(Aschkenazi Chief Rabbi of the Holy Land 1888-1959). Autograph Letter Signed in English, on official letterhead stationary.

“It is my fervent hope that the learned men of the Arab peoples may… be helped to realize how near Islam is to Judaism historically and that this connection may help to promote the cause… of Peace between Ishmael and Israel.” The present letter is a unflinching clarion call for peace between Jews and Muslims. The political struggles between the Arabs and Israelis being in essence quite secondary to the natural bonds that exist between the followers and practitioners of their respective national religions: Islam and Judaism. Isaac Halevi Herzog was the first Aschkenazic Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel. A man of immense scholarship and broad humanity, Herzog was held in reverential respect by almost the entire spectrum of Jewry, both in Israel and abroad. Worldlier than his predecessor Rav Kook, Herzog was Chief Rabbi during one of the most turbulent and decisive times of Jewish history. He stood at the helm of World Jewry from 1936 to 1959, a period when the Jewish world was practically destroyed on the continent of Europe, yet subsequently rebuilt, immediately thereafter, amidst immense challenges, in the newly established State of Israel. Son of R. Reuven Katz, Chief Rabbi of Petach Tikva from 1932-64 and Rosh Yeshiva of the Lomza Yeshiva, Abraham Isaac Katsh (1908–98) was a pioneering scholar in the field of Jewish Studies. In 1933 Katsh introduced in New York University the first course in Modern Hebrew to be taught in an American university, he founded and then directed NYU’s Department of Hebrew Culture and Education for 35 years before taking up the appointment of President of Dropsie University in Philadelphia. “Judaism in Islam”, is Katsh’s analysis of the Biblical and Talmudic background to the Koran and its commentaries, demonstrating that the story of Islam is deeply and inextricably interwoven with that of Judaism. <<An important letter calling for the natural bonds of religion to be the the source for solving the strife between Israel and its Arab neighbors.>>