(ISRAEL, LAND OF)

1st Tammuz

Jerusalem,

1920

Autograph Letter Signed by Moshe Leib Bernstein, Chairman, and Baruch Reuben Solomon Halevi Jungreis, Honorary Secretary of the Council (Waad Hair) of the Ashkenasic Jewish Community, Jerusalem. Addressed to “Leon Hosiery Mil[linery], Philadelphia,” providing information of local communal affairs as well as requesting charitable funds

The letter informs the recipient of the investiture by the Charedi Community of Joseph Chaim Sonnenfeld as Rabbi and Av Beth Din of Jerusalem. Thus, the ultra-orthodox element in Jerusalem made a de jure separation with the Chief Rabbinate, at whose helm stood [the unnamed] Rabbi Kook, whom, it was feared, had come under the sway of the secular Zionist leadership. See Kestenbaum Auction XXXIII, Lot 195, for a later letter to the same recipient, reporting on the same issue