& ISSER ZALMAN MELTZER & SHIMSHON AHARON POLANSKY. Three letters in support of the Miphal Ezra LeNitzrachim Organization. First two are fully autograph and signed along with stamp, the last is typed and signed along with stamp.

BENGIS, ZELIG REUVEN

18th Tamuz

Jerusalem

1945

Miphal Ezra LeNitzrachim provided financial stipends to Torah scholars in Eretz Israel.

The “Shnipishoker Iluy,” R. Zelig Reuven Bengis (1864-1953) was one of the greatest rabbinic scholars of the last century. After a series of rabbinic positions in Lithuania, he emigrated to Eretz Israel in 1932. Following the death of R. Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, R. Bengis was invited to become Rosh Av Beth Din (Rava’d) of the Eidah HaChareidis in Jerusalem. However he declined the offer, as he perceived the potential for rivalry with his colleague Chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook. The leadership of the Eidah repeated their offer in 1937 and since Rav Kook had already died, Rabbi Bengis accepted the illustrious appointment. R. Isser Zalman Meltzer (1870-1953) was Rabbi in Slutzk for some twenty years before he immigrated to Eretz Israel. There he was appointed Rosh Yeshiva of Eitz Chaim and cultivated an extraordinary cadre of students, a great many of whom became influential Torah leaders in the second half of the 20th-century including his son-in-law, Rabbi Aharon Kotler, founder of Beth Medrash Govoha, Lakewood. The “Tepliker Rov,” R. Shimshon Aharon Polansky (1876-1948) emigrated from the Ukraine to Jerusalem in 1926. Appointed Rabbi of the Beit Israel neighborhood, he taught many of the next generation’s great Poskim including Rabbis Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, Shmuel Wosner and Ovadia Yosef.