Rabbi Eliezer Silver letter

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 

Rabbi Eliezer Silver (1882-1968) served as the president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, and was instrumental in the creation of the Vaad Hatzalah, an organization that sought to rescue Torah scholars and other persecuted Jews from Nazi occupied Europe. Born in Obeliai, Lithuania, he studied at Daugavpils, Latvia (when both places were part of the Russian Empire). Due to anti-Semitism in Russia, he immigrated to the United States in 1907, eventually serving as a rabbi in congregations in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (1907-1925) and Cincinnati, Ohio (1931-1968). He was elected president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis in 1929, and was instrumental in founding Vaad Hatzalah, convening that organization's first meeting in New York in November 1939 and serving as its first president. 

Rabbi Eliezer Silver letter 

folder 1 

One handwritten letter, in Hebrew, from Rabbi Eliezer Silver, writing in his capacity as president of Va'ad Hatzalah, to Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, in Palestine, in spring 1946. In his letter, he describes news he has received about the destitute condition of many of the newly arrived Jewish refugees in Palestine, and proposes various actions in order to provide humanitarian aid for them, including the sending of funds to support such work. He also discusses negative rumors that had been spread about Va'ad Hatzalah's work there, and asks Herzog to intervene on their behalf.