine

Samuel J. Levine

In recent years, a growing body of scholarship has developed in the United States that applies concepts in Jewish law to unsettled, controversial, and challenging areas of American legal thought. One area of Jewish legal thought that has found prominence in both American court opinions and American legal scholarship concerns the approach taken by Jewish law to capital punishment. In this Essay, Levine discusses the issue of the death penalty in Jewish law as it relates to the question of the death penalty in American law, a discussion that requires the rejection of simplistic conclusions and the confrontation of the …

A Look At American Legal Practice Through A Perspective Of Jewish Law, Ethics, And Tradition: A Conceptual Overview, Samuel J. Levine

Samuel J. Levine

Levine examines the roles of legislative and judicial bodies, in the context of a discussion of broader principles of legislation in the Jewish legal system. In recent years, American legal scholars have increasingly looked to Jewish law as a model of an alternative legal system that considers many of the issues present in the American legal system. In relation to the roles of legislative and judicial bodies, the Jewish legal system provides a particularly illuminating contrast to the American legal system, in part because in Jewish law, the same authority, the Sanhedrin, or High Court, serves in both a legislative …

Profit, Progress And Moral Imperatives, Deborah W. Post

Deborah W. Post

No abstract provided.

Panelist, “Religious Issues In Marriage And Divorce Law”, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

No abstract provided.

Academic Freedom In Religiously Affiliated Law Schools: A Jewish Perspective. (Symposium On Religiously Affiliated Law Schools), Howard Glickstein

Howard Glickstein

No abstract provided.

Panelist, “Rabbinical Arbitration In The 21st Century: Contemporary Issues And Challenges”, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

No abstract provided.

Confirming Piskei Din In Secular Court, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

No abstract provided.

Eruv And Establishment, Lorin Geitner

Lorin C. Geitner

An examination of how the Orthodox Jewish practice known as an "eruv", based in Jewish religious law, can help illustrate the tension between the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment.