Poster Stamped by the Mahari"l Diskin and Rabbi Shmuel Salant. Lengthy Handwritten Addition in the Rare Script of ...

Poster Stamped by the Mahari"l Diskin and Rabbi Shmuel Salant. Lengthy Handwritten Addition in the Rare Script of Rabbi Shmuel Salant

Historic poster: "Kol MeHeichal" - poster in support of farmers "the upright Chareidi colonists" towards the upcoming shemittah year, 1888-9, including the explicit prohibition of the (unfortunately common) heter mechirah, signed in print by all Jerusalem rabbis. Jerusalem, 1888 (chronogram: שנת בונה ירושלם"[תרמ"ט]) 

Printed addition in the margins of the poster addressing the farmers from two world leaders, Rabbi Moshe Yehudah Leib Diskin and Rabbi Shmuel Salant. The addition concludes with the words: 'We hereby stamp with our seal and that of the Bada"tz, ' followed by the stamps (in blue ink) of these two giants. After the signatures, there are another two lines added by hand, apparently in the almost impossible-to-find script of Rabbi Shmuel Salant, filled with blessings for those who donate in support of the farmers: "And you, courageous donors who contribute to Hashem out of the generosity of your pure hearts, and send your contributions to the above rabbis (the thirty rabbis who signed on the top part of the poster), your designated funds will go to this great mitzvah, may one who has mercy have mercy shown to him, and may the blessed be blessed. 

Background: Towards the shemittah year 1888-9, several farmers appealed to rabbis with a request to permit them to work the Land via selling it to a non-Jew. This resulted in a dispute between the Chareidi rabbis and the Zionist rabbis - "The shemittah controversy" in which may rabbis of the era took part. All the Chareidi rabbis in Jerusalem, led by Rabbis Diskin and Salant, refused to join the heter mechirah as they write in this poster: "There is no license to plow and sow, reap and plant, neither on one's own nor through a non-Jew.

We will emphasize that manuscripts by the Mahari"l Diskin are quite scarce. They are so uncommon that we have not even found samples with which to compare this one, so we could not conclusively determine whether this penmanship is that of the Mahari"l Diskin himself. However, it certainly cannot be ruled out.

Refer to the Hebrew catalog text for brief biographies of the gaon Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Yehudah Leib Diskin and of the gaon Rabbi Shmuel Salant.

[1] leaf, approximately 40 cm. Printed leaf with signatures by two rabbinic leaders along with their handwritten blessings. Laminated.

Moderate condition. Stains, Fold marks. Small tears in the folds and in the margins. With blemishes in several individual words.