“The responsibility is great, and upon whom will it fall? Who will be blamed for not leading the work? (from the letter).
Sharp letter to Zerach Warhaftig, leader of the Poal HaMizrachi movement, who helped rescue thousands of refugees, signed by the students and rabbis of the yeshivot that fled to Kobe, Japan, including the yeshivot of Lubavitch, Radin, and Brisk. They request help rescuing the Rosh Yeshiva of Brisk, Rabbi Isser Yehudah Malin. Kobe, Japan, 1941.
[1] leaf, 25.5 cm. The letter is signed by “the Gaon’s admirers,” including many prominent rabbis and disciples: the rabbi of Dołhinów; Rabbi Chaim Dovber Ginzberg (learned in Radin and Mir and later served as Chief Rabbi of Vancouver); Rabbi Mordechai Schwab, brother of HaGaon Rabbi Shimon Schwab; Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Hershberg, author of Machshevet Hakodesh, prominent disciple of Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Lublin; Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Garfinkel, who signs in the name of the students in the Tomchei Temimim Yeshiva of Lubavitch; and Rabbi Gershon Chanowitz, disciple of Rav Yitzchak Yosef Schneersohn and senior Chabad Chassid in America.
Rabbi Isser Yehudah Malin (1877-1941) served as av”d in Brisk until he was murdered in the Holocaust together with his family. Two of his sons, Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Nechemia, fled with the Mir Yeshiva to Shanghai and survived the war.
Very fine condition.