in Jewish antiquity, the second and greater sort of excommunication among the Jews.

The cherem deprived the excommunicated person of almost all the advantages of civil society: he could have no commerce with any one, could neither buy nor sell, except such things as were absolutely necessary for life; nor resort to the schools, nor enter the synagogues; and no one was permitted to eat or drink with him.

The sentence of cherem was to be pronounced by ten persons, or at least in the presence of ten: but the excommunicated persons might be absolved by three judges, or even by one, provided he were a doctor of the law. The form of this excommunication was loaded with a multitude of curses and imprecations, taken from different parts of the scripture.