Letter from Rosh Yeshivas Mir Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel regarding his son-in-law, Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz
Jerusalem, 1946
In 1946, entry permits to the United States began arriving for the students of the Mir Yeshiva, who had been in exile in Shanghai throughout the years of the Second World War.
In order to secure visas for his son-in-law, Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz, and his family in Shanghai, Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel included the necessary biographical details in the present letter: The ages of Rabbi Chaim and his wife, the number of children and their ages, their places of birth (he notes that their daughter Gittel was born in Shanghai) and other relevant personal details.
Among the children, Rabbi Finkel mentions his nine-year-old grandson, Raphael, who would later become Rabbi Raphael Shmuelevitz, Rosh Yeshiva of Mir.
Rabbi Eliezer Yehudah Finkel (1879-1965) was the son of the Alter of Slabodka and Rosh Yeshivah of Mir. He settled in Eretz Yisrael in 1941 where he rebuilt the Mir Yeshiva and endeavored tirelessly to bring his talmidim from Shanghai to Eretz Yisrael.
Later in the letter, he discusses the efforts to bring the yeshiva students first to the United States and then to Eretz Yisrael, mentioning the involvement of Rabbi Avraham Kalmanowitz in the matter.
Jerusalem, Tishrei, 1946. Typewritten letter, signed by Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel.
Size: 21.5 × 27.5 cm.
Condition: Good, with minor tears along the edges and filing holes.
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The Mir Yeshivah in Shanghai
The remarkable flight and rescue of the Mir Yeshivah during World War two is one of the most inspirational tales of the Holocaust era and a clear manifestation of Divine providence.
In 1939, the Mir Yeshivah and its students fled from Poland to Vilna, where they remained for a brief period of time before Lithuanian authorities expelled the Yeshivah from its borders. In an extraordinary twist of fate, the Japanese consul in Kovno, Mr. Chiune Sugihara, agreed to issue Japanese entry visas to all the Yeshivah’s students and its esteemed Rosh Yeshivah Hagaon Harav Chaim Shmuelevitz. This enabled the escape of the entire Yeshivah via the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Japan where they remained for nine months before continuing along their journeys to Shanghai, China.
Yeshivas Mir remained in exile in Shanghai for five years. Under the leadership of its venerable Rosh Yeshivah and mashgiach, Harav Chaim Shmuelevitz, the Yeshivah’s students immersed themselves in the sacred world of Torah, elevating themselves and creating a glorious tale to add to the annals of Jewish history. Throughout the war years, rescue activists around the world endeavored tirelessly to procure visas for the bachurim to Eretz Yisrael and America, an effort that finally came to fruition at the end of 1946.
