Moving Letter by the Admor Rabbi Mordechai Shalom Yosef Friedman

Moving Letter by the Admor Rabbi Mordechai Shalom Yosef Friedman

"Perhaps, in the merit of my holy fathers, he could find favor in their eyes to give an exceptional entry permit to my delicate sister and her family, to save them from danger of death, heaven forbid."

Moving letter by the Admor of Rabbi Mordechai Shalom Yosef Friedman, in an attempt to rescue his sister, her husband and their children from the claws of the Nazis. Stencil print with handwritten addition with his signature in English.

The letter is addressed to the lawyer Buxbaum who at the time dealt with helping Jews who requested refuge in the Land of Israel. In the letter, the Admor details his distress with respect to his sister and her husband who were then in Poland and set to be transferred to Dachau 'where there is danger to life in the full sense of the word.' The Admor asks him to turn to the British High Commissioner to make efforts on their behalf to rescue them, and he suggests that if there is a need, he will come urgently to Jerusalem 'because the matter cannot be delayed.' There are four handwritten lines with personal details, his place of residence in Tel Aviv, and his signature in English.

Provenance: Estate of the lawyer Mordechai Buxbaum [from the Admor's personal folder].

The Admor Rabbi Mordechai Shalom Yosef Friedman (1897-1979) was born in Sadigura to his father Rabbi Aharon Friedman, author of Kedushat Aharon (of Sadigura). When WWI broke out, he fled to Vienna together with the other Admors of Ruzhin. He was an Agudat Yisrael activist after the war. At the first Kenissiah Gedolah (Great Conference), when he was just 26 years old, he was appointed as a member of Agudat Yisrael's "Vaad HaPoel HaOlami" (World Executive Committee) and as president of the Torah Fund. He established the Meshivat Nafesh yeshivah in Pshemishl in 1923. He began sending chassidim to the Land of Israel in 1925. He visited the Land and lit the traditional Lag B'Omer bonfire in Meron in 1933. At the third General Conference in 1937, he was among the heads of the side of Agudat Yisrael who supported the state of Jews. He visited the Land of Israel again in Adar of 1939, and acting upon the advice of his Uncle, the Admor of Husitian, he settled there, residing in Tel Aviv. He managed to extricate his family from Europe, and moved them to Israel. He opened a synagogue on Betzalel Yaffe Street. During the Holocaust years, he edited a draft of a proclamation to be posted by Agudat Yisrael about the situation of the Jews in Europe. He worked with the survivors after the Holocaust, and inter alia, corresponded with the high commissioner and met with Moshe Shapira on this topic. He passed away at the age of 83 on 29 Nissan 1979, and was interred in the Nachalat Yitzchak cemetery in Givatayim. His Torah thoughts on Torah and holidays appear the the series Knesset Mordechai.