Cherem (or Herem חרם),'s the highest ecclesiastical censure in the Jewish community. It's the total exclusion of a person from the Jewish community. It's a form of shunning, and's similar to excommunication in the Catholic Church. Cognate terms in other Semitic languages include the Arabic term haraam (forbidden, taboo, off-limits, sacred), and the [[Ethiopic `irm (meaning accursed). The most famous (for Gentiles) case of a cherem's that of Spinoza, a seventeenth century philos… (More on Cherem)