Sermons by Rabbi Shmuel Yehuda Hirsch - Chief Rabbi of the Netherlands - Three Months After Its Occupation by the Nazis

Sermons by Rabbi Shmuel Yehuda Hirsch - Chief Rabbi of the Netherlands - Three Months After Its Occupation by the Nazis

A sermon notebook in the handwriting of Rabbi Shmuel Yehuda Hirsch, Rabbi of Zwolle (Netherlands). The words were written from Shabbat Nachmu [8/17/1940] to Rosh Hashana 1940 [dated in his handwriting]. The Netherlands, about three months after its conquest by the Nazis. Dutch and Hebrew.

In May 1940, the Netherlands was occupied by the German army. In February 1941, the Germans ordered the establishment of a Judenrat of all Dutch Jews, and in the summer of 1942, deportations of Jews from the Netherlands to extermination camps in Eastern Europe began. The notebook before us was written in the first months of the German occupation, and a few months before the death of Rabbi Shmuel Yehuda Hirsch, and deals with the weeks of consolation after Tisha B'Av, the Rosh Hashana, the Teshuvah, and the Shofar.

Rabbi Shmuel Yehuda Hirsch [1872-1941], Chief Rabbi of Overijsel - Zwolle in the North of the Netherlands, for nearly forty years. After studying in the Talmud Torah, he continued in the rabbinical seminary with Rabbi Yosef Zvi Diner, received his rabbinical certification at a very young age, and in 1902, even before his marriage, he accepted the call of the Zwolle congregation, and was appointed to its chief rabbi. Rabbi Hirsch initiated the restoration of the partition in the synagogue and enforced strict requirements for slaughterers and butchers. Under his spiritual leadership, Overijsel became the first district to have all the wives of teachers and cantors, covered their hair - a rule that was neglected throughout Western Europe at the time.

Notebook 16x11 cm. 45 written pages. Good - very good condition.