Moda’ah ve-Azharah Rabbah [ANNOUNCEMENT AND SEVERE WARNING to those responsible for the theft or knowing of the whereabouts of the stolen manuscripts of the deceased Gaon Rabbi Alfandari to immediately return them to the Office of the Chief Rabbinate]

R. Solomon Eliezer Alfandari (known as MaHaRSHA) (1826 or 1829-1930) was acknowledged by both Sephardim and Aschkenazim as one of the greatest scholars of the generation. A native of Constantinople, he served at various times in his long and illustrious career as rabbi of Constantinople, Damascus, and Safed. In 1926, close to being a centenarian, he settled in Jerusalem. There, he influenced several young scholars of various stripes, including Aaron Fisher (father of Dayan Fisher) and Isaac Nissim (future Sephardic chief rabbi or Rishon Le-Zion). A somewhat fictionalized account of the Munkatcher Rebbe, Hayim Elazar Spira’s visit to the Gaon Alfandari has been immortalized in Asher Zelig Margulies’ Mas’oth Yerushalayim (1931). After Alfandari’s death, his manuscripts, specifically untold responsa he penned, disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Many years later, some of the responsa surfaced in She’eloth u-Teshuvoth Saba Kadisha and other recensions. EJ, Vol. II, col. 599. The present announcement, calling for the return of the pilfered manuscripts, on letterhead of the Chief Rabbinate, bears the endorsement of R. Joseph Chaim Sonnenfeld, remarkable in view of the politics of the time.