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Broadsheet reproducing a letter sent by R. Abraham Mordecai Alter of Gur to R. Nehemiah Alter concerning participation in the Va’ad Leumi. The Va’ad Le’ummi (National Council of Jews of Palestine) functioned from Oct. 10, 1920, until the establishment of the Provisional Government of the State of Israel in May 1948. The broadsheet, dated Thursday, [parshat] Mattos, 1927 addresses the ability of individuals to belong to (be represented by) another organization instead of the Va’ad. In the letter R. Alter writes that Haredim are able to “to gather themselves together, and to stand for their life” (Esther 8:11), to leave the Va’ad Leumi, which according to the decree of the rabbinic leadership it is prohibited to belong to, because it is not according to the Torah.
R. Abraham Mordecai Alter (1866–1948) was the last of the dynasty in Poland. Under his leadership Gur Hasidism reached the height of its influence. He restored the recitation of morning prayer to the regular time and enjoined a break during the Sabbath service for public study. A lover of order and precision, he gave Gur Hasidim an organized framework. In the period preceding the Holocaust Abraham Mordecai was the most prominent figure in European Orthodox Jewry and one of the founders of Agudat Israel. Particularly sympathetic toward young people and concerned with their needs, he was instrumental in establishing schools and youth organizations. As well as being a scholar, he was an ardent bibliophile. He visited Erez Israel many times and acquired property there. On the outbreak of World War II he escaped from Gur to Warsaw, and finally to Erez Israel in 1940. During and after the Holocaust he was active in rescue work and in the material and spiritual rehabilitation of refugees. He died on Shavuot at the height of the siege of Jerusalem in 1948 and was buried in the precincts of Yeshivah Sefat Emet which he had founded.
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