Arbitration Bills of the Telz Beit Din – One Handwritten by Rabbi Eliezer Gordon

Arbitration Bills of the Telz Beit Din – One Handwritten by Rabbi Eliezer Gordon
Two handwritten arbitration bills regarding real-estate disputes, signed by the litigants. Telz (Telšiai, Lithuania), 1878 and 1898. The second bill is handwritten by the rabbi of the city, R. Eliezer Gordon.
R. Eliezer Gordon (1841-1910) was the founder and dean of the Telz Yeshiva as well as rabbi of Slabodka, Kelm and Telz. He was a close disciple of R. Yisrael of Salant, and for some time served as lecturer in his yeshiva in Kovno, after which he was appointed rabbi of Slabodka. From 1874, he served as rabbi of Kelm, where he established a yeshiva. In 1884, he relocated to Telz, where he officiated as rabbi until his passing in 1910. He also stood at the helm of the Telz Yeshiva, which developed under his careful leadership into one of the largest and most influential yeshivas in the world, while the city of Telz itself became established as the foremost Torah center in Lithuania for over 50 years.
R. Eliezer, who was an exceptional Torah prodigy and a profound scholar, instituted a logical method of Torah study that indelibly affected the character of the yeshiva. He appointed R. Shimon Shkop and later R. Chaim Rabinowitz as lecturers in the yeshiva. Among his renowned disciples were R. Elchanan Wasserman and R. Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, the Ponovezher Rav. R. Eliezer was also a leader of worldwide Charedi Jewry during his lifetime. He headed various rabbinical conventions and was a primary initiator of the public organization for founding the Agudat Yisrael movement. In 1910, the Telz Yeshiva suffered a severe financial setback and R. Eliezer was forced to travel to England to collect funds. He suddenly passed away during this visit in Adar 1910, and was buried in London.
He was succeeded by his son-in-law R. Yosef Leib Bloch, author of Shiurei Daat and lecturer in the yeshiva together with R. Shimon Shkop. He concurrently served as both head of the Telz Yeshiva and rabbi of the city for twenty years.
[2] leaves. 18 and 11 cm. Good-fair condition.