Physical Description

[2] pp., 292:230 mm., light age staining, Rashi ink on paper, signed by 7 rabbis, 2 stamps, and dated.

Detailed Description   

Bet Din agreement on the distribution and delivery of an estate in Peru, dated 3 Kislev 5660 (November 5, 1899), signed by "rabbis of Jerusalem":

R. Samuel Salant (1816–1909) chief rabbi of Jerusalem and one of the foremost 19th-century rabbis in Jerusalem. Born near Bialystok (Russia, now Poland), R. Salant studied at yeshivot in Vilna, Salant, and Volozhin. He set out for Erez Israel in 1840, but was delayed for a few months in Constantinople, where he first met Sir Moses Montefiore, with whom he established a firm friendship. In 1841 he reached Jerusalem, where the heads of the kolel Lita appointed him rabbi of the Ashkenazi community. A leading figure in Jerusalem, he became Ashkenazi chief rabbi in 1878, holding the position until his death. Salant strove to develop the institutions of the Ashkenazi community, which increased from 500 members at his arrival to 30,000 at the time of his death, and succeeded in obtaining for the Ashkenazim the official status previously enjoyed only by the Sephardi community. Between 1848 and 1851 and in 1860 he traveled to several European countries to collect money for religious institutions in Jerusalem. Salant was a founder of the Ez Hayyim Talmud Torah and Yeshivah, the Bikkur Holim Hospital, and the Keneset Israel General Committee, which united all the kolelim under a single administration. He also encouraged the establishment of the Jewish quarters, such as Me'ah She'arim, Keneset Israel, and others, outside the Old City walls. He tried to lessen the friction between the veteran settlement and the new yishuv, combated the activities of the mission schools and ameliorated the relations between the Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities. Salant lived an exemplary life of the utmost frugality. He devoted himself without stint to the needs of his community. He was an outstanding posek, distinguishing himself by his power of decision, and showed a definite tendency toward leniency in his decisions.

R. Jacob Saul b. Eliezer Jeroham Elyashar (1817–1906), Sephardi chief rabbi of Erez Israel (rishon le-Zion). A grandson of R. Jacob ben Hayyim Elyashar, he was born in Safed. His father, a dayyan, shohet, and cantor there, was arrested by the Turkish authorities, but succeeded in escaping and settled with his family in Jerusalem. When R. Jacob Saul was seven, he lost his father, and his mother remarried in 1828. His stepfather, R. Benjamin Mordecai Navon, became his teacher and supported him for many years. R. Elyashar married the daughter of hakham bashi, R. Raphael Meir Panigel. He was appointed a dayyan in Jerusalem in 1853, and in 1869 head of the bet din. He succeeded his father-in-law as hakham bashi and rishon le-Zion in 1893.

רבי שאול חיים הלוי הורוויץ - במשך שנים כיהן כראב"ד דוברובנה במחוז מוהילב ברוסיה הלבנה. עלה לארץ בתרמ"ג והקים בתרמ"ה את ישיבת מאה שערים וכיהן גם כרב שכונת מאה שערים. אחי אמו של רבי יוסף גרשון הורוביץ. ולד בוילנה לאביו אברהם, מו"צ בעירו, והתגלה כעילוי. למד בישיבות רבות בוילנא, ואף שמע שיעורים מרבי ישראל מסלנט. אחר נישואיו עם ביתו של הרב דוד טבלי ממינסק, התמנה בשנת תרכ"ה בדוברובנה. באלול תרמ"ג עלה לארץ ובתרמ"ה הקים יחד עם הרב זרח ראובן ברוורמן את ישיבת מאה שערים והעניק לה את השם "פרי עץ חיים" כששמה המלא היה "הישיבה הגדולה והתלמוד תורה ובית תבשיל מאה שערים פרי עץ חיים". כן נבחר גם לרבה של השכונה. במלחמת העולם הראשונה הפיץ שטר הגרלה על חלקת אדמה בחדרה כדי לממן את הישיבה שהקים. הטורקים שגילו את השטרות דנו אותו למאסר. הדבר ערער את בריאותו והוא נפטר כעבור כשלושה חודשים ונקבר בבית הקברות בהר הזיתים. עקב זקנתו, בן אחותו, הרב יוסף גרשון הורוביץ שעלה עימו לארץ, החליפו בתרס"ה כראש ישיבה ורב השכונה.

ר' אריה ליב בהרא"ד [ר' אלימלך דוב פריימאן]- דיין.

R. JOEL MOSES SALOMON (1838–1912), Ereẓ Israel pioneer and founder of Petah Tikvah. Born in Jerusalem, R. Salomon was a descendant of a pupil of the Vilna Gaon and settled in Ereẓ Israel in 1808. His grandfather, R. Solomon Zalman Ẓoref, and his father, R. Mordecai Salomon, were leaders of the early Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem. He was educated at yeshivot in Jerusalem and Lithuania. He studied printing at Koenigsberg, East Prussia, and, on his return to Jerusalem, he and several partners established a printing press.

R. Salomon was active in the Ashkenazi community and strove to obtain for it a status equal to that of the Sephardi community and to make peace between its factions. He joined a group of young community leaders who wished to extend the scope of Jewish settlement in Jerusalem and even engage in agricultural work. R. Salomon was one of the founders of Jerusalem's Naḥalat Shivah quarter (1869), one of the first to be built outside the walls of the Old City, and participated in the establishment of Me'ah She'arim and other quarters. He took active part in the Yishuv Ereẓ Israel Association, which endeavored to purchase agricultural land for settlement. In 1877–78 he published the paper Yehudah vi-Yrushalayim ("Judea and Jerusalem"), in which he advocated plans for agricultural settlement and called for "action and deed." In the autumn of 1878 he was among the founders of Petaḥ Tikvah; after the first settlers were severely affected by malaria, he helped establish the nearby settlement of Yahud and to attract to it scholars, in order to establish a yeshivah there. After living there for seven years, he returned to Jerusalem and took up his public work for the institutions of the old yishuv.

ר' יוסף סאלאמאן עפשטיין, שד"ר.

רבי משה נבון.

Hebrew Description  

ה"ר שמואל סלאנט

ה"ר יעקב שאול אלישר

ה"ר אריה ליב בהרא"ד [ר' אלימלך דוב פריימאן]

ה"ר יואל משה סאלאמון

ה"ר יוסף סאלאמאן עפשטיין, שד"ר

ה"ר ? משה נבון

Reference

EJ