Auction 15
Lot 349:
Official letter paper, in the handwriting and with the signature of Rabbi Shlomo David Kahana. Dated 1935. A quarter of the letter [the top right-hand section] is missing. Rabbi Shlomo David Kahana [1869-1953], Av Beit Din of Warsaw and the Ashkenazi Rabbi of the Jewish Quarter until its capture in 1948. He studied in the Volozhin yeshiva under Rabbi Chaim HaLevi Soloveichik and the Netziv, and in the Kollel Perushim in Kovno, and was ordained as Rabbi by Rabbi Yitzchak Elchonon Spektor. He was known for his extensive work in permitting the agunot of the First and Second World Wars to remarry, and was therefore known as the ‘Father of Agunot’. As soon as the Second World War broke out he began to prepare for permitting the agunot of the various countries involved in the war. He composed a standard Heter Agunot which could be used in most cases, and began to collect testimony and to permit Agunot to remarry while relying on the halachic ruling of ‘Trei Rubei’. He attested that he freed approximately 3000 agunot at the beginning of the War based on this ruling, and never encountered a case in which the husband was later found to be alive. 21×28 cm. Aging stains. Folding marks with tears on the folds. Some of the letter is missing. Overall condition: Fair.
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