Auction 62
Lot 258:
Lengthy article handwritten and signed by the Chassid Gaon Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zwein. Reviewing article on the Gaon Rabbi Shmaryahu Yehuda Leib Medalya Av Beit Din of Vitebsk and Moscow. With references to the Admor Rabbi Shemaryahu Noah of Bobroisk and to the Admor the Rayatz.
An article in memory of Rabbi Shmaryahu Yehuda Leib Medalya Av Beit Din of Vitebsk and Moscow. The article contains many historical details pertaining to the history of the Jews in Boshevik Russia: "בשלש תקופות נפגש כותב הטורים עם הגרשי"ל: א) בתקופה של טרום המהפכה, במחיצתו של כ"ק אדמו"ר רש"נ נ"ע (רבי שמריהו נח שניאורסון נוחו עדן) בבאברויסק ב) בתקופה הראשונה של המהפכה, במחיצתו של כ"ק אדמו"ר ריי"צ נ"ע בלינגרד באסיפה של רבנים שהוזמנה ע"י האדמו"ר נ"ע; ג) בתקופת הבלהות של השתוללות הייבסיקציה"
A leaf written on both sides.
22X28 cm.
Small tears. Good condition.
The Chassid Gaon Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zwein (1890-1978) a gaon, editor of the Talmudic Encyclopedia. Received his rabbinic Semicha from the Rogochover and Rabbi Yechiel Michl Epstein. A Chabad Chassid and one of the first who signed the Hitkashrut letter to the Rebbe. Was the first chairman of the Beit Din of the Chabad rabbis in Israel.
Rabbi Shmaryahu Yehuda Leib Medalya (1873-1938) was the son of a Chabad Chassidic family and despite that was a graduate of the Slobodka misnaged yeshiva. He was rabbi of a number of towns in Russia and the cities of Vitebsk and Moscow during the Soviet era. He was arrested by the NKVD during Stalin’s great purges and executed. His son-in-law, Rabbi Dov Beer Kresik was Rabbi of Karlevitz and a Chabad Chassid. When he was 25, he was appointed Rabbi of Tola (Russia). After his father-in-law died, he succeeded in. He took part in the Kenes Rabbanei Russia and in the inaugural conference of Agudas Yisrael in Katowice. He expressed a consistent stance against the establishment of a Jewish state before the coming of the Messiah. After the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917 he was persecuted as a clergyman. 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 purge.
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