Auction 47

Rare: Letter with new year’s greetings handwritten and signed by Rabbi Yisrael HaLevi Soloveitchik, to Rabbi Chaim Sarna. Johannesburg 1939.

The auction will start in __ days and __ hours

Start price: $150

Buyer's premium:

Letter written entirely by hand and signed by the eldest grandson of the Beis HaLevi of Brisk, Rabbi Yisrael HaLevi Soloveitchik, when he served as a dayan in Johannesburg (South Africa). From the 15th of Elul, 1939 (10 September 1939), addressed to Rabbi Chaim Sarna, whom he refers to is “my friend the Rav Gaon Gadol etc etc, Maran…”. Together with the letter were included £30.

At the end is blesses Rabbi Sarna “may he be blessed that he may live as well as all those who are shaded by him, with a ketiva and chatima tovah, in the book of tzaddikim gemurim, as deserves his honor as a principled rabbi”, with his signature.

Rabbi Yisrael HaLevi Soloveitchik (died 1951) was the son of Rabbi Avraham Baruch Soloveitchik, eldest son of Rabbi Yosef Dov, the Beis HaLevi. He was Rabbi of Smolensk after his father and a dayan of the Beit Din in Johannesburg. He studied under his uncle Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik and wrote down his shiurim, which were printed later from his manuscript in the “Meginzei HaGrach”. He died in New York when visited there and is buried there.