Auction 63
Lot 281:
"יעזור לנו השי"ת ותראה בקרוב את האורגינאל" Lengthy letter handwritten and signed by the Gaon Chassid Rabbi Shemaryahu Yehuda Leib Medalia Av Beit Din of Moscow – 1933 – written under the Bolshevik reign of terror.
The letter was sent to his son Rabbi Hillel, the Rav of Antwerp, and expresses his yearning to leave the Vale of Tears. The letter contains many family detailes and discussed the possibilty to immigrate with his entire family.
Beneath Rabbi Medalia’s letter, his wife the Rebbetzin added a Yiddish letter to her son, rabbi Hillel.
16X25 cm.
Wear to edges. Good condition.
The writer of the letter: Rabbi Shemaryahu Yehuda Leib Medalia (1873-1938) was the son of a Chabad Chassidic family and despite that was a graduate of the Slobodka yeshiva of Misnagdim. He was Rav of a number of towns in Russia and the cities of Vitebsk and Moscow during the Soviet era. He was ararested by the NKVD during Stalin’s great purges and executed.
On the Yom Kippur of 1933, before a closing prayer, he delivered a courageous sermon in the Great Synagogue of Moscow where he served as rabbi, in which he excited the Jews, who came to pray en masse, to be faithful to their religion and people, and it eventually cost him his life. A little over a year later, on the 2nd of Shvat 1938 he was arrested and taken to an unknown place. The family members did not know what happened to him. Only many years later, according to the documents revealed by the KGB, it was learned that their father had been accused of participating in an anti-revolutionary organization, and in a speedy trial, held on the 24th of Nisan 1938, was sentenced to death by shooting, and the next day was executed. Almost 30 years later, the family received the message about it along with the message about ‘purifying his name’ (rehabilitation). In 2008, the Jewish community of Moscow located his burial ground – the estate of the head of the Russian police, Genrich Yagoda in the Communarka, which was a burial site for those killed during Stalin’s purges.
The receiver of the letter: Rabbi Dr. Hillel Medalia (1916 – 1977), left Russia in 1922. He received a Torah and general education, and received a doctorate in philosophy. He was one of the leaders of the Mizrachi movement in England, served as rabbi of Leeds (England), Dublin (Ireland) and Antwerp (Belgium). He published a book, which he titled ‘Shilo’, alluding to the name of his father – Shmaryahu Yehuda Leib, in conjunction with his name – Hillel. He also edited the Shulchan Aruch with an English translation.
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