(Rosh Yeshiva Nitra, Yeshiva Farm Settlement, 1903-1957). Autograph Letter Signed in Hebrew on Yeshiva letterhead to Rabbi Dr. Leo Jung of Manhattan’s Jewish Center.

WEISSMANDEL, CHAIM MICHOEL DOV

Parshath Vayetzei

Mount Kisco, New York

1950

Concerning the financial plight of the yeshiva and the possibility of moving location.

The re-establishment of the Nitra Yeshiva in Mount Kisco, New York, in 1949 was the brainchild of the heroic personage of Rabbi Weissmandel who also acted as Rosh Yeshiva in Nitra, Slovakia before the Second World War. He is most famous for his courageous rescue efforts amidst the horrors of the Holocaust, described in his work Min HaMeitzar. Also known as the Yeshiva Farm Settlement, the entire Mount Kisco enterprise was a bold experiment. Rabbi Weissmandel envisioned that alongside the Yeshivah would grow up a Yishuv, or Settlement, that would engage primarily in agriculture and “strengthen the body of the Yeshivah as a whole."