Auction 47
Lot 179:
Dvar Chen, a memorial book for the Rahach Dov Berish Ortner and his wife. By their grandson, Rabbi Natan Ortner. It includes a biography of the Admorim of Belz and their yichus and activities, with pictures.
The blank first leaf has a handwritten dedication and signature by the publisher to Rabbi Yaakov Gorpickle.
Rabbi Natan Yehuda Ortner (1934-2018) was the Ashkenazi rabbi of Lod and member of the Council of Torah Sages. He was from a rabbinical family in the Belz chassidus. His grandfather, Rabbi Berish, was involved in the Aliyah of the Admor Rabbi Aharon of Belz to Israel during the Second World War. His father Rabbi Moshe was administrator of Rabbi Aharon of Belz’s residence in Tel Aviv and a builder of the Belz yeshiva on Agripas in Jerusalem.
In addition he wrote a book on the exit of the Admor from Belz to Hungary: there he claimed, based on personally gathered information, that the Rebbe was forced to end his speech in his polemical trial saying that the Jews of Hungary would not be harmed, as a condition for his extradition and smuggling into Israel. This provoked much criticism.
He published additional books, mainly books based on the philosophy of the Belzer Admorim and the Bnei Issachar. Author of a halakhic book called "Yad Natan" – articles and responsa, with the approbation of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach who also added comments to the book. He also published a pamphlet on the reading of the megillah in Lod, and a book called “Eshnav L’Yahadut”, on explaining Judaism to non-religious Jews, in which he presents the position of Judaism on issues such as: evolution, world age, the chosen people, the Holocaust, and more.
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