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.
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).
They were composed of refugees who through the influence of Capistrano, had been expelled from the large cities like Brünn and Olmütz (1454) and had settled where any well-disposed lord would receive them under his protection.
As they formed communities too small to engage a well-qualified rabbi, they elected to act as their judge one having his seat in one of the largest congregations of the province.
The Jews living in the principality of Bamberg obtained in 1619 permission to elect a "Paumeister oder obristen Rabbi", and they may have had such an official earlier (Eckstein, "Gesch.
The communities of the Principality of Oettingen, also formed from refugees of larger cities like Nördlingen, had a Landesrabbiner from early times (Müller, "Aus Fünf Jahrhunderten", p. 171, Augsburg, 1900).
The Jews living under the protection of the Elector and the Archbishop of Mayence had in 1718 Issachar Berush Eskeles as their Landesrabbiner (Bamberger, "Historische Berichte über die Juden .
In the course of the 18th century, various governments attempted to influence the internal condition of the Jewish communities, and for this reason legislated with regard to their congregational constitutions.
Typical in this respect is Maria Theresa, who in her "General-Polizei-Prozess und Kommercialordnung für die Judenschaft" of Moravia (December 29, 1753) prescribes in detail the duties of the Landesrabbiner; e.g., that he shall assign the tractate which all other rabbis shall adopt for instruction; bestow the title of "Doppelter Reb" ("Morenu"); see that all taxes are promptly paid; and arrange the complicated election of a new official.
By the 19th century, only some of the small states of Germany still had a Landesrabbiner, namely, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Oldenburg, Birkenfeld, Saxe-Meiningen, Anhalt, Brunswick, and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen.
The office of Landesrabbiner for the province of Brandenburg, which existed in Berlin and in Frankfort-on-the-Oder, survived, as in other countries, up to the end of the 18th century by virtue of the rabbi's capacity as civil judge.
At the time of his resignation the legal position of the Jewish communities was in a state of chaos owing to the events of 1848, which had played havoc with the principles on which the legislation rested.
An attempt made by Baron Moritz Königswarter, who was a member of the House of Lords, to introduce into the law of 1890 regulating the legal status of the Austrian Jewish congregations a clause reestablishing the office of Landesrabbiner of Moravia was defeated in the lower house of the Reichsrath (Löw, "Das Mährische Landesrabbinat", in "Gesammelte Schriften", ii.