Kol Yaakov [Our Right to the Western Wall] Speech by Rabbi Dr. Avraham Yaakov Merik. Czernowitz, 1928

Kol Yaakov [Our Right to the Western Wall] Speech by Rabbi Dr. Avraham Yaakov Merik. Czernowitz, 1928

Kol Yaakov [Our Right to the Western Wall]: Unser Recht auf die Klagemauer, by Rabbi Dr. Avraham Y. Merik. Czernowitz, 1928.

Specifications: 14 pages, paper. 12x19 cm. German with expressions quoted in Hebrew. Title in Hebrew and German.

Unique Features: The booklet quotes the rabbi's words from his speech on October 31, 1928. The background to his words was the British and Arab harassment of Jews praying at the Western Wall in those years. About a month before the speech was delivered, the "Kotel Affair" broke out: On Yom Kippur 1928, armed British policemen entered the area of the Western Wall, destroyed the screen which served as a partition between men and women, and removed the benches on which the worshippers sat. The Mufti Haj Amin incited against the Jews and intensified the situation. As a result of protests from the Jews in Israel and worldwide regarding the harrassment and the insult to the worshippers, the British established the "commission to determine the rights and claims under dispute of the Muslims and the Jews at the Western Wall." The British authorities eventually determined that the Western Wall alleyway belongs to the Arabs but that the Jews have the right to pray there.

Background: Rabbi Dr. Avraham Yaakov Mark [1884-1941], studied Torah with his grandfather, Rabbi Ephraim of Jagielnica and with Rabbi Mordechai Pohorila. He was ordained by Rabbi Binyamin Weiss, and served as Av Beit Din of Ustrzyki when he was only 20 years old. Served as the Chief Rabbi of Czernowitz and the Jews of Bucovina from 1926 onward. Active in Austria and Romania and well known throughout the Jewish world. He was murdered by the Nazis in the massacre of the Jews of Czernowitz.

Condition: Fine-very fine, a few stains, fold mark.