Testimonial Given by the Officers and Members of Congregation Ahavas Achim Anshei Nezhin to the Ladies Auxiliary

The city of Nezhin in Russia was famed as a seat of Chabad Chassidism - and later of Zionism. One of the sons of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch ("Tzemach Tzedek"), Rabbi Israel Noah Schneersohn settled in Nezhin in 1867 and died there in 1882. In 1903, there took place in the house of R. Israel Noah surviving widow, Rebbetzin Channah Chishia, a debate between Rabbi Sholom Baer Schneersohn of Lubavitch and Rabbi Shlomo Hakohen Aronsohn (1863-1935) - then Rabbi of Nezhin, eventually Chief Rabbi of Tel-Aviv - concerning the newly founded Zionist movement. That debate has been recorded in the annals of Chabad history (see Introduction to R. S.B. Schneersohn, Kuntress u-Ma'ayan [1958], pp. 45-53). See JE, Vol. IX, pp. 296-297; EJ, Vol. XII, col. 1131; N.Z. Friedmann, Otzar Harabanim 18341. The presence of the blue-and-white flag of the Zionist movement in the present plaque would seem to indicate that these proud sons and daughters of Nezhin, transplanted to the New World, chose a strong allegiance to the Zionist ideal