Rabbi Joseph Susmanovitch has been elected to the Rabbinate of Slobodka, which carries with it the position of Principal of the world famous Slobodka Yeshiba. Feeling ran very high in the elections and strong police guards were posted at the polling stations to prevent fighting between the partisans. Every effort was made to get as many people to record their votes as possible, and the infirm and the aged were brought to the polling stations in sledges.
The position has been vacant for several years, since Rabbi Moses Mordecai Epstein, the head of the Slobodka Yeshiba west to Palestine at the end of 1927, establishing a new Slobodka Yeshiba in Hebron, many of its students being killed there by Arabs in the outbreak of August 1929.
Rabbi Epstein, when he went to Palestine, appointed Rabbi Susmanovitch, who is his son-in-law to be his successor, but an opposition movement was organised, and Rabbi Joseph Baksht was put up as a counter-candidate. Wrangling between the two parties has continued ever since, and feeling still runs very high.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
