Inserted in to a book with ownership markings of Rabbi Dov Yehuda Daina, I found a postcard addressed to him sent in 1943.
The postcard reads:
Dear Rabbi Diner,
Since you are the Rabbi in charge of the four synagogues in Canarsie, and you heard that Adele Rosenblum has a husband and children in Europe. She is now married to another man on 81st st, his name is Dr. Foyer. In my name please do not permit it.
Yours truly,
Harry Rosenblum
Presumably, this Harry Rosenblum is a relative of her “first” husband.
Rabbi Daina was born in Slutsk, where his grandfather, Reb Zundel Salant, was Av Bet Din for the local Jewish community. R. Zundel Salant was a cousin of Reb Yosif Zundel Salant of Jerusalem, who was in turn the famed rebbe of R. Yisroel Salanter. When his grandfather passed away, Dov Yehuda Daina replaced him as judge and religious authority. He was raised in Slutsk during the first eleven years of his life and in fact began studying at the Slutsk yeshiva. In 1917, Rabbi Daina left for Harbin, Manchuria, where he remained until 1925.
From his arrival in America until his death in 1945 he lived in Canarsie, Brooklyn. Rabbi Daina also brought his young son Mordkhe to Harbin, where the latter learned the Russian language fluently at a local school. In 1925, he and his father came to America, where the son entered Yeshivat Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan (rabbinical seminary now part of Yeshiva University).
The young Rabbi Daina, upon ordination, became a rabbi in Syracuse, New York, later in Brooklyn, until becoming a military chaplain in 1944.
Due to his knowledge of the Russian language, he was sent to Shanghai (a city of refuge for escapees from the Nazi invasion of Russia and of Eastern Europe in general). There he was among the first American Jews to meet survivors from the European yeshivas.
