“There is no day that is not accursed …”
Letter from the gaon Rabbi Yosef Elimelech Kahana, av beit din of Ungvar and environs, and one of the leading rashei hayeshivot and rabbis in pre-Holocaust Hungary. Ungvar, 1939.
The letter was sent from Ungvar to America during WWII. On the date the letter was written, Jewish life in the city still carried on as usual. The av beit din of Ungvar details the condition of the students in his yeshivah in his letter: “One hundred and sixty students – one hundred and thirty of whom are children of the poor, from whom Torah will emanate.”
Despite the common perspective that Hungarian Jews were unaware of the Holocaust taking place on the other side of their borders, hence their lack of attempts to escape, resulting in the Nazis’ success [through Zionist intermediaries] to deceive them and send them to extermination camps. A somewhat different picture emerges from this letter – already in 1939, the Jews of Ungvar felt the earth disintegrating under their feet and attempted to escape, as the sacred gaon Rabbi Yosef Elimelech Kahane writes to his acquaintance in America:
“We have no one to rely on here. Most local Jews spend their days seeking a place that will be good for them. Due to our multitude of transgressions, there is nowhere to seek refuge. May Hashem soon have mercy on the remnant of his people.”
Refer to the Hebrew catalog text for a brief biography of the gaon Rabbi Yosef Elimelech Kahana, av beit din of Tzelem and Ungvar .
[1] large leaf of paper, about 33 cm. Official stationery as “Nasi Kollel Shomrei HaChomot, ” entirely handwritten and signed by the gaon Rabbi Yosef Elimelech Kahana, with his stamp and the yeshivah’s stamp.
Fine-very fine condition. Fold marks. Tiny tears in the margins, without damage or lack.