Judenrat (pl. Judenräte; “Jewish Council”) is the term most commonly used today for the compulsory corporate bodies that National Socialist Germany and most of its allies in the Second World War forced upon Jewish communities. At the time, other terms were also in use, primarily Ältestenrat (“Council of Elders”). It is safe to assume that the Judenräte numbered well over one thousand. As a kind of intermediary between perpetrators and vict…