Aaron Rokeach (Grand Rabbi of Belz) / Mordechai Rokeach of Bilgoray. HaDerech.

(HOLOCAUST).

Widow and Orphans of Nachum Uri Eisler

Budapest

1944

Edited by Menachem Aaron Leibovitch. Issued by Chevrath Tiphereth Bachurim.

Rare text of a controversial sermon delivered in January 1944 by the half-brother of the Grand Rabbi of Belz, on R. Aaron Rokeach’s behalf, immediately prior to the brothers flight from Hungary for the safe shores of Palestine. Within the sermon (pp. 18-19) the Rebbe assures his anxious followers that despite his own departure, Hungarian Jewry will remain unmolested and secure against the Nazi horrors that had befallen Jews throughout the rest of Continental Europe. Of course within months, tragically, almost a half-million Hungarian Jews were savagely murdered by the Germans and their Hungarian accomplices via massive deportations to the Auschwitz extermination camp. See L. Kaplan, Daas Torah, in: Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy, Ed. M. Z. Sokol (1992) pp. 56-60.