VaYoel Moshe – Brooklyn, 1960 – First Edition of Rebbe Yoel of Satmar’s Polemical Work Against Zionism

VaYoel Moshe – Brooklyn, 1960 – First Edition of Rebbe Yoel of Satmar’s Polemical Work Against Zionism

VaYoel Moshe, “explaining the laws of the three oaths stated prophetically regarding the final salvation, and explaining the laws of settling the holy land and everything deriving from these matters for halachah and for practice… Yoel Teitelbaum”. Brooklyn, New York: Sender Deutsch, 1959. Two title pages (the first abbreviated).

First edition of Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum’s famous polemical work against Zionism. In the first edition, only the Maamar Shalosh Shevuot is printed, containing 185 paragraphs in which the author lays out his fundamental opposition to the Zionist state, and discusses and clarifies the halachic prohibition to found an independent Jewish government in Eretz Israel before the Messiah comes. At the beginning of the book is a long introduction by the author.

Two sections were added to the next edition of the book (1961) – Maamar Yishuv Eretz Yisrael, on the commandment to settle Eretz Israel at the present time; and Maamar Leshon Hakodesh, against the use of the Modern Hebrew language.

[5], 6-271 pages. 23 cm. Good condition. Original binding.

Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar (1887-1979) was the youngest son of Rebbe Chananya Yom Tov Lipa, the Kedushat Yom Tov (1836-1904), and grandson of Rebbe Yekutiel Yehuda, the Yitav Lev (1808-1883), who both served as rabbis of Sighet (Sighetu Marmației) and were leaders of Chassidic Jewry in the Maramureș region. He was renowned from his youth as a leading Torah scholar of his generation, for his perspicacity and intellectual capacities, as well as for his holiness and outstanding purity. At a young age, he was appointed rabbi of Irshava. In 1925, he was appointed rabbi of Karoly (Carei; in place of R. Shaul Brach who went to serve as rabbi of Kashoi), and in 1934, of Satmar (Satu Mare). In all the places he served as rabbi, he also maintained a large yeshiva and Chassidic court. He stood at the helm of the faithful, uncompromising Orthodox Jewry in the Maramureș region. He was one of the founding pillars of the Torah world in the generation following the Holocaust. After surviving the Holocaust, he emigrated to the United States, where he established the Satmar Chassidic community. He served as president of the Eda HaCharedit in Jerusalem, and as leader of Orthodox Jewry in the United States and throughout the world. His writings were published in dozens of books: VaYoel Moshe, Responsa Divrei Yoel, Divrei Yoel on the Torah and more.