Yosef Haim Brenner, handwritten and signed letter, addressed to the "Committee Supervising the Hebrew Gymnasium in Jaffa". Jaffa, 9 Kislev, 5679 (1918). Hebrew.
In the letter, written while Brenner was employed as a teacher at the "Herzliya" Hebrew Gymnasium, he asks the committee members to return to him the manuscript of his translation of the book "Crime and Punishment". He had handed the manuscript to the gymnasium as collateral for the loan he had received to pay the "Army Tax" (a payment granting an exemption from army service during the First World War period).
"Now, when the hour of crisis is nearly over, and I, as a teacher and as a translator, am in the service of the 'Education Committee'… I believe there is no need to hold an item of mine as collateral to ensure the said sum… if the supervising committee finds it impossible to return the manuscript to my keeping, I ask that it be transferred for safekeeping to the Palestine Branch [of the Zionist Organization]…".
[1] leaf, 15.5X22 cm. Good condition. Creases, small tears to margins, stains and filing holes.
Provenance: Shlomo Shva collection.