A collection of letters, concerning the polemic surrounding the marriage of Rabbi Amram Blau with the proselyte Ruth Ben-David – the responsum of Rabbi Amram Blau to the Badatz Eda HaCharedit in Jerusalem about their opposition to his marriage and agitated letters from her to the Ra'avad Rabbi David Jungreis. [Jerusalem, 1965].
• Four large pages of a responsum in the handwriting of Rabbi Amram Blau in which Rabbi Amram explains that no halachic problem exists in his marrying a young woman and he protests the claim that this step diminishes his honor and is a desecration of G-d's name. On the contrary, it is a great mitzvah to draw a proselyte near.
• Letter (in Yiddish) handwritten and signed by Ruth Ben-David to the Ra'avad Rabbi David Jungreis in which she writes about the events and expresses her pain on what is being done to her.
• Another letter (in Yiddish) handwritten and signed by Ruth Ben-David to Rabbi David Jungreis, in which she agitatedly complains that her "blood is being spilled" and she asks if it is permissible to cause such pain to a proselyte!
• Open letter against the pursuit of Rabbi Amram Blau – proclamation (stencil printing), by Rabbi Eliyahu Weinstein.
One of the events that stirred the emotions of the Charedi public in Jerusalem was the polemic surrounding the marriage of Rabbi Amram Blau to the proselyte Ruth Ben-David. Rabbi Amram, who at the time was a widower close to 70 years old was about to marry Ruth Ben-David, a French proselyte who was more than 20 years younger than him. Ben-David was involved in the concealment of the boy Yosse'le Shuchmacher and in smuggling him out of the country. During that time, she became acquainted with the population of the Yishuv HaYashan and she wished to join this closed community, but this led to sharp opposition from the people affiliated with the Niturei Karta and the Eda HaCharedit. The disciples and sons of Rabbi Amram considered his marriage to Ruth Ben-David to be a diminishment of his status. The rabbis of the Eda HaCharedit also opposed his marriage on halachic grounds of the marriage of a young woman to an old man and also fearing that this step would be a desecration of G-d’s name. The Charedi street seethed, notices and proclamations were publicized in the streets of Jerusalem, and the city raged. At the end, after more than half a year of stormy polemic, the two married in Elul 1965. Rabbi Amram was forced to leave his native city of Jerusalem and moved for a while to Bnei Brak. After many years, Ruth Ben-David Blau published her best-seller Shomrei Ha’Ir (Jerusalem 1979) in which she relates this painful episode of her life.
4 handwritten leaves 32 cm + two letters (one is written on two pages), and a proclamation 27-28 cm. Good to good-fair condition.