Collection of rare letters and documents relating to the “Kollel America” controversy

Collection of rare letters and documents relating to the “Kollel America” controversy

A collection of original and rare documents from one of the most tumultuous affairs the Jewish people knew in the 19th century: the Kollel America affair. [See background below]

1. Letter of excommunication to Rabbi Moshe Zvi Hochstein, one of the heads of the Kollel in New York, dated Iyar 1897, in the handwriting and signature of Rabbi Mordechai Feinstein from his post at the Novy-Alexandrovsky rabbinate. Its official stamp. It is placed in a wooden frame.

2. Letter from the “Gabbayim and maintainers of the poor of Israel in New York”, from Nissan 1897, addressed to the American immigrants living in Jerusalem, notifying them that “they will not separate themselves from the tzibbur to build a new kollel opposed to the Israeli rabbanim and volunteers…”. At the end they even threaten “and if not we will force the administrators of the Beit Va’ad HaKlali to stop giving any support to Americans, until they surrender under the words of peace…” signed by Menashe Pleckspender Gabay Rishon, Dover Zilberman, Acting Secretary of State, Tiferet Yisrael, Writer and Secretary, and their official stamp.

3. Handwritten letter dated Adar 2, 1902, by the directors of the Talmud Torah and the Bikur Cholim Hospital in Jerusalem. From there the factories Tach [Torat Chaim] ... the countries of England and Africa ... ".

4. Five pages “Income Account” from the years 1893 and 1895, details of the donations from Washington, Portchester, and Pittsburgh.

5. A letter detailing the names of donors along with the amounts donated, behind which is the stamp of the General Committee: "The receipts were sent" with the date - Kislev 1901.

6. Ten pages of a notebook detailing the names supported by the stamp "sent the receipts" of the General Committee with the addition of a date: Tevet 1903.

A total of 17 rare documents, various defects, most of them in good condition.

Background: In 1866 the committee was founded The Knesset Israel, named after Rabbi Meir Baal Hanes, a body that united all the kollels that operated in the Land of Israel until then, and in fact served as the official representative of the Ashkenazi communities and was authorized to address all their needs, including supporting the poor, establishing charities and educational institutions, and later also the expansion of the Jewish community in Jerusalem and beyond. The committee was established with the encouragement of the Rabbi of Jerusalem, Rabbi Shmuel Salant and with the spiritual support of the Rebbe of Kalish, and Rabbi Meir Auerbach, author of the "Imrei Bina". The active spirit and initiator of the United Committee was Rabbi Yosef Rivlin, who served for years as its director. The standing of these personalities at the head of the committee gave him prestige and status and attracted many donors from the country and the world, who dedicated a lot of money and even assets that are used by him to this day as a dedication.

After the arrival of Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin - the Maharil, to Jerusalem, he established the Diskin Orphanage in his courtyard in 1880, in response to the missionary orphanages or the 'Berlin Orphanage' of the Maskilim circles. This provoked the anger / fear of the members of the Prushi establishment that an independent institution would harm their general fundraising. In 1892, when the Prushim sent an account to America of their institutions, they completely ignored the institutions of the Hasidim and the institutions of Rabbi Diskin. When the Maharil in turn tried to raise money in America for the benefit of his enterprise, Rabbi Salant came out against him claiming it harmed the General Committee's income. The Maharil responded by claiming that the General Committee, despite its huge revenues, was not functioning properly and was of no use. In 1896, after another internal dispute that arose regarding funds and powers that led to the withdrawal of the Warsaw Kollel from the General Committee, and another dispute over the budget of Islamic countries. The donation report from each country was first published, the publication raised the fact that most of the donations come from America, these data led to a demand from a group of Americans, led by Eliezer Shapira, to receive from the distribution funds a larger amount from European expatriates. Rabbi Yaakov Orenstein, a definite student of the Maharil, was appointed Maharil Diskin's general secretary in Jerusalem.

The heads of the General Committee fought fiercely in the American Immigrants program, following the expected cut in their income from American Jewry. On Tu B'Av 1896, Rabbi Shmuel Salant published a proclamation announcing "that the destruction of the General Committee is the destruction of the entire settlement." The position was supported by the Admor Rabbi David Zvi Shlomo Biderman of Lalev, Rabbi Zalman of Haran and Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer. The people of the old settlement were Rabbi Yesha Yeh Orenstein and his son Rabbi Yaakov, students of the Maharil Diskin, who, despite being of European descent, came out to defend the position of Americans from the heads of the General Committee.

The conflict caused great tension between the factions in the old settlement, and the fire was ignited in reciprocal articles in the Hebrew printed press. The members of the General Committee organized a demonstration near the house of Maharil Diskin. The demonstration was published anonymously in the Tzafira newspaper. The news, however, encountered opposition from the Maharil who lifted the boycott. [In fact, several hundred people took part in the demonstration, which ended in an outburst at his Ohel Moshe yeshiva, as a result of which the American consul accepted the Maharil as an honorary citizen of the United States government. Because this was indeed done with his consent - they tried to attribute to him attempts to take over the Pharisee establishment in Jerusalem, on the other hand, supporters of the kollel printed many pastoral writings condemning the General Committee in the signatures of the kollel, many of whom later published that their signature was forged. It was then alleged that the heads of the General Committee compelled them to publish their denial. After unsuccessful ups and downs and compromise attempts, the kollel remained intact alongside the other kollels.