A letter handwritten and signed by R. Yaakov Yitzchok HaLevi Ruderman, dean of the "Ner Israel" Yeshiva in Baltimore, USA. [Baltimore, ca. Av 1960].
Sent to Jerusalem to Rabbi Yechezkel Abramsky, head of the Beit Din of London, on the occasion of receiving his new book "Chazon Yechezkel" on the Tosefta for Tractate Niddah and Tractate Mikvaot (Jerusalem, 1960).
Rabbi Ruderman writes: "...Your Honor has made me rejoice in the joy of Torah with his great book on Niddah and Mikvaot, which I have just received, and the whole house was filled with light". At the bottom of the letter.
Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok HaLevi Ruderman (1900-1987) was an extraordinary genius, one of the first and greatest deans of Yeshivas in the USA, a leader of Orthodox Jewry and one of the heads of the "Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah" in the USA. He was one of the greatest students of the "Alter of Slabodka" who shaped his character, when he studied in his youth at the Slabodka Yeshiva and was known as the "Prodigy from Dołhinów". His father was R. Yehuda Leib Ruderman, rabbi of Dołhinów (a Hasid of the Rebbe Rashab of Lubavitch).
In 1924, he married the daughter of R. Sheftel Kramer (brother-in-law of R. Moshe Mordechai Epstein and R. Isser Zalman Melzer; one of the founders and heads of the New Haven Yeshiva – the first yeshiva in the USA established in the pure tradition of European yeshivas).
After printing his book "Avodat Levi" in Kėdainiai in 1930, R. Ruderman immigrated to the USA and served as rosh mesivta in the New Haven Yeshiva. In 1933, he moved to Baltimore to serve as rabbi of the "Tiferes Yisroel" community, where he established the "Ner Israel" Yeshiva, which to this day is one of the central yeshivas in the USA.
From the 1950s, R. Ruderman was counted among the heads of the "Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah" in the USA, together with his colleagues R. Aharon Kotler, R. Moshe Feinstein, and R. Yaakov Kamenetsky. In 1956, he signed together with the great Roshei Yeshiva in the USA on the absolute prohibition of any cooperation with the Reform and Conservative movements in American Judaism.
[1] leaf. Official stationery. Approx. 26.5 cm. Good condition. Minor stains and folding marks.
PLEASE NOTE: Some lot descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to the Hebrew text.
