Rabbi Samuel Mohilever, compiled by M. Ben-Zvi, London, 1945 – Ruth Lehmann’s copy.

This book was published by the “Bachad Fellowship” in England.  Bachad, which are the initial letters of Brit Chalutziim Datiim, the orthodox Jewish pioneering movement, was started in Germany in 1928. It’s purpose was to equip young orthodox religious Jews with agricultural or other skills which they could use, eventually to settle in British mandated Palestine. This was to be done without any compromise on their religious beliefs and practices.

Following the violent pogroms of Kristallnacht (9-10 November, 1938), all but two of Bachad’s training farms in Germany were closed. Jews were trying to urgently flee Germany. Bachad moved to London.

Bachad leader in Germany, Arieh Handler, was to be out of the country when Kristallnacht took place. He received a telegram informing him of the violence and arrests that had taken place and was told not to come back under any circumstances! At the suggestion of Henrietta Szold, he travelled to London with letters of introduction to key figures in the Jewish community. There, from an office in Woburn House, close to the hub of the Refugee Movement in London, he set about networking and organising.

in September 1944, Bachad’s leaders purchased a run-down farm at Thaxted, Essex, which soon became Bachad’s ‘flagship’ hachsharah (training farm). By 1945 Bachad was producing educational materials in England, of which this was the first in its ‘Torah Va’Avodah Library’.

The book includes a biography of and some writings of Rabbi Samuel Mohilever, the prominent rabbinical leader and Zionist.

My copy was owned by Ruth Lehmann. She was born in Altona, hear Hamburg, in 1930, and came to London in 1939.  In 1948, as a student of librarianship, she was employed by Jews College, London, as Assistant Librarian, and was appointed Acting Librarian in 1954, and Chief Librarian in 1955.  In 1973, on her marriage to Josef Goldschmidt, a Member of the Knesset, she moved to Jerusalem.