Qahal
The qahal (Hebrew: קהל), sometimes spelled kahal, was a theocratic organizational structure in ancient Israelite society according to the Hebrew Bible, and an Ashkenazi Jewish system of a self-governing community or kehila from medieval Christian Europe (France, Germany, Italy). This was adopted in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (16th–18th centuries) and its successor states, with an elected council of laymen, the 'qahal', at the helm of each kehila.