Vaad Hatzalah

Last updated
Vaad Hatzalah
FoundedNovember 1939;84 years ago (November 1939)
Focusrescue Jews in Europe from the Holocaust

Vaad Hatzalah (the Rescue Committee or Committee for Rescuing) was an organization to rescue Jews in Europe from the Holocaust, which was founded in November 1939 by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada (Agudath Harabbanim). [1]

Contents

The organization was originally named Emergency Committee for War-Torn Yeshivas and it is often referred to as "the Rescue Committee" also formally named: Vaad ha-Hatzala in Hebrew.

Activities

The Agudath HaRabbanim (Union of Orthodox Rabbis), led by Rabbi Eliezer Silver of Cincinnati, founded an organization specifically devoted to the rescue of European Jews called the Vaad Hatzalah ("Rescue Committee"). The Vaad was supported by all of Orthodox Jewry (Agudath Israel, Young Israel, Mizrachi, etc.). It was led by three of the greatest Sages of America: Rabbi Eliezer Silver, Rabbi Avraham Kalmanowitz, and Rabbi Aharon Kotler. The leaders of the Vaad were willing to do anything to save their fellow Jews, recognizing that saving lives was the priority. [2]

For example, the Polish government-in-exile ambassador in Bern, Aleksander Ładoś, sent coded cables to New York City on behalf of the Vaad and related Jewish organizations. The United States State Department had issued orders to block messages coming from Europe regarding news of the Nazis extermination of the Jews. [3]

Archives

The records of the Vaad Hatzala can be examined at Yeshiva University Archives. A guide to the collection may be viewed at the website of Yeshiva University Libraries. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agudath Israel of America</span> Jewish ultra-orthodox organization

Agudath Israel of America is an American organization that represents Haredi Orthodox Jews. It is loosely affiliated with the international World Agudath Israel. Agudah seeks to meet the needs of the Haredi community, advocates for its religious and civil rights, and services its constituents through charitable, educational, and social service projects across North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn</span> Sixth Chabad Rebbe (1880–1950)

Yosef YitzchakSchneersohn was an Orthodox rabbi and the sixth Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement. He is also known as the Frierdiker Rebbe, the Rebbe RaYYaTz, or the Rebbe Rayatz. After many years of fighting to keep Orthodox Judaism alive from within the Soviet Union, he was forced to leave; he continued to conduct the struggle from Latvia, and then Poland, and eventually the United States, where he spent the last ten years of his life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aharon Kotler</span> American rabbi; founder of Beth Medrash Govoha

Aharon Kotler was an Orthodox Jewish rabbi and a prominent leader of Orthodox Judaism in Lithuania and the United States; the latter being where he founded Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood Township, New Jersey.

Daf Yomi is a daily regimen of learning the Oral Torah and its commentaries, in which each of the 2,711 pages of the Babylonian Talmud is covered in sequence. A daf, or blatt in Yiddish, consists of both sides of the page. Under this regimen, the entire Talmud is completed, one day at a time, in a cycle of approximately seven and a half years.

World Agudath Israel, usually known as the Aguda, was established in the early twentieth century as the political arm of Ashkenazi Torah Judaism. It succeeded Agudas Shlumei Emunei Yisroel in 1912. Its base of support was located in Eastern Europe before the Second World War but, due to the revival of the Hasidic movement, it included Orthodox Jews throughout Europe. Prior to World War II and the Holocaust, Agudath Israel operated a number of Jewish educational institutions throughout Europe. After the war, it has continued to operate such institutions in the United States as Agudath Israel of America, and in Israel. Agudath Israel is guided by its Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah in Israel and the USA.

Refael Reuvain Grozovsky was a leading Orthodox rabbi, Jewish religious leader and rosh yeshiva ("dean") known for his Talmudic analytical style.

The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada (UOR), often called by its Hebrew name, Agudath Harabonim or (in Ashkenazi Hebrew) Agudas Harabonim ("union of rabbis"), was established in 1901 in the United States and is the oldest organization of Orthodox rabbis in the United States. It had been for many years the principal group for such rabbis, though in recent years it has lost much of its former membership and influence.

Boyan is a Hasidic dynasty named after the town of Boiany in the historic region of Bukovina, now in Ukraine. The Hasidut is headquartered in Jerusalem, with communities in Beitar Ilit, Bnei Brak, Manchester, Australia, Beit Shemesh, London, Antwerp, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Monsey, Lakewood, and Atlanta. Boyan is one of the branches of the Ruzhiner dynasty, together with Bohush, Chortkov, Husiatyn, Sadigura, Kapishnitz, Vaslui and Shtefanesht.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eliezer Silver</span> Lithuanian-American Orthodox Jewish rabbi

Eliezer Silver was the President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada and among American Jewry's foremost religious leaders. He helped save many thousands of Jews in the Second World War and held several Rabbinical positions in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Ohio.

