Halakhic authorities treated gentile-court litigation as religious transgression.

Evidence

11 See Menachem Elon, ed., The Principles of Jewish Law 20-21 (1974) (“A striking expression of the religious and national character of Jewish law is to be found in the prohibition on litigation in the gentile courts … to which the halakhic scholars and communal leaders attached the utmost importance … any person transgressing the prohibition was deemed to have reviled and blasphemed and rebelled against the Torah”). — Lisa Bernestein, Opting out of the Legal System, 185

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s analytical frame on network closure and third-party institutions: this is religiously enforced non-cooperation with the state’s legal system, parallel to the Sicilian piazza’s social sanctions against cooperating with Bellodi.