Lengthy letter handwritten and signed by the gaon Rabbi Menachem Mendel Zaks, son-in-law of the Chafetz Chaim, and rosh yeshivah of the Radin yeshivah, with a handwritten addition and signature by the mighty gaon Rabbeinu Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky, leader of Lithuanian Jewry at the time. Radin-Vilna, Sivan, 1939 – just a small number of months before the outbreak of WWII, in which the majority of European Jewry was murdered, may their blood be avenged.
In the letter, Rabbi Menachem Mendel requests that members of the Rabbinical Association of the United States and Canada to work with the American government to get a visa permit for his brother-in-law, Rabbi Hillel Ginzburg (step-son-in-law and right-hand of the Chafetz Chaim), who is travelling to the United States with two goals. One: To collect funds for the Radin yeshivah, which is “filled with students full of Torah and fear of Heaven who are studying with tremendous diligence.” And the second, to distribute Rabbeinu Yisrael HaKohen’s Torah – whose books were received as inalienable assets – on the American continent.
In the margins of the letter, Rabbeinu Chaim Ozer adds several lines in his hand and with his signature, also calling “to make a good attempt to send the messengers the request that he receive the permit to travel to America, to distribute the Torah teachings of the gaon and tzaddik Rabbi Yisrael Meir HaKohen ztz”l, and his precious works of halachah and mussar, and to support the wonderful yeshivah in Radin.
To the best of our examination, this letter is unknown, and it reveals a plan to save the yeshivah, if the funds would have arrived from America. This plan did not come to fruition (possibly because the war broke out before the visa was received). Rabbi Hillel Ginzburg was sacrificed al kiddush hashem with some members of the yeshivah who were left in Radin.
Refer to the Hebrew catalog text for brief biographies of Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky and Rabbi Menachem Mendel Yosef Zaks .
[1] leaf paper, official stationery blank. 22×27 cm.
Very fine condition. Fold marks, light stains.