Chaim Weizmann, letter on the subject of the "Tehran Children". Addressed to Rabbi Yehuda Leib Seltzer, President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis in the United States and Canada. Typewritten on official stationery, with Weizmann's signature in green ink. New York, 1943. Hebrew.
Written in response to Rabbi Yehuda Leib Seltzer's letter to Weizmann regarding the "Tehran Children" and their education: "…And of course I am also irritated and agitated and anxious regarding the stormy arguments on the issue of the children from Tehran. Yet from afar it is difficult to learn all of the details, and therefore I must not throw myself into the center of this argument… in the meantime I would ask his honor to restore calm. As for myself, I have great confidence in the integrity of Rabbi Y. L. Fishman, who has been put in charge of the children's education, and I also feel that Ms. Szold [Henrietta Szold], herself a pious and honest woman in the full sense of the word, shall reverently uphold the responsibility placed upon her with regard to the children…"
The "Tehran Children" were a group of Polish children who had survived the Holocaust and arrived in Palestine in 1943. After their arrival an intense argument broke out regarding their absorption, expressed in the present letter. The argument raged mostly between religious representatives who asked that the children who had no parents in the country receive a religious education, and secular representatives, who asked that they be sent to secular educational facilities, particularly to kibbutzim.
[1] leaf, 26.5 cm. Good condition. Folding marks and some creases.