Shumuel Rapaport letter, to Yaʻaḳov Rabinowitz-Teomim, 1900?-1918 : manuscript.

Format:

Manuscript

Author/Creator:

Rapaport, Shumuel, 1853-1938, correspondent.

Contributor:

Rabinowitz-Teomim, Yaʻaḳov, -1941, correspondent.

Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

Hebrew

Subjects (All):

Rabbis--Massachusetts--Springfield.

Rabbis.

Rabbis--Lithuania--Ariogala.

Genre:

Manuscripts, Hebrew -- 20th century.

Personal correspondence.

Penn Provenance:

Sold by Winner's Auctions (Jerusalem), auction 152, 2026 February 8, lot 156.

Physical Description:

1 sheet : paper, 32 x 20 cm

Production:

Springfield, 1900?-1918.

Contained In:

Miscellaneous Manuscripts.

Other Title:

Text begins: Yeḳabel na teshurah ha-ḳeṭanah asher anaḥnu shaluaḥ le-kh.to.r.ha. ṿela-biti Śarah Hena kaʼasher nitṿadaʻ li she-himliṭah ben zakhar be-ma.za.ṭ ...

יקבל נא תשורה הקטנה אשר אנחנו שלוח לכתר"ה ולבתי שרה הענא כאשר נתוודע לי שהמליטה בן זכר במז"ט ...

Biography/History:

Lithuanian-American rabbi, born in Kėdainiai, and studied and was ordained by Tsevi Hirsh Rabinowitz at the Yeshivat Keneset Bet Yitsḥaḳ in Kaunas; became rabbi in Springfield, Massachusetts, 1900; in 1924, he emigrated to Jerusalem and taught in the Zikhron Mosheh neighborhood; he was an adherent to the Lithuanian Musar movement. Spelling taken from Abramowitz, Meir. Chachmei Yisroel of New England, page 58.

Summary:

Letter of greetings and family tidings to Yaʻaḳov Rabinowitz-Teomim, rabbi of Ariogala, Lithuania (Rapaport's son-in-law; the town was known in Yiddish as ראַגאָלע, Ragole), writing upon hearing the news that his daughter gave birth to a baby boy; the letter reads that Rapaport corresponded with a community in St. Paul searching for a rabbi, seeking to transfer there, and continues to lament the dissolving spiritual condition of American Jewry that he witnessed (abandon of Torah study and prayer, and desecration of the Sabbath -- "יסוד אמעריקע אשר היא מיוסדת על ג' דברים המחריבים יסוד העולם - ביטול תורה, ביטול תפילה וחילול שבת") and the worsening spiritual condition of Russian [that is, Lithuanian] Jewry (lamenting the spread of communism and anarchism among Lithuanian Jews, referred to as בעל פעור, more detrimental than the capitalism and materialism in the United States, referred to as עגל הזהב; "וארצה לברוח מאמעריקא כמו תינוק בורח מבית הספר. אך אנא אברח... גם רוסיה יורד מיום ליום אחורנית... גם שם עובדים ע"ז לבעל פעור, ומוטב לעבוד לעגל הזהב באמעריקא"). The letter concludes with good wishes to Ariogala and Rapaport's refusal to sponsor his brother-in-law to emigrate to the United States, as he would abandon his Judaism there ("לגיסי לייב יצחק בערגמאהן לא אוכל להושיע... לא ארצה לסייע ידי עוברי עבירה, כי בוודאי יחלל שבת בפרהסיה, כי לא ראיתי אף אחד מי שבא לפה מרוסיה שלא יחלל שבת!"). 

Cited as:

Shumuel Rapaport letter, to Yaʻaḳov Rabinowitz-Teomim (Misc Mss Box ** Folder **). Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.

OCLC:

1593827637