In honor of the anniversary of the Rebbe and Rebbetzin’s arrival in the United States 70 years ago today, we are pleased to present this document to the public for the first time.
Uncovered recently by the research team for the forthcoming book, The Rebbe’s Early Years, this application was filled out by the Rebbe in Marseilles, France, in April, 1941. The application and the subsequent visa were signed by the renowned Myles Standish who, through his position as Vice-Consul in Marseille, France, together with Vice-Consul Hiram (Harry) Bingham helped rescue thousands of Jews from the Nazis and their collaborators in France, by granting them United States visas.
The Rebbe’s Early Years, by Rabbis Boruch Oberlander and Elkanah Shmotkin, has been in the making for over ten years, and will present this document alongside 1,500 others — for the first time ever, telling the full story of the Rebbe’s life from birth until his arrival in the United States.
So interesting, and for once the comments here in COL are interesting and to the point too!
I was wondering mostly about the prison question…
7 – not correct. It was because the Rebbe had a false passport to keep him out of the Russian and later the Soviet army. Whatever documents you present are what the US uses – some of Anash have weird spellings of their names with J’s and W’s because that was what was on their passports from wherever – and some families have the wrong name because they used their false Polish passports from Mumme Sorah, Reb Mendel etc to apply for US citizenship.
The date was taken from the documents that the Rebbe presented to the embassy. At that time the Rebbe didn’t apply to the navy yard for a position.
This document was made around the time of the Rebbe’s arrival, long before the Rebbe had to apply for a job at the Navy Yard.
here it is first hand testimony – 4:00 minutes in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_GhZRbQKKo&feature=channel_video_title
#6 that letter in igros kodesh doesn’t say anything about why the dates were changed, it just mentions that they were.
no words, thank you!!!
Also 11 nissan can’t be on march 1st.
This was the rebbe’s DOB on documents
old question – The Rebbe needed to present himself as older to get the position at the naval yards
This was because of the army in Russia. See Igros Kodesh Vol 1 page 30
Believe it or not in one of the Living Torah videos (I think a Chanuka one) there’s is a close-up of a document and it says the same year, 1895. I asked someone about it but they weren’t sure about the year…..
anyone else also heard that the rebbe was held in jail in france for organizing a protest?? According to this paper this would seem false.
very neat to see this thanks for posting
in the old days, the documents were not accurate for many reasons – this might be one of the cases.
I thought the Rebbe was born in 1902, this document lists the Rebbe’s DOB as 1895?