Large collection of manuscripts, ready-to-publish essays of Torah novellae on various Talmudic topics, sent from leading Novardok Torah scholars, rabbis and lectureres, alumni of the Beit Yosef - Novardok yeshivot, to the editorial staff of Ohel Yosef - a Torah anthology. Some of the essays include letters to the editorial staff, written and signed by the authors of these essays. 1939.
Some of these essays were printed in Ohel Yosef, published in Białystok in summer 1939 (approximately one month before the outbreak of WWII), but five of them were not published.
The network of Beit Yosef - Novardok yeshivot in Poland and Lithuania, numbered in the prewar years approximately 70 branches, in which some 3000 students studied. All the branches were under the leadership of R. Avraham Yoffen, son-in-law of the Alter of Novardok, founder of the network of yeshivot. The purpose of the Ohel Yosef anthology was to serve as a central forum for publishing Torah novellae of the lecturers and leading students of all the branches. The first issue was published in Av 1939, mere weeks before the outbreak of WWII, in which the vast majority of its students, lecturers and deans were murdered. Some of the authors of these essays were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, or perished in the Siberian exile, and these novellae are presumably their sole remembrance on earth. Some of writers concluded their essays with the words "To be continued" (continuation, unfortunately, never came…).
The subsequent issues of the anthology were published only after the end of the war, in 1946, when the publication of the anthology was resumed by the yeshiva dean, R. Avraham Yoffen, who survived the Holocaust and reached the United States. Some of the essays which were sent to the editorial staff before the Holocaust were published in later issues, thought this collection contains some essays which were never published, neither in the first anthology, nor in subsequent ones.
This collection of manuscripts includes unpublished essays by: R. Menachem Mendel Shneur, lecturer in the Beit Yosef yeshiva in Biala; R. Yosef Chorosh; R. Heinich Shtelung, "author of Shaarei HaChiddush" (a book which was presumably never published); R. Shlomo Kohen; R. Mordechai Hillel Shuch, lecturer in the Beit Yosef yeshiva in Volkovisk.
The collection also includes essays and letters from: R. Moshe HaKohen Reiss, lecturer in the Lutsk yeshiva; R. Yitzchak Weiss, rabbi and dean in Lubtsh (Lubcha); R. Betzalel Goldberg; R. Meir Segal, dean of the Beit Yosef yeshiva in Haifa (Israel); R. David Fishman, Pinsk; R. Mordechai Steinberg, rabbi of Rhozinoy (Rhuzany, close to Grodno).
[29] leaves (48 written pages). Size and condition vary. Overall good condition.