Zalman Sorotzkin, also known as the Lutzker Rav, was an Orthodox rabbi who served as the rabbi of Lutsk, Ukraine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baruch Sorotzkin</span>

Rephoel Baruch Sorotzkin was the Rosh Yeshiva of the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland and among American Jewry's foremost religious leaders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah</span> Rabbinical council of the Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah

Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah is the supreme rabbinical policy-making council of the Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah movements in Israel; and of Agudath Israel of America in the United States. Members are usually prestigious Roshei Yeshiva or Hasidic rebbes, who are also usually regarded by many Haredi Jews to be the Gedolim ("great/est") sages of Torah Judaism. Before the Holocaust, it was the supreme authority for the World Agudath Israel in Europe.

Herbert S. Goldstein was a prominent American rabbi and Jewish leader. He was the only person to have been elected president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the Rabbinical Council of America, and the Synagogue Council of America. Globally, he fought for the survival and transplantation of European Jewry as an activist in the Vaad Hatzalah and the Agudath Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Kranzler</span> American professor of library science

David H. Kranzler was an American professor of library science at Queensborough Community College, New York, who specialized in the study of the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust.

Irving M. Bunim was a businessman, philanthropist, and a lay leader of Orthodox Jewry, in particular the Young Israel movement in the United States from the 1930s until his death in 1980. As an assistant to Aharon Kotler, he was involved in aspects of Torah dissemination, philanthropy and Holocaust rescue. He has been referred to as “perhaps the most impactful lay leader in American Jewish history”.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mordechai Shlomo Friedman</span> Ukrainian-born American rabbi

Mordechai Shlomo Friedman, sometimes called Solomon Mordecai Friedman, was the Boyaner Rebbe of New York for over 40 years. In 1927 he left Europe to become one of the first Hasidic Rebbes in America, establishing his court on the Lower East Side of New York City and attracting many American Jewish youth with his charismatic and warm personality. He also played a role in American Jewish leadership with positions on Agudath Israel of America, the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, and Holocaust rescue organizations. In 1957 he built the flagship Ruzhiner yeshiva, Tiferet Yisroel, at the top of Malkhei Yisrael Street in Jerusalem.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avraham Kalmanowitz</span> Belarusian-American Orthodox Jewish rabbi and rosh yeshiva

Avraham Kalmanowitz was an Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva (dean) of the Mir yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York from 1946 to 1964. Born in Russian empire, he served as rabbi of several Eastern European Jewish communities and escaped to the United States in 1940 following the German occupation of Poland. In the U.S. he was an activist for the rescue of the millions of Jews trapped in Nazi-ruled Europe and in the Soviet Union. He arranged the successful transfer of the entire Mir yeshiva from Lithuania to Shanghai, providing for its support for five years, and obtaining visas and travel fare to bring all 250 students and faculty to America after World War II. He established the U.S. branch of the Mir in 1946. In the 1950s he aided North African and Syrian Jewish youth suffering from persecution and pogroms, and successfully lobbied for the passage of a bill granting "endangered refugee status" to Jewish emigrants from Arab lands.

Rabbi Dr. Isaac Lewin, was a Professor Emeritus Of Jewish History at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University In New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yeshivas in World War II</span>

After the German invasion of Poland in World War II and the division of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union, many yeshivas that had previously been part of Poland found themselves under Soviet communist rule, which did not tolerate religious institutions. The yeshivas therefore escaped to Vilnius in Lithuania on the advice of Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski. In Lithuania, the yeshivas were able to function fully for over a year and many of the students survived the Holocaust because of their taking refuge there, either because they managed to escape from there or because they were ultimately deported to other areas of Russia that the Nazis did not reach. Many students, however, did not manage to escape and were killed by the Nazis or their Lithuanian collaborators.

References

  1. Zuroff, Efraim (1997). "Rabbis' Relief and Rescue: A Case Study of the Activities of the Vaad ha-Hatzala (Rescue Committee) of the American Orthodox Rabbis, 1942-1943". Museum of Tolerance. Simon Wiesenthal Center (Los Angeles). Archived from the original on 12 May 2018. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
  2. Levine, Rabbi Menachem (2024-03-17). "Henry Morgenthau's Queen Esther Moment". Aish.com. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
  3. Wyman, David (1984). The Abandonment of the Jews. Pantheon Books. p. 186. ISBN   0-394-42813-7.
  4. "An Inventory to the Vaad Hatzala Collection, 1940-1963". archives.yu.edu. Retrieved 2023-10-30.