Letter by Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Bloch Av Beit Din and Head of the Telz Yeshiva - Shevat, 1941

Letter by Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Bloch Av Beit Din and Head of the Telz Yeshiva - Shevat, 1941
Long, interesting autograph letter signed by Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Bloch, sent from Telz to Jerusalem in the course of World War II, to his uncle and mechutan Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin. Telz, [Shevat 1941].
At the peak of those horrific times, Rabbi Baruch Sorotzkin [son of Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin] married his relative Rebbetzin Rachel, daughter of his cousin Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Bloch [Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin and his uncle Rabbi Y.L. Bloch were both sons-in-law of the founder of the yeshiva, Rabbi Eliezer Gordon]. Immediately following their marriage, the couple embarked on the journey from war-torn Lithuania to the US via Siberia and Japan.
Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Bloch wrote to his uncle: "Our dear children have left Kovno on Wednesday and today I have received a telegram from the capital city [Moscow?] that they have arrived safely…we have decided that they should travel through the east because we have received notice that they have received immigration affidavits to enter the US…". Further in the letter he writes of various rescue efforts for attaining visas and travel permits for the yeshiva students and their families.
Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Bloch (1890-1941), Av Beit Din of Telz and head of the Telz Yeshiva. Third generation of deans of the Telz Yeshiva, second son of the author of Shi'urei Da'at, Rabbi Yosef Leib Bloch, and grandson of Rabbi Eliezer Gordon, the yeshiva's founder. From his youth, he was renowned for his exceptional talent and in-depth study. In 1920, at the age of 30, he was appointed head lecturer and head of yeshiva [in the lifetime of his father], and after the death of his father in Cheshvan 1929, he was appointed head of yeshiva and his father's successor in the city rabbinate. After the Nazi conquest in the summer of 1941, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak was brutally murdered by the Nazis near Telz, together with hundreds of the yeshiva's students and their rabbi and with most of his family and community.
Some of his novellae were published in the book Chiddushei Rabbeinu R' A.Y. of Telz. In the introduction to the book, he is described as "a Torah teacher who merited fame in his own generation by his amazing discourses which displayed comprehension and depth of Torah knowledge".
Of all his children, only three daughters survived the Holocaust. One was Rebbetzin Rachel Sorotzkin, wife of Rabbi Baruch Sorotzkin who was appointed to head the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland, Ohio in the US.
Official stationery, 2 written pages, 28.5 cm. Good-fair condition, wear, filing holes and small tears.