Rabbenu Gershom

Died in 1040. He is credited with the bans on polygamy and on divorce against the wife's will and with the rule that majority decisions bind a community.

Rabbenu Gershom is credited with decrees (takkanot) that gave medieval Ashkenazi culture its legal outline, among them bans on polygamy and on divorcing a wife without her consent. A further rule credited to him held that once a majority of a community's leadership approved an ordinance, the whole community was bound by it.1 Several scholars shaped Ashkenazi Jewry profoundly, in their own lifetimes and afterward: Gershom ben Judah, known as Rabbenu Gershom (died 1040); Solomon ben Isaac, or Rashi (died 1105); Jacob ben Meir Tam, or Rabbenu Tam (died 1171); and Meir ben Barukh of Rothenburg (died 1293).2