Dr Wendy Filer

Wendy’s research focuses on the judicial system of London’s Sephardic Jews in the 18th and early 19th centuries to investigate the effects, both positive and negative, of local legal culture on a minority legal system. England’s pluralistic legal culture, favouring arbitration and mediation of disputes, provided a space within which  the community’s Mahamad could offer a halakhically compliant informal dispute resolution service.  This legal space promoted compromise as a religious value, whilst at the same time enabling access to secular justice when it failed. Wendy analyses how open access to secular justice affected individual jurisdictional choice, thereby shaping the vibrancy and long-term viability of this community.