Huge Proclamation Distributed by Order of the Avnei Nezer of Sochatchov, with Nearly 300 Signatures of Polish Rebbes and Rabbanim!!!
Lublin, 1909
"Huge Proclamation" – an enormous printed announcement, nearly a meter wide! – containing two sections:
The right side features a letter from the leading Rebbes of Polish Jewry – the ‘Avnei Nezer’ of Sochatchov, the ‘Imrei Emes’ of Gur, and the ‘Yismach Yisrael’ of Alexander.
In the letter, the Rabbanim warn that Rabbanim must under no circumstances pay money to receive a rabbinic position, and they renew the ban on this practice as previously established by the great Torah scholars of past generations.
The left side features the printed signatures of over 285 Rebbes and Rabbanim from throughout Poland!!!
The Avnei Nezer was the driving force behind this initiative, both in obtaining the Rabbanim’s signatures for the proclamation and in ensuring its widespread distribution throughout Poland.
It appears that the Avnei Nezer himself wrote the text of the proclamation, and it was printed in ‘Shu"t Avnei Nezer", Yoreh Deah, Section 465.
There is a letter preserved from this same year in which the Avnei Nezer asks one of the Rabbanim to publicly speak about the severity of this matter, as appears in the printed proclamation. (See photograph of the Avnei Nezer’s original letter in ‘Marbitzei Torah MiOlam HaChassidus’, Vol. 2, p. 169).
This rare proclamation is not listed in the Institute for Hebrew Bibliography nor in the National Library of Israel, and is not even registered in the WorldCat international database.
An extremely rare historical document of tremendous significance for the history of Polish Jewry.
Lublin, 1909. Size: 59 x 94 cm!!
Condition: Small tears at margins and fold marks. Paper not brittle.
See more about the proclamation and the Avnei Nezer’s involvement in: ‘Mareh HaDeshe’ on the history of the Avnei Nezer and his son the ‘Shem MiShmuel’, pp. 194-196.
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The body of the proclamation was first printed in the Orthodox press in Poland in 1908, with only the signatures of the three above-mentioned Rabbanim. In this present proclamation, a new paragraph was added to the body of the proclamation ("And since we have succeeded") and alongside it were added the hundreds of signatures mentioned above. In ‘Shu"t Avnei Nezer’ this final and main version was printed, with the signatures, and not the initial version published in the press.
