A beautiful letter I recently sold sheds light on the extensive shadar (emissary) network that supported the institutions in the holy land in the Ottoman Era. Written in 1895 by the Chief Rabbi of Moscow at that time, Rabbi Chaim Berlin (1832-1912), the letter was addressed to Rabbi Shmuel Salant (1816-1909), who served as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem for almost 70 years. The various institutions in Jerusalem, particularly the older, more established ones, had a vast network of employed emissaries, each tasked with specific regions in the diaspora. The emissary would travel from town to town, encouraging contributions, collecting pledges and directing the funds to their intended recipient.
In this letter, R. Berlin, a close friend of R. Salant’s, writes to update him of a change in the situation of the emissary in his region: how the emissary retired due to old age but not before he found a suitable replacement to fulfill his duties. R. Berlin writes how he knows the replacement personally and is a familial relation, and someone he can vouch for.
It is interesting to see how the network developed a life of its own and perhaps due to the distance and slow communications, decisions and the hiring of new emissaries was done without the knowledge of the organization’s heads back in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Chaim Berlin and Rabbi Shmuel Salant were life-long friends and wrote to each other very frequently. After the death of Rabbi Elijah David Rabinowitz Teomim (who was also Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem) in 1905, Rabbi Chaim Berlin was appointed his successor – due to the efforts of Rabbi Shmuel Salant – and served as the co-chief rabbi, alongside R. Salant.
On 12 Shevat 5669, on the ninety-third birthday of Rabbi Shmuel Salant, Hahavetzelet, a Hebrew newspaper in Jerusalem, wrote that there was a party in the birthday’s honor and that Rabbi Chaim Berlin brought a cake to Rabbi Salant with a blessing in Hebrew whose numerical value was equivalent to that year 5669 (1909), a custom Rabbi Berlin had begun upon his arrival to Jerusalem.
Rabbi Salant passed away at the end of 1909 and Rabbi Chaim Berlin continued to stand at the helm of the Jerusalem Rabbinate and the Rabbi Meir Baal Hanes Salant charity until his passing in 1913. Rabbi Chaim Berlin was buried on the Mount of Olives near R. Shmuel Salant.
