Letter handwritten and signed by R. Moshe Feinstein. [New York], Nisan 1947.

Sent to his friend R. Yechezkel Abramsky, "chief rabbi of the Beit Din of Slutsk and now head of the rabbis of London". R. Moshe writes to him on the publication of his Dibrot Moshe on Tractate Bava Kama, and asks him to study it and send him his comments and opinions on the book: "And remembering our great friendship while yet in Russia, I hope that you will receive it happily and appreciate it, and I would be very happy if you would read it and write me your opinion about it…".
R. Moshe Feinstein concludes with blessings for Pesach for him, his family and the Jewish people, signing, "Your friend who loves you with heart and soul, Moshe Feinstein". On the margins of the letter he writes that the book had been sent the previous week by normal post and the letter by airmail.

R. Moshe Feinstein (1895-1986), foremost halachic authority in the United States. A leader of Orthodox Jewry, he served as president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, and chairman of the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah. He was the dean of the Tiferet Yerushalayim yeshiva in New York. He authored Responsa Igrot Moshe, Dibrot Moshe – Talmudic novellae, and Darash Moshe – novellae on the Torah.
R. Moshe Feinstein had served as Rabbi of Lyuban, Belarus in 1921-1936 under the Bolsheviks, and apparently it was during this period that he met R. Abramsky (1886-1976), who served as Rabbi of Slutsk from 1923-1930 until his arrest and exile to Siberia.

[1] leaf. Official stationery. 27.5 cm. Good condition. Creases and folding marks.

PLEASE NOTE: Some lot descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to the Hebrew text.

Lengthy letter (2 pages) handwritten and signed by R. Aharon Kotler, dean of the Lakewood yeshiva in the United States. Tamuz 1962.

Addressed to R. Yechezkel Abramsky. A historical letter relating to the Aliyah of Orthodox youth, which had been organized by the Pe'ilim organizations in an effort to spiritually save the immigrants from Morocco and Arab lands, when the secular establishment was acting to secularize the young immigrants in various ways and send them to kibbutzim and secular educational institutions. The letter names rabbis and activists worldwide whom R. Aharon enlisted in this battle for the souls of Moroccan and Mizrachi immigrants. Most of the letter relates to institutions for the immersion of new immigrants, including the Afula office for immigrants and the special airplane for Torah-observant immigrant youth used by Pe'ilim – funded by the Orthodox Jewish organizations from Europe and the United States.

R. Aharon Kotler (1892-1962), disciple of the Alter of Slabodka, and a prominent, outstanding Torah scholar (while he was still a young student, the Or Sameach predicted that he would be the "R. Akiva Eger" of the next generation). He was the son-in-law of R. Isser Zalman Meltzer. He served as lecturer and dean of the Slutsk yeshiva, and during World War I, he fled with the yeshiva students to Poland, reestablishing the yeshiva in Kletsk. He was one of the yeshiva deans closely associated with R. Chaim Ozer and the Chafetz Chaim. A founder of Vaad HaYeshivot and member of the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah in Lithuania. During the Holocaust, he escaped to the United States, and established the famous Lakewood yeshiva in New Jersey (a yeshiva which revolutionized the yeshiva world in the United States, by inculcating its students with the passion and absolute devotion to Torah study which was typical of Lithuanian yeshivot). He was one of the heads of the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah in the United States, and of Chinuch HaAtzma'i in Eretz Israel.
The present letter, written in the last months of R. Aharon's life, reveals his manifold involvement in the struggle for the young Mizrachi immigrants whose religious parents sent them off hoping they would receive a religious education. R. Aharon openly fought the secular Aliyah organizations who uprooted the young immigrants from their family traditions, going so far as to initiate an independent airline for immigration of religious youth in opposition to the Jewish Agency's dominance – an act which elicited controversy and anger among the establishment and secular parties in Israel.

Official stationery, 28 cm. Written on both sides, over 40 handwritten lines. Good-fair condition. Stains, including dampstains. Creases and folding marks.

PLEASE NOTE: Some lot descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to the Hebrew text.

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.

Lengthy letter (4 pages) handwritten and signed by R. Mordechai Gifter, dean of the Telshe yeshiva. Cleveland, Ohio, [10th Tevet] 1958.

Addressed to R. Yechezkel Abramsky at the publication of his Chazon Yechezkel on Tosefta Tractate Nedarim. On the first page he describes his dear disciple who had died young, and to whom the edition was dedicated. The next three pages relate to Torah matters, comments on Chazon Yechezkel and novellae on Tractate Nedarim.

R. Mordechai Gifter (1916-2001), a prominent yeshiva dean and Torah leader in the United States. Born in the United States, he travelled to Lithuania to study in its yeshivas. Already in his youth, he drew close to the Torah leaders of his times, absorbing from them Torah and proper conduct. He exchanged halachic correspondence with leading rabbis in the United States and Lithuania. He returned to the United States just before the Holocaust, after his engagement to the daughter of R. Zalman Bloch, dean of the Telshe yeshiva in Lithuania, and the wedding was held in the U.S. in 1940. After the Holocaust, he reestablished the Telshe yeshiva in the U.S. (together with his uncles R. Eliyahu Meir Bloch and R. Chaim Mordechai Katz, who had come on their own to the U.S. to try and save their families and the yeshiva students who were left behind in Telshe).

R. Mordechai served as lecturer in the Telshe yeshiva in Cleveland and Chicago from 1943, and later as dean of the yeshiva in Cleveland. He imparted to his students exacting standards of profound Torah study and correct Torah conduct (he did not allow any titles of praise on his tombstone except for "taught Torah and edified students of high caliber in Torah and fear of G-d"). In 1976, he immigrated to Eretz Israel and settled in the campus founded for the yeshiva in the Jerusalem hills (presently: Telz Stone; Kiryat Ye'arim). In 1979, after the passing of R. Baruch Sorotzkin the yeshiva dean in the U.S., he returned to the U.S. to lead the yeshiva in Cleveland. He was recognized throughout the Jewish world as one of the authorities of his time, and he served as head of the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah in the United States.

2 leaves, written on both sides. Official stationery, 20.5 cm. Good condition. Folding marks.

PLEASE NOTE: Some lot descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to the Hebrew text.