Letter from the Admor of Sochatshov - Rabbi Dovid Borenstein

Letter from the Admor of Sochatshov - Rabbi Dovid Borenstein

Letter written and signed by the Admor of Sochatchov - Rabbi Dovid Borenstein.

A warm letter to Agudat Yisrael members in Jerusalem asking that they assist Mr. Mordechai M. Orenbach, whose father was also "a honorable man and a member of the Aguda."

Rabbi Dovid Borensten was born in 1896 in Nasielsk. His father was the "Shem MiShmuel," son of the "Avnei Nezer" of Sochatchov, and great-grandson of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk. He was the third Admor of the Sochatchov chassidut and a leader of Polish Jewry before the Holocaust. He was appointed rabbi of Wyszogród, where he led a large yeshiva of young men. After the First World War, he moved to the rabbinate in Tomaszów. When his father died in 1926, he was crowned Admor. He was one of the most prominent Admors in Poland. In 1939, the Germans invaded Lodz and soon reached his house,  beat him and cut off his beard. His chassidim smuggled him into the Warsaw ghetto where he worked as a laborer. Many came to consult with him and meetings were held in his house, and  he was soon a leader of the community in the ghetto. After a large Aktion, he was transferred to a secret apartment where he died from heart failure in Kislev, 1942. His was the last funeral to take place in the Genesha Street Cemetery. His entire family was killed in the Holocaust. His many works and most of his writings on sugyot of the Talmud and halacha and aggada were lost during the Holocaust. The few that survived were printed by his brother, Rabbi Chanoch Henoch in Chasdei Dovid and a Passover Haggada Shem Mi'Shmuel.

[1] letterhead. 13x21 cm. Light fold marks. Repaired tear on the right.

Fine condition.