Bidspirit auction | (ANGLO-JUDAICA). JOSEPH SHAPOTSHNICK. Two printed

(ANGLO-JUDAICA). JOSEPH SHAPOTSHNICK. Two printed pamphlets: * In Memoriam to our Beloved King George V of blessed memory. Issued gratis by Chief Rabbi JOSEPH SHAPOTSHNICK (President of the Rabbinical Association). Text entirely in English. Uncut and unopened. pp. 8. Unbound. 12mo. (1936). * To Our Sovereign Lord King George VI and to our gracious Queen Elizabeth on the occasion of their Majesties’ Accession to the Throne. Issued gratis by Chief Rabbi JOSEPH SHAPOTSHNICK (President of the Rabbinical Association). Text entirely in English. Unopened. pp. 8. Unbound. 12mo. 1937 . London (1936) and 1937.     London-based Joseph Shapotshnick (1882-1937) was a maverick Chasidic rabbi and social activist during the interwar years. His activities, particularly in the field of enabling agunot to remarry, were vigorously opposed by the vast majority of his rabbinic colleagues, including some of the senior rabbinic authorities of his era, such as Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan, Rabbi Avraham Mordehai Alter of Gur, and Rabbi Hayyim Ozer Grodzinski.     At the end of 1928, it was announced that the British monarch, George V, was suffering from a life-threatening infection. Soon afterwards Shapotshnick revealed he had been in touch with Buckingham Palace regarding a herbal remedy to cure the king, and had received a letter of thanks from the royal physician, Lord Dawson of Penn.     Shapotshnick was always sensitive to popular sentiment, and, as his attempt to cure the king and these items reveal, he was keenly aware that the British royal family was both beloved and revered by the Jewish immigrant population.     The death of King George V in January 1936 was greeted with shock and sadness by all segments of the Jewish community, and Shapotshnick, whose constituency had by then shrunk to a small group of uneducated Jews in London's East End, issued a tribute to the late king, and then to his son, George VI, in anticipation of the latter's coronation in May 1937.     Just five months after the coronation of George VI, Shapotshnick died at the age of 55, while being operated on at London’s Jewish Hospital for renal failure. His funeral, which was studiously avoided by fellow rabbis and communal leaders, was attended by over 5,000 mourners drawn from the common folk, who endured the pouring rain to pay Shapotshnick his last respects.     These two rare printed items show the reverence by ordinary Jews in pre-war England for the British royal family.      SEE: Rabinowicz, Harry, A World Apart – The Story of Chasidim in Britain (London, 1997), pp. 56-66;  .     Dunner, Pini, Rebel Rabbi of London – The Epic Battle Against Joseph Shapotshnick, Beverly Hills, Otzrot, 2021 (limited-edition pamphlet);     Dunner, Pini, המבוהל מלונדון סיפור מלחמתו ביוזמה לפתרון גורפת להיתר העגונות (“The Madman of London: the story of a battle against an initiative for a sweeping solution for agunot”; Hebrew), Kovetz Etz Hayyim, Year 15, Issue 1, pp. 493-506, Nissan 5781 (April 2021); .     Henkin, Eitam, כי הכין בית חרושת להתיר עגונות - סיפורו של ר' יוסף שפוצ'ניק מלונדון והמחאה כנגדו (“He set up a dispensation factory to free agunot: the story of R. Yosef Shapotshnick of London and the protest against him”; Hebrew), Asif, Vol. 2, 5775, pp. 356-382. The above written with thanks to Rabbi P. Dunner of Beverly Hills, Calif.