Rebbe’s Only Request From Donor

By COLlive reporter

Philanthropist Benjamin Glazer, the president of Advertising Arts Corporation, has donated the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars to support Chabad activities and publishing