Letters from Mir - From a world of Torah erased by the Holocaust, Biblieurope editions

Today, sixty years after the Holocaust, the public shows a particular interest in its victims but also in its survivors. The correspondence contained in this book is, in a way, also a survivor: it survived the war and the persecution of the Jews.

Biblieurope Editions

Today, sixty years after the Holocaust, the public shows a particular interest in its victims but also in its survivors. The correspondence contained in this book is, in a way, also a survivor: it survived the war and the persecution of the Jews. Dating from 1938, it reflects life in a Polish shtetl and, more specifically, within the largest European yeshiva of the time, with the more or less direct repercussions of the evils of Nazism and Polish antisemitism. What could be more natural for Ernest Gugenheim, a young Alsatian Jew from a long line of rabbis, than to pursue his degree in Paris, at the French Rabbinical Seminary, then headed by Chief Rabbi Maurice Liber! But what is extraordinary is his decision to deepen his Talmudic studies in a yeshiva in Central Europe. In a time when travel was limited, and when Jewish studies worthy of the name were reserved for a select few, few young people in France shared this experience, and most adults were unaware of what a true yeshiva was. This is what Ernest Gugenheim revealed to his correspondents between January and September 1938, discovering with admiration these hundreds of students who had come from various countries to devote themselves entirely to the discovery and study of the Talmud. While maintaining a critical perspective on the basic living conditions and certain aspects of the prevailing mentality in Mir, he was captivated to the point of wanting to stay for a second year. However, lacking the necessary funds, he abandoned this plan and compensated for his disappointment with a tourist trip during his summer vacation, exploring the country and its "Rabbis," of whom he provided his family with an objective description—a historical account of a Judaism and its "monuments" that have now entirely disappeared. Recalled prematurely to France because of the crisis that preceded the Munich Agreement, Ernest Gugenheim remained in uniform for seven years, then joined the Jewish Seminary of France to teach the Talmud and rabbinic law, striving to transmit to his disciples (among them his children) the passion for Study that he drew from the Source!

Biblieurope Editions