Dr. Levi Cooper
About
Levi.Cooper@biu.ac.il
Levi Cooper is a Senior Lecturer in Bar-Ilan University’s Faculty of Law and an expert in the interface between Jewish law and Hasidism.
Originally from Australia, he has held research positions at Oxford and the Max Planck Institute.
His scholarship focuses on legal history and the interplay between Jewish legal writing and broader cultural contexts.
Dr. Cooper explores how Jewish law has evolved through dialogue with intellectual and social movements, providing a nuanced perspective on the historical development of Halakha and its diverse expressions across different Jewish communities.
Lecture Abstract:
Flora (Farha) Sassoon was a remarkable woman. Born in Mumbai in 1856 to a wealthy Baghdadi family, she married Suleiman David Sassoon and later headed the Mumbai branch of the Sassoon enterprise. Flora was renowned for her business acumen, piety, and scholarship. A 1936 Australian obituary called her “one of the world’s most learned women.” This project analyses her international correspondence with rabbis on matters of Jewish law.
Research into rabbinic responsa has focused on rabbis’ responsa and their spheres of influence, rarely examining those who posed legal questions from afar. This project is methodologically innovative, shifting focus from rabbis to those asking questions in Jewish law. Questioners seek answers to specific legal problems, but they also shape the legal agenda by prompting rabbis to address specific issues, and they even informally validate rabbinic authority through their choice of whom to consult. This is particularly significant in legal systems that do not have binding hierarchical structures, such as Jewish law.
Flora sent questions from Mumbai to rabbis in Iraq, Jerusalem, Syria, and England. Her correspondence travelled via the Persian Gulf and then overland. Her letters to England made their way up the Red Sea and on through the Suez Canal. Approximately one hundred letters have been identified. Rabbis responded with respect for Flora’s learning and admiration for her piety. They knew she consulted multiple rabbis simultaneously and sometimes asked her to relay colleagues’ responses, making Flora a central node in the rabbinic network, and facilitating religio-cultural exchange across the Indian Ocean and beyond.
By focusing on Flora’s questions rather than rabbinic responses, this project recovers the legal voice of an extraordinary nineteenth-century woman who played a unique role in the transfer and development of Jewish legal knowledge across the Indian Ocean.