Organization and function

The `Rules' of 1730 established the relationships between the people and the officials of the kagal. To vote, one had to have paid their kagal dues of $1\frac{1}{3}$ polish groshes for the previous year. This was the minimum amount, at different contribution levels, different titles were awarded, for example double the minimum amount would get you to be a `comrade' of the kagal. There were complex rules for the election of the head (`Rosh HaKagal'), and for proxy voting. Every household had no more than two votes. In 1711-1713 the total number of elected officials of the kagal was 44-49, divided into two councils (17 and 27 members). Candidates normally would put their own names forward. Officials were elected for a limited length of term, depending on the position. There were many rules limiting the ability of new members (those who had recently moved to the city) to be elected. Kagal also had paid employees (the elected members of the kagal were not paid): a rabbi, a butcher, a `khazn', a scribe, etc. who had individual contracts with the kagal. Kagal organized its own schools, proscribed the appropriate number of guests at a wedding or bris, etc. Kagal had the ability to interfere in all affairs, resolve conflicts, and act as a side in the `Jewish court', and against city administrators and businessmen in the royal courts (e.g. for school plots confiscated by the local authorities, for the right to keep a Jewish cemetery) where they often won. On May 8, 1677, the Vitebsk Mitropolit confirmed the ownership right of the Jews to their old cemetery, and warned neighbours-christians to not bully and provoke the Jews, lest they be fined 130 lithuanian groshes^1.15.