Editing Sanhedrin (section)

== Revival attempts ==
=== Napoleon Bonaparte's "Grand Sanhedrin" ===
{{Main|Napoleon Bonaparte's "Grand Sanhedrin"}}
[[File:Napoleonic Medal.jpg|thumb|Medallion struck in honor of the "Grand Sanhedrin" convened by Emperor Napoleon I of France. In the collection of the [[Jewish Museum of Switzerland]].]]
The "Grand Sanhedrin" was a Jewish high court convened by [[Napoleon I]] to give legal sanction to the principles expressed by the [[Assembly of Notables]] in answer to the twelve questions submitted to it by the government. It did not follow the halakhic procedures of the traditional Sanhedrin.

On 6 October 1806, the Assembly of Notables issued a proclamation to all the Jewish communities of Europe, inviting them to send delegates to the Sanhedrin, to convene on 20 October. This proclamation, written in Hebrew, French, German, and Italian, speaks in extravagant terms of the importance of this revived institution and of the greatness of its imperial protector. While the action of Napoleon aroused in many Jews of Germany the hope that, influenced by it, their governments also would grant them the rights of citizenship, others looked upon it as a political contrivance. When in the war against Prussia (1806–07) the emperor invaded Poland and the Jews rendered great services to his army, he remarked, laughing, "The sanhedrin is at least useful to me."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sanhedrin, French  – JewishEncyclopedia.com |url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13180-sanhedrin-french |access-date=2025-02-16 |website=www.jewishencyclopedia.com}}</ref> David Friedländer and his friends in Berlin described it as a spectacle that Napoleon offered to the [[Paris]]ians.
[[File:Sanhedrin ceremony.jpg|thumb|Inauguration of the Sanhedrin in 2004]]

{{Main|Modern attempts to revive the Sanhedrin}}
Since the dissolution of the Sanhedrin in or around 358 CE, there have been several attempts to re-establish it.

There are records of what may have been attempts to reform the Sanhedrin in Arabia,<ref name="conquest">[http://www.alsadiqin.org/history/The%20Persian%20conquest%20of%20Jerusalem%20in%20614CE%20compared%20with%20Islamic%20conquest%20of%20638CE.pdf The Persian conquest of Jerusalem in 614 compared with Islamic conquest of 638]</ref> in Jerusalem under the Caliph [[Umar]],<ref name="conquest" /> and in Babylon (Iraq),<ref>''Sefer Yuchsin'', cf. ''Yarchei Kallah'', Rabbi Nassan describes "the seventy judges who comprise the Sanhedrin".</ref> but none of these attempts were given attention by later rabbinic authorities and little information is available about them.

[[Maimonides]] (1135–1204) proposed a rationalist solution for achieving the goal of re-establishing ''semikhah'' and the Sanhedrin.<ref>{{cite book |last=Maimonides |author-link=Maimonides |title=Mishnah, with Maimonides' Commentary (Seder Nezīqīn) |publisher=[[Mossad Harav Kook]] |translator=Yosef Qafih |translator-link=Yosef Qafih |volume=2 |date=1965|location=Jerusalem |page=102 (''[[Sanhedrin (tractate)|Sanhedrin]]'' 1:3)|language=he |oclc=233308346 |title-link=Mishnah}}</ref><ref>[[Maimonides]], ''[[Mishneh Torah |Sefer Mishneh Torah (Maimonides' Code of Jewish Law)]]'' (in Hebrew), ''Hil. Sanhedrin'' 4:11</ref> There have been several attempts to implement Maimonides' recommendations by Rabbi [[Jacob Berab]] in 1538, Rabbi [[Yisroel Shklover]] in 1830, Rabbi Aharon Mendel haCohen in 1901, Rabbi Zvi Kovsker in 1940, Rabbi [[Yehuda Leib Maimon]] in 1949, and [[2004 attempt to revive the Sanhedrin|a group of Israeli rabbis in 2004]].