Letter of R. Baruch Dov (Ber) Leibowitz, dean of the Knesset Beit Yitzchak yeshiva in Kamenets. Vilna, Wednesday Chayei Sarah [19th Cheshvan, November 1] 1939.

Addressed to his relative R. Yechezkel Abramsky, head of the London Beit Din, at the outbreak of the Holocaust at the exile of the Kamenets yeshiva to Vilna – about two weeks before R. Baruch Ber's sudden passing in Vilna on 5th Kislev 1939.

About half the letter is typewritten, with eight lines at the end handwritten and signed by the yeshiva dean R. Baruch Ber Leibowitz.

The letter describes the travails of the war: "After a long and dangerous journey, with G-d's help our yeshiva reached Vilna, Lithuania, where we can continue the holy service. We have no words for how much we endured from the outbreak of the war until now. We endured much, but with G-d's help, the yeshiva remains whole and strong, and is again fit to resume the holy service". He goes on to ask for financial assistance to reestablish the yeshiva, "to build the altar of G-d'".

Later in the letter R. Baruch Ber goes on to add in his handwriting: "Now for my esteemed relative, short words will suffice. We beg and plead for our holy yeshiva which has relocated to Vilna, and went into exile suffering lack of bread, food and clothing, leaving their house of study, and with G-d's mercy were saved from the sword and plunder, with 'no pebble falling to the ground' in their lives; all of our students returned from the battle. I thank G-d in a great assembly. But what can we do to return the students to their Torah, while they lack bread, food, clothing and homes? So please send respectable aid, and in this merit may you return upright to our land by our redeemer, speedily in our days, with the rest of the Jewish people. Seeking your welfare, Baruch Dov Leibowitz, dean of the Beit Yitzchak yeshiva".

On the margins of the leaf is the address of R. Baruch Ber in Vilna (in Latin characters).

R. Baruch Dov (Ber) Leibowitz (1864-1939), author of Birkat Shmuel, leading Torah disseminator in his times. He was a disciple of R. Chaim of Brisk in the Volozhin yeshiva, and the son-in-law of R. Avraham Yitzchak Zimmerman, Rabbi of Hlusk (son-in-law of R. Yaakov Moshe Direktor, Rabbi of Novaya Mysh). After his father-in-law went to serve as rabbi of Kremenchuk, he succeeded him in Hlusk and established a yeshiva. After a 13-year tenure, he was asked to head the Knesset Beit Yitzchak yeshiva in Slabodka. During World War I, he wandered with the yeshiva to Minsk, Kremenchuk and Vilna, before finally settling in Kamenets. He authored Birkat Shmuel on Talmudic topics. His teachings and writings are classics of in-depth yeshiva study.

At the outbreak of World War II, the Kamenets yeshiva fled to Lithuania (at the beginning of the Holocaust, many yeshivas fled Poland, which had been occupied and partitioned by the Germans and Russians, for Vilna and other cities in independent Lithuania). The Kamenets yeshiva reached Vilna together with the yeshiva dean R. Baruch Ber Leibowitz. After the passing of the yeshiva dean in Vilna on 5th Kislev (December 17) 1939, the yeshiva began to be directed by his son-in-law, R. Reuven Grozovsky, together with his brothers-in-law R. Moshe Bernstein and R. Yaakov Moshe Leibowitz and the mashgiach R. Naftali Ze'ev HaKohen Leibowitz (brother-in-law of R. Baruch Ber, son-in-law of R. Avraham Yitzchak Zimmerman, Rabbi of Kremenchuk). The yeshiva later relocated to Raseiniai, at the instruction of the authorities to spread the refugees throughout Lithuania. After the Russian occupation of Lithuania, her sons and sons-in-law escaped and reached the United States and Eretz Israel, but Rebbetzin Leibowitz remained in Lithuania together with her orphan grandchildren (Rivkah and Yeshayah, children of her short-lived son R. Leib Leibowitz), and was eventually murdered in the Kovno ghetto in 1944. Some students of the Kamenets yeshiva managed to flee with the yeshiva deans or with the Mir yeshiva to Japan and Shanghai, while the others were massacred after the German conquest of Lithuania in summer 1941.

The recipient of the letter,
R. Yechezkel Abramsky, Rabbi of Slutsk and London (1886-1976), was a relative of R. Baruch Ber by marriage, as Rebbetzin Beila Zimmerman of Kremenchuk, R. Baruch Ber's mother-in-law, was the sister of R. Yisrael Yaakov Yerushalimsky, R. Abramsky's father-in-law.

[1] leaf. Official stationery. 30 cm. Good condition. Stains and folding marks.