Interesting Letter from Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman – Regarding Sending his Son to Learn in the Slabodka Yeshiva in Hebron

Interesting Letter from Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman – Regarding Sending his Son to Learn in the Slabodka Yeshiva in Hebron
Interesting letter, handwritten and with the full signature of R. "Elchanan Bunem son of R. Naftali Beinush Wasserman". Baranovich (Baranavichy), Elul ca. 1925-1926.
Addressed to his friend the wealthy R. David Potash of Tel-Aviv. R. Elchanan thanks him for the shipment of Etrogim and Lulavim from Eretz Israel to Baranovich (at the end of the letter, R. Elchanan Wasserman adds that the Etrogim were of superior quality, but the Lulavim got damaged during transit and were split at the top), and blesses him for the new year.
Furthermore, R. Elchanan requests he obtain an immigration certificate for his son, the yeshiva student Elazar Simcha Wasserman, who wishes to immigrate to Eretz Israel to learn in the Slabodka yeshiva. The latter had studied for several years in the Novardok yeshiva in Zhytomyr, and then in the Kletsk-Slutsk yeshiva for a summer term. He had now reached conscription age, and obtaining a visa for him to enter Eretz Israel was a pressing, lifesaving necessity.
R. Elchanan Wasserman (1875-1941) was a disciple of R. Shimon Shkop in the Telz yeshiva and prominent disciple of the Chafetz Chaim. He served as lecturer and dean in the Brisk (Brest) yeshiva and other places. During WWI, at the behest of the Chafetz Chaim, he established a yeshiva in Smilavichy (Minsk province, today Belarus), and R. David Potash, then one of the wealthiest people in Russia, was a leading supporter of the yeshiva. After the war, R. Elchanan founded Yeshivat Ohel Torah in Baranovich.
A renowned Torah scholar and a foremost yeshiva dean in Lithuania, he represented the Chafetz Chaim and R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky in the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah of Agudat Yisrael. He composed many essays on Jewish ideology which were later published in his book Ikveta DeMeshicha, in which he expressed the Torah stance of his teacher the Chafetz Chaim on Zionist nationalism and the spiritual state of the Jewish people. During the Holocaust, he was deported to the Kovno (Kaunas) ghetto, where he was arrested and murdered in the Ninth Fort, while studying the laws of Kiddush HaShem. His teachings and lectures were published in the following books: Kovetz Shiurim, Kovetz He'arot, Kovetz Inyanim, Kovetz Igrot HaGaon R. Elchanan Wasserman and others. His approach in learning and his books serve until this day as the basis of intensive yeshiva study in the Torah world.
R. Elazar Simcha Wasserman (d. 1992), the eldest son of R. Elchanan Wasserman, endeavored greatly to disseminate Torah throughout the world. He established Torah communities in the most far-flung places, implementing the will of his teacher the Chafetz Chaim who instructed to spread Torah "even to the furthermost corners of the world, so that no one should forget they are Jewish". In 1933, he founded a yeshiva in Strasbourg (France) and after the Holocaust established yeshivot in the United States, in Detroit and Los Angeles. In his later years, he immigrated to Jerusalem, where he assisted the founding of the Or Elchanan yeshiva, named after his father, and lectured there on Torah and ethics.
[1] leaf, official stationery. 21X14 cm. Fair condition. Dark stains and wear.