(AMERICAN JUDAICA)
Group of 26 Autograph Letters Signed written on ...

Group of 26 Autograph Letters Signed written on postcards in Hebrew, each by a different American Orthodox Rabbi and sent to the organization “Union of Orthodox Rabbis of America and Canada,” each written in opposition to reforms to Jewish marriage laws proposed by the Conservative Movements’ Rabbinical Alliance.


v.p.: 1935.

A campaign initiated by the Agudath HaRabanim (Union of Orthodox Rabbis of America) with the endorsement of some one thousand rabbis world-wide who opposed the reforms advanced by the American Conservative Rabbi Judah (Louis) Epstein who sought to solve the Agunah problem. Epstein`s proposal was that prior to the marriage service, a husband would appoint his wife as an agent to execute a divorce on his behalf. Thus, if in the future the husband went missing or refused to grant a Get, the wife could, in effect, divorce herself.
     This lot contains 26 original postcards by important Rabbis throughout the United States expressing their opposition to this proposal which, they felt, would violate the sanctity of Jewish Marriage. Included are: R. Abraham Yitzchak Shisgal (Mechutan of R. Moshe Feinstein), R. Nissan Telushkin, R. Abraham Chinitz (Yeshiva Torah Vodaath), R. Yoseph Feimer (originally of Slutzk), R. Shmaryahu Horowitz of Baltimore, R. Yoseph Dov Horowitz of St. Paul, R. Zalman Yaakov Friederman of Boston, and many others.
Complete list available upon request.
     The history of this polemic along with the letters of the opposing Rabbis was published in 1937 under the title LeDor Acharon.