(Rabbi of Slutzk, Rosh Yeshivah Etz Chaim, Jerusalem. 1870-1953). Autograph Letter Signed and stamped, written in Hebrew to Rabbi Ya’akov Moshe Bassok.

MELTZER, ISSER ZALMAN.

7th Sivan

Slutzk

1910

Rabbinic Ordination. This document is a Yoreh Yoreh Yadin Yadin Semicha certificate awarded to Rabbi Bassok. In addition to the standard text of the Semicha, Rabbi Meltzer writes that the ordained is an exceptional Darshan.

R. Isser Zalman Meltzer was intimately involved in the Chovevei Zion movement in his early years, while a student at Volozhin. After a stint teaching in Slabodka, he became rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva of Slutzk. He emigrated to Eretz Israel in the 1920’s, where he was the Rosh Yeshiva of the Etz Chaim Yeshiva. Influential in his own right, with a long list of prominent Jewish leaders as students, his bearing on the Yeshiva world continued through his son-in-law, R. Aharon Kotler and what he in turn established in America. R. Meltzer’s commentary on Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Sefer Even Ha’Ezel, is widely studied today.