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LOT 45:
Letter from Rabbi Shmuel Ehrenfeld AB"D of Mattersdorf. 1932 A letter on behalf of ...
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Letter from Rabbi Shmuel Ehrenfeld AB"D of Mattersdorf. 1932
A letter on behalf of the widow of Rabbi Mordechai Santa who was a Talmid Chochom and descendant of the Shemn Rokeach.
On his official stationery. Heavily stained and wrinled with tears on the folds.
Rabbi Shmuel Ehrenfeld (1891–1980), known as the Mattersdorfer Rav, was a pre-eminent Orthodox Jewish rabbi in pre-war Austria and a respected Torah leader and community builder in post-war America. He established Yeshivas Ch'san Sofer in New York City and taught thousands of students who went on to become leaders of American Torah Jewry. He also founded the neighborhood of Kiryat Mattersdorf in Jerusalem, where his son and grandson became prominent Torah educators. He was the great-great-grandson of the Chasam Sofer through the Chasam Sofer's daughter Hindel, who married Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Ehrenfeld.
Rav Ehrenfeld assumed the leadership of the Mattersdorf community after his father's death in 1926. His opinions and halakhic rulings were widely respected, and he also served as president of the Siebengemeinden (Sheva Kehillos, or Seven Communities) of Burgenland. He also had frequent dealings with government officials. He was instrumental in changing public policy to exempt Jewish students from studying in public schools and to have religious rather than secular teachers teach secular subjects in Torah schools. He also lobbied for Jewish soldiers to be granted leave on Shabbat and Yom Tov. For his accomplishments, he was awarded a gold medal from the Austrian government.
His leadership of the community ended abruptly in 1938 with the Anschluss. On Saturday, 12 March 1938, German soldiers raided the Mattersdorf synagogue during services and ripped the prayer shawls off the worshippers. Commandant Koch warned Ehrenfeld that unless all 4,000 Jews in the district left immediately, they would all be killed. After making many efforts to help relocate community members to safer shores, Ehrenfeld escaped with his family to America, where he arrived on 13 September 1938.
