The auction commences with a first edition of the Segulah-book "Raziel HaMalach" (Lot 1); followed by books that were owned by significant rabbis:
R. Shlomo Ganzfried (Lot 5); The Aruch Hashulchan (Lot 6); R. Meir Shapira of Lublin (Lot 68).
The auction contains many excellent offerings of Autograph Letters including:
The first Rebbe of Sadigura, R. Avraham Ya'akov (Lot 13); The Chofetz Chaim (Lots 17-20); The Ohr Same’ach (Lot 41); The Kesav Sofer (Lot 58); Reb Chaim Brisker (Lot 59); The Lubavitcher Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka and her sister (Lots 50-51); and dozens more of such letters.
Autograph manuscripts of note are those from R. Menachem Mendel of Shklov (Lot 9A); The Tiferes Yisroel (Lot 40); and a 14th-century Ramba'n manuscript (Lot 9).
As per annual tradition, this pre-Pesach auction features a wide selection of Passover Hagadot:
The rare, the exotic and the curious; with examples from 1545 through until 2008.
Among particularly Early examples: Lot 87 (Venice, 1545); Lot 88 (Riva di Trento, 1561) and Lot 95 (Salonika, 1569).
Beautifully illustrated Hagadoth include: Lot 93 (Venice, 1740); Lot 85 (India, 1874) and Lot 115 (The Avner Moriah Hagadah).
Historically significant Hagadoth include Lot 72 (American/Canadian/Anglo-related) and many examples from Germany, India, Jerusalem; as well as first edition Hagadah commentaries by the Vilna Gaon (Lot 96), R. Ya'akov Emden (Lot 78); and ending with several facsimile editions.
LOT 50:
SCHNEERSON, MOUSSIA (CHAYA-MUSHKA) (Rebbetzin / Wife of the ...
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Sold for: $1,700
Start price:
$
1,500
Estimated price :
$3,000 - $6,000
Buyer's Premium: 25%
sales tax: 8.875%
On the full lot's price and commission
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SCHNEERSON, MOUSSIA (CHAYA-MUSHKA) (Rebbetzin / Wife of the seventh Grand Rabbi of Lubavitch, R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson. 1901-88).
* AND: SCHNEERSOHN (HORENSTEIN), SHEINA / SONYA (Youngest daughter of R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the sixth Grand Rabbi of Lubavitch. 1904-42).
* AND: SCHNEERSOHN, NECHOMA-DINA (Wife of the sixth Grand Rabbi of Lubavitch, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn and mother-in-law of the Seventh Rebbe, R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson. 1881-1970).
First two letters (23 lines and five lines) written entirely in Russian. Third letter, written in Yiddish, on verso.
All three women write of their excitement for Nacha, their close family friend, who was soon to immigrate with her children from Eretz Israel to join her husband in America.
Riga, 9th September / 4th Ellul, 1929.
“Have a happy, peaceful life! … All these days we are with you in our thoughts…” (R. Chaya-Mushka).
“May God assist you and your husband in finding peace…” (R. Nechomo-Dina).
Nacha Heber Rivkin (1900-88) met the Schneersohn family in Rostov in 1915 and subsequently became a lifelong friend. Following the 1929 Palestine riots, Nacha emigrated to the United States where her husband, Rabbi Moshe Dov-Ber Rivkin (1891-1976), a protégé of the Rebbe Rasha’b, was appointed dean of Yeshiva Torah Voda’ath, Brooklyn. A leading educationalist, Nacha Rivkin was one of the founders of the Shulamith School for Girls in Boro Park.
Among the three Schneerson ladies who write here to their close friend, letters from the youngest of the three daughters of the Friediker Rebbe, Sheina, are particularly scarce.
Married to her cousin Menachem Mendel (“Menik”) Horenstein in 1932, Sheina and her husband were unable to flee Poland along with the other members of the Schneerson family and were subsequently killed by the Nazis in the Treblinka extermination camp (2nd day Rosh Hashanah). They were childless. Sheina was particularly close to her sister Rebbetzin Chaya Moussia and is memorialized on the latter’s tombstone in the Old Montefiore Cemetery, Queens, New York.
“When my sister passed away, my whole world darkened” Rebbetzin Chaya-Mushka is quoted to have said upon learning that Sheina did not survive the Holocaust. To find the two sisters writing here on a single letter alongside each other is especially poignant.

