Takkanot

Takkanot.

In the same year the Ottoman Turks captured Syria. Salim I. abolished the office of nagid in Egypt; and Sholal came to Jerusalem. The latter did much good in the city, spending his own money and founding two new yeshibot, so that many scholars flocked thither from other parts of Palestine. He also laid down some further takkanot; namely, that a Jew should not cite a fellow Jew before a Mohammedan court, unless he had previously cited him three times before a bet din; that no unseemly drinking should take place at the tomb of Samuel the prophet; and that disputes should not be held in the synagogue. He seems to have commenced to regulate the Halukkah and to have instituted vigils ("mishmarot"), for which in 1521 he drew up special rules. It is said that on the first day of these vigils there was a heavy rainfall, and lightning damaged the dome of the Great Mosque (see letter of the Jerusalem rabbis, published by Neubauer in "Ha-Lebanon," 1868, v. 26).

Jerusalem