Journey To London: Brady Street Cemetery - The Kever of Chief Rabbi Solomon Hirschell

this torah class is brought to you by torahanytime.com it is great privilege to be here in the brady street cemetery in uh eastern london at the cover of one of the historic personalities of uh english history jewish english history rabbi solomon herschel rabbi solomon herschel from 1762 to 1842 he was the chief rabbi of great britain from 1802 to 1842 he was a descendant of maram padua and a great grandson of the he's also the brother of saul berlin controversial author of the situation with some emirates now if salman hershel was best known for his very antagonistic approach and stance against reformed judaism where he actually put its leaders into kheram he passed away on the 27th day of jejun in 1842 and it's interesting i have here a and from the safe room the record of the hesped given to him of london then of showing hershel ben ravish he was buried on a wednesday era of rosh kislav tough gimmel um so we have a record of his hespid now he left over a very excellent library that's now in the possession of the london bazdin something that's particularly interesting to me that's quoted in the safer gina's viradim which is a koivets of from tamida satmar it's also brought in a cipher called yalcott hishbati ashram about an amazing historical episode that occurred in 1825 and the way these forum bring down the story and then i'll tell you historically who this individual is they say there was somebody a jew in america named martikai emmanuel noah and i'll tell you who that was in a moment he had a revolutionary idea to solve the uh challenge of the jew in the exile well he's going to buy a plot of land where the jews would be able to exercise autonomy with the permission of the government of america and in fact he gathered money and he bought karka on a big island in middle of a river you we're near the city of buffalo i'll tell you where exactly this is and he wrote letters to well-known rabbanim to ask them that they should come and serve as chief rabbis and oversee religious rituals and religious affairs and this idea of emanuel noah received the letter the joint letter of avraham d colonia abraham of cologne and robert fellmeldoula who's the author by the way of hassan we were at his cover he's buried right next to rav david nieto and he also received the joint letter of herschel and the letter goes like this siri this is in journal d de latz of 1825. seriously speaking it is good to give to understand mr noah who proposed setting up a jewish colony in america that the honorable chief rabbi her shell of the london ashkenazi community and mildola of the london safari community author of hassanim and i the writer that's our cologne we thank him in refusing categorically the appointment of chief rabbis of the proposed colony which he wanted to give us we declare now this is amazing and you'll understand why this has brought in this farm of satmar because this was like the forerunner of anti-zionistic activity we declare that according to our principles god alone knows the timing of the restoration of the israelite nation and that he alone will make known to the entire world by incontrovertible signs and that any attempt to initiate through a political national goal is forbidden as a crime against divine authority as the gemara tells us in page 111 signed chief rabbi of cologne together with rabbi hershel berliner and rafal muldullah now who is this rav mordechai emmanuel noah mordecai manuel noah born in 1785 philadelphia he was an american sheriff playwright diplomat journalist and utopian he was a of spanish portuguese ancestry the most important jewish lay leader in new york in the 19th century and the first jew born in the us to reach national prominence he had many politically motivated reviews blasting certain plays um and later on in his career he moved to new york where he founded founded and edited a paper called the national advocate the new york inquirer the evening star the sunday times so he was a very prominent journalist and editor and in 1825 with virtually no support from anyone not even fellow jews and what many consider the precursor of modern zionism he tried to fight to found a jewish refugee at grand island in niagara river he called it ararat after mount ararat the biblical resting place of noah's ark he purchased land on this island for 4.38 cents per acre to build a refugee for a refuge for jews of all nations and he even had a cornerstone which read ararat a city of refuge for the jews founded by mordecai m noah the month of tishrei 1825 5586 in the 50th year of american independence he interestingly he had very revolutionary ideas he believed the native american indians were from the ancers he wrote even something called discourse on the evidences of the american indians being the descendants of the lost tribes of israel and he proclaimed in a work called discourse on the restoration of the jews that the jews would return and build their ancient homeland and he called on america to help them fulfill this destiny now september 2nd 1825 he set out to accomplish this test he arrived in buffalo from new york followed by very few jews but thousands of christians and he led a large procession headed mostly by masons and new york militia company and municipal leaders he went to um saint paul's uh church there was a brief ceremony there they sang psalms they laid a cornerstone and um they they established the refuge and a red proclamation um and this proclamation day ended with music and cannons and libations and it was basically an abysmal failure this was the beginning of the end of noah's venture he lost any desire to continue he rented he returned to new york two days later and he never even set foot on the island so this was the uh first earliest attempt of restoring jewish autonomy by the way the cornerstone was taking taken out of the church and it's now on permanent display in the buffalo historical society in buffalo new york then he further developed the idea that you should in fact return to palestine and he was sort of the first to be the forerunner of modern zionism so his idea was sent again to abram of cologne to herschel and her moldula and they basically advance the notion that any activity through man to try to expedite redemption is a violation of the talmud again this this is quoted in the sephirah hijabati islam and genasvaradim and interestingly this approach and the antagonistic approach against this view is uh still a controversy that brews until this very day but uh this is the location the side of the grave of solomon hershel you've just experienced another torah class brought to you by torahanytime.com