Typed Letter Signed, in Hebrew, to Rabbi Yehudah Leib Maimon

BEN-GURION, DAVID.

30th Sivan 5722 / 2nd July

Jerusalem

1962

After wishing Rabbi Maimon a speedy recovery from ill-health, Ben-Gurion goes on to disavow any involvement with the "League Against Religious Coercion." He notes that if Maimon were still serving as Minister of Religion such a lobby would never have come into existence. Ben-Gurion credits the "Yossele Affair" (the kidnapping of the young boy Yossele Shumacher) and the unwillingness to recognize the Bnai Israel of India as Jews, with the formation of the League. R. Yehudah Leib Maimon (Fishman) (1875-1962), a leader of the Religious Zionist movement or Mizrachi, served as Minister of Religion in the first Knesset. He established Mossad Harav Kook, an important center of rabbinic research. See EJ, Vol. XI, cols. 739-741Maimonides died a week after receiving this letter.