The leadership of the kahal in medieval Europe was its own form of aristocracy. As the nobles of Europe represented sub-ordinate, corporate power within the national, royal context so the kahal represented what to the monarch looked like a duchy or an earldom or a what-have-you.
When the absolutist ruler eliminated the prerogatives of the aristocracy he also had occasion to eliminate the prerogatives of the Jewish pseudo-aristocracy, and with it was eliminated the entire medieval way of life the European Jewish community had come to adopt.
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