A centralized form of Jewish religious authority developed from the Middle Ages, with functions that were often representative as well as judicial. In medieval Europe, a "chief Jew" (magister Judaeorum) was sometimes little more than a tax collector and agent of the crown; in other cases, he might be the head of a rabbinical court (Bet Din), some prominent Jew who was recognized by the government as "crown rabbi," or one serving as both. This system helped to preserve juridical autonomy and led to the establishment of local or more widely recognized chief rabbinates. Thus, a preeminent crown rabbi (Rab de la Corte or Rabi mayor) of Castile was Ḥasdai Crescas; a Rabbi Mór ("arraby moor") held office in Portugal for more than two centuries (1278-1497); while Solomon Adret of Barcelona was known as Rab d'Espama. Under the Holy Roman Empire, Meir of Rothenburg was both a government-appointed Hochmeister of the Jews and the community's spiritual authority. Among the Jews of Central Europe, from the 14th century onward, the concept of a "town rabbi" (mara de-atra) found expression in the
In England, the rabbi of London's' Great Synagogue enjoyed semi-official status until 1844, when a representative body of delegates elected Nathan Marcus Adler as "Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire" (now the British Commonwealth). No parallel institution exists in America: Jacob Joseph, a Lithuanian talmudist, served briefly as chief rabbi of New York's Orthodox congregations (1888-1902), but the experiment did not succeed. Other chief rabbinates exist today in Western Europe (e.g., Belgium, Denmark, France, Holland, Italy, Sweden, and Switzerland), in Eastern Europe (Hungary, Rumania, and the Soviet Union), and in South Africa, Turkey, and Latin America (Argentina and Venezuela). All of these bodies are Orthodox, apart from the chief rabbinates of Sweden and Hungary (Conservative).
By virtue of the authority conferred on him by the Sublime Porte, a ḥakham Bashi in Istanbul was acknowledged by Jewish communities throughout the Ottoman Empire. During the Turkish period, a Sephardi "Chief Rabbinate of the Holy Land" also began functioning in Jerusalem (see Rishon Le-Tsiyyon). Soon after the establishment of Britain's Palestine Mandate, the previous authority was transformed into a dual chief rabbinate headed by Jacob Meir (Sephardi) and Abraham Isaac Kook (Ashkenazi) from 1921. This system continued, virtually unchanged after the State of Israel came into being. All the Diaspora chief rabbinates are based on congregational "roof organizations" and are financed by voluntary contributions. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel, however, is a state authority with a governmental budget and exclusive jurisdiction over matters of personal status (marriage, divorce, conversion to Judaism, etc.). The Chief Rabbinate Council functions as a supreme Bet Din, and there are also dual chief rabbinates in Isfael's major cities.
