Bidspirit auction | SCHNEERSON, MOUSSIA (CHAYA-MUSHKA) (Rebbetzin /

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). Three Autograph Letters Signed, all written to Nacha Rivkin of Jerusalem (nee Heber, formerly of Kalisch, Rostov and Jerusalem, later of New York; and wife of Rabbi Moshe Dov-Ber Rivkin of Yeshivath Torath Emeth in Jerusalem and later, Torah Voda’ath, New York). 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. Two pages (single leaf), clean tear at folds. 4to. English translation accompanies the lot. Riga, 9th September / 4th Ellul, 1929. “Thank Gd all the horrors have passed… America is a country of great opportunities…” (R. Sheina). “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.