For all its merits, case law is incapable of inculcating Cartesian thinking, thinking which is clear and distinct. Admittedly the legislature also is not always careful in making apparent the ratio of its enactments—sometimes it is not even aware thereof—but at least it will not consciously obliterate distinctions. By contrast, case law normally masks its innovations and postulates conceptions which are somewhat vague. It is consequently natural to regard with suspicion any endeavour to mark out clear-cut boundaries, much in the manner of Roman thinking that “all definitions in law are dangerous”.

Considerations such as these are awakened, for example, in connection with the leading case of Krell v. Henry, the most well-known of the “Coronation cases”. To determine the force and significance of this precedent is a primary task in English law itself because on that will depend whether or not it is innovatory; but it is especially crucial in point of Israel law for the purpose of deciding whether it has any foothold in this country.

This was an appeal from a decision of the Tel-Aviv-Yafo District Court, declaring the appellant Ross to be liable to extradition on the Attorney General's petition presented at the request of the Government of the United States.

The appellant had been indicted before the Federal Court of the Eastern District of Louisiana on two charges, namely, transportation of a person in interstate and foreign commerce and receiving ransom money, in contravention of, respectively, secs. 1201 and 1202, chap. 18, para. 55, of the Federal Criminal Code. It was alleged that on August 21, 1972, the said Ross, being in possession of a revolver had kidnapped the two and a half year old Diana Cando Creon from her parents' home in the town of Pueblo (Mexico); that between that date and September 12 of the same year he had taken the child across international and interstate borders, from Mexico to the United States and, within the United States, from New Orleans, Louisiana to Biloxi, Mississippi; that he had illegally detained her throughout this period for the purpose of obtaining ransom, conducting negotiations to that effect with her father; and that he eventually succeeded in obtaining, in return for her release, the sum of U.S. $ 105,000—after which the little girl was found safe and sound in a hotel in Biloxi.

The English “Equity of Redemption” was applied by the courts in Israel long before the enactment of the Security Interests Law, 1967. The courts did not hesitate to transplant this doctrine of English law into the body of Ottoman law which was then applicable in Israel in the field of secured transactions. Yet, the extent to which this symbiosis succeeded had still to be examined, and many questions relating to the right of redemption were still unanswered when the decision was taken to prepare the new Security Interests Law. In the new Law the right of redemption was expressly recognized. The influence of English law on this subject was so marked that on one occasion a Supreme Court Justice characterized the right of redemption provided by sec. 13(a) of the Law, as “actually only legislating the equity of redemption of English law”. It is the purpose of this article to examine the way in which Israel law formulated its “equity of redemption”, to analyze it, to point out its main features and expose its shortcomings.

Aspects of Jewish Sales Law which may be referred to as the law of warranties are the subject of this article. Only the sale of personalty is dealt with and comparison is made with parallel developments in American Sales Law.

The temptation to engage in extensive discussion of the sources of Jewish Law and of its nature and developments has been resisted and only some brief preliminary remarks concerning Jewish Law have been included but the interested reader is referred elsewhere for further discussion of these matters.

Unlike the Common law, which developed on a case to case basis, Jewish law developed along several lines. Jewish law developed in part on a case to case basis as exemplified by Talmudic discussions and expositions; in part in an enormous and still growing Responsa literature; and in the decisions of Rabbinical Courts throughout Jewish history. On the other hand, the development of Jewish law depended in great part on various Codes, the most important for our purposes being those of Maimonides, Asherides and Karo.