(TEITELBAUM, JOEL).

AN HISTORIC LETTER REGARDING THE APPOINTMENT OF THE SATMAR REBBE AS CHIEF RABBI OF THE EIDAH HACHAREIDITH OF JERUSALEM. Rabbi Porush-Glikman's letter was written just prior to the Satmar Rebbe's return to America following his visit to Jerusalem. The Rebbe is asked to pray for the health of the present Gaba"d, R. Zelig Reuben Bengis (1864-1953), however in the event that Rabbi Bengis will no longer be physically capable of acting in the capacity of Gaba"d, permission is requested to announce Rabbi Teitelbaum as the new leader of the community. This heartfelt entreaty by R. Porush-Glickman was followed two days later by the formal correspondence of the Eidah, requesting the Satmar Rebbe accept the role of Gaba"d of the Ultra-Orthodox community of Jerusalem. The leaders of the community were clearly deeply intent to find an immediate successor leader who would combine an exceptional level of scholarship, essential leadership abilities, combined with unswerving devotion to the Community's anti-Zionist outlook. The Eidah beseeched the Satmar Rebbe to move to Jerusalem, meantime praying that the fire of the "Medinah shel Gehinom" (the State of hell [i.e. Israel]) would not have further adverse effect on the health of Rabbi Bengis, or indeed of the Rebbe himself. The letter continues: In the event the Rebbe remain in America, the Eidah requests permission to announce nonetheless, that the Satmar Rebbe is considered to be the imminent replacement of Rabbi Bengis as a "protection against all kinds of evil spirits and plagues that are in the midst of the Eidah." The Eidah HaChareidith, Jerusalem's separatist Aschkenazic community was established in 1920 as an alternative to the Chief Rabbinate of Rabbi Kook. Its first leader was R. Joseph Chaim Sonnenfeld, upon whose death in 1933, the Chuster Rov, R. Joseph Tzvi Duschinsky, an outstanding Hungarian Rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva succeeded him. The scholarly Lithuanian Rabbi Bengis, (author of Liflagoth Reuben), succeeded Rabbi Duschinsky in 1949. (Of interest, the stationary of the Eidah in the present letter records R. Isaac Ze'ev Halevi Soloveitchik as Chief Rabbi of Orthodox Jewry in the Holy Land. In the circle of Brisk in Jerusalem, it is vehemently denied that R. "Velvele" Soloveitchik ever agreed to accept such a position).