(lit. "provider"). Title given to lay leaders of communities and congregations since early rabbinic times. Both the Targum (Isa. 22:15) and the Mishnah (Ket. 7:1) employ this term in the generalized sense of "overseer" or "steward," but in the Talmud it is used to denote any outstanding Jewish leader (Ber. 28a; Yoma 86b) as well as one appointed to an office of communal responsibility (Git. 60a, etc.; see Authority and Community). Such leaders and administrators, who received no payment for their labors, deserved the highest respect but might not impose themselves on the community and had to function by consent (Ber. 55a). An overbearing parnas could not be tolerated; safeguards in respect to appointments were therefore devised and a communal leader of gentle temperament was the ideal choice. Affluence and influence, rather than piety and scholarship, enabled---and still enable---many individuals to attain this high office.
Medieval Jewish communities elected parnasim to head their synagogues and direct their financial, philanthropic, and other autonomous operations. Among the Jews of North Africa, this communal leader was called muqaddim in Arabic. Parnasim headed the self-governing Landjudenschaft or territorial Jewish assembly of the Holy Roman Empire; they also presided over the Council of the Four Lands in Poland and Lithuania. Larger communities (e.g., Cracow) appointed leaders known as parnasé ha-ḥodesh ("providers for a month"; cf. I Kings 4:7) who held office in rotation. Western congregations of Spanish and Portuguese Jews elected a council of elders, known as the "Mahamad" (see Ma'Amad), headed by a Parnas Presidente. In the modern world, parnasim exercise far less authority than they once did as lay leaders of entire communities. Democratically elected to office, the contemporary parnas is either his congregation's president or its senior Gabbai (warden).
