Letter from Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Weissblum. Riga, 1938. In his hand and with his signature.
Yiddish letter sent to Rabbi Yosef Lipman Gurewitz, rabbi in Australia. Rabbi Weissblum signs “Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Weissblum, now in Riga, son of the famed R’ Elazar ztz”l of Staszow, a direct descendant of the Noam Elimelech,” with more details of his lineage. He ends the letter with information – in a foreign language – about him and his wife.
On the back of the leaf: letter from Rabbi Menachem Mendel Zak, av”d of Riga to Rabbi Yosef Horowitz regarding the rescue of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Weissblum. In his hand and with his signature.
The av”d makes a touching appeal for the rescue of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Weissblum, and uses many honorifics to describe him. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Zak (1871-1943) was rabbi in Riga, and served as chief rabbi of Latvia. Rabbi Meir Simchah HaKohen of Dvinsk, the “Ohr Sameach,” entrusted Rabbi Zak with his manuscript of the Meshech Chachmah on the Torah, and he published them.
With a paper from the time featuring a list of the names and birth dates of family members, including that of the rebbetzin, who were killed.
Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Weissblum (1902-1970) was a scion of a large rabbinical family. He was a direct descendant of the Noam Elimelech. He studied under the Admor of Ostrovtza who gave him semichah. In 1920, he established a yeshiva in Staszow, and then moved to the rabbinate in Metz, France. In 1928, he served as a chassidic rabbi in Vienna. When the Holocaust broke out, he fled to Riga, and then moved to the United States where he served as a community rabbi. His wife, Yehudis, was killed in the Holocaust.
Light marginal tears. Fold marks. Fine condition.