Important document in which the decisions of the rabbinical assembly which took place in Kovno (Lithuania) in 1934 are detailed one by one. (Sent to Rabbi Una). The decisions delineate the rabbis’ attitude to the question of the Land of Israel. The rabbi of Kovno’s, the gaon Rabbi Avraham Dov Kahane’s signature appears in the document’s margins.
Among the decisions taken at the assembly: Settlement in the Land of Israel is a lifeline for a large number of Jewish communities who are horribly persecuted, building and settlement of the Land of Israel can only succeed if Jewish life there is conducted according to Torah and mitzvahs, the rabbinical assembly demands that Agudat Yisrael and Mizrachi find ways that will allow both of them to work together to build the Land. At the end of the document there is an addition reverberating with the fateful hour: “The hour is very serious, the entire Jewish world is turning into a raging sea and it is doubly required of the heads of the nation to hold oar and stern with much wisdom and strategy … so as not to be too late, heaven forbid …”
Rabbi Avraham Dovber Kahane Shapira [1870-1943], rabbi of Kovno, author of Shu”t Dvar Avraham , was one of the rabbinic geniuses of his generation. He studied in the Volozhin yeshivah and was known as “the prodigy of Kobrin.” He was the gaon of Minsk’s, Rabbi Yerucham Yehudah Leib Perlman’s son-in-law. He was appointed rabbi of Smolavitch in 1896. There he authored his work, Dvar Avraham – in two parts, which was quickly accepted in the yeshivah worlds of Lithuania and Poland. Within a short time, its author was recognized as one of the rabbinical leaders of all of Europe. He was selected as rabbi of Kovno, Lithuania’s capital, in 1913 at the age of 43. He was involved in public activity for Lithuanian Jews, and was also one of the founders of the Rabbinical Union in Lithuania and its honorary president. He passed away in the Kovno ghetto in 1943 after a long, difficult illness.
[1] leaf official Rabbinical Union paper 24×30 cm. Very fine condition.