Typed Letter Signed, in Hebrew, to Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz

BEN-GURION, DAVID.

4th Nisan 5715 / 27th March

HaKiryah (Jerusalem)

1955

in this historic letter, Ben-Gurion turns down Rabbi Karelitz's (implied) request that Yeshivah students be exempted from the military draft. Without qualms, Ben-Gurion brazenly cites to the great rabbi, a tract from Maimonides (Hil. Melachim) to the effect that in a war of defense no exemptions are permitted from serving in the army. Reasons Ben-Gurion: "Here, this war is for our very existence in the Land. Is this not called '(milchemeth) mitzvah' (a commanded war)?" R. Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz of Bnei Beraq (1878-1953), famous for his multi-volume work "Chazon Ish," was the most authoritative halachic decisor in Eretz Israel in the early years of the State. Together with his counterpart in Jerusalem, Rabbi I.Z. Soloveitchik, known as the "Brisker Rav," he fought to have rescinded the Government's proposed induction of male yeshivah students and religious women into the army. At one point in this ongoing struggle, Ben-Gurion (in his capacity as Prime Minister) paid a personal visit to Rabbi Karelitz in the latter's humble home. The actual contents of their conversation was kept secret and remains an enigma. See EJ, Vol. X, cols. 787-88. The date of the letter is bewildering. In 1955, Rabbi Karelitz was already deceased. It has been speculated that Ben-Gurion (then serving as Minister of Defense), was making available to Sharett (in 1955, acting Prime Minister) the contents of a letter that had been sent two years earlier to the "Chazon Ish" - or the erroneous date is simply a typists’ mistake