The Handwriting of the Head of the Mir Yeshiva, Rabbi Avraham Zvi Hirsch Kamai - An Important Letter Responding to ...

The Handwriting of the Head of the Mir Yeshiva, Rabbi Avraham Zvi Hirsch Kamai - An Important Letter Responding to the Attempts of the Government to Cause Trouble to Torah Institutions - Mir, 1933
Letter handwritten and signed by Rabbi Avraham Zvi Hirsch Kamai, Av Beit Din and head of the last Mir Yeshiva in Europe.
The letter is addressed to the managers of "Horev", the educational network of the Haredi Agudat Yisrael in Lithuania and Poland. In the letter, Rabbi Kamai asks for urgent help from the managers of Horev "since the regional education inspector demands that we send him a correct copy of the improvement report that was required from the Talmud Torah four years ago. And here, for various reasons the report was lost … to obtain a copy of it, and reply immediately because the inspector is a strict man…"
Rabbi Avraham Zvi Hirsch Kamai did not accept any rabbinical position and for years, he and his wife earned their living from the pharmacy they owned. After World War I and the death of his father, Rabbi Kamai agreed to serve as a rabbi, Av Beit Din and head of the Mir Yeshiva, which flourished under his leadership. The Yeshiva students and community members admired and loved him and followed him to their death when the Nazis invaded the town. A surviving witness recalled the terrible event: "… when the Nazis gathered all the Jewish residents of the town and led the in automobiles to the pits they had dug outside the town, the Rabbi told all the Jews gathered by their murderers: accept all this with love, like the Tana Rabbi Akiva who observed the commandment 'thou shalt love the Lord … with all thy soul' - even when He takes your soul" (Ele Ezkera, C, pp. 41).
20x21 cm. Official stationery.
Condition: Very Good. Folding marks.