Landesrabbiner[a] (German: [ˈlandəs.ʁaˌbiːnɐ]; Hebrew: רב המדינה, romanized: Rav HaMedina) are spiritual heads of the Jewish communities of a country, province, or district, particularly in Germany and Austria. The office is a result of the legal condition of the Jews in medieval times when the Jewish communities formed a unit for the purposes of taxation. As the community had to pay certain taxes to the government, the latter had to appoint someone who should be responsible to it for their prompt collection, and who consequently had to be invested with a certain authority. The office of Landesrabbiner had no ecclesiastical meaning until the 18th century, when the various governments began to consider it their duty to care for the spiritual welfare of the Jews. Such ecclesiastical authority, owing to the strictly congregational constitution of the communities, never took root among the Jews (see, however, on the chief rabbinate of Moravia after the death of Marcus Benedict, Moses Sofer, Responsa, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 13).
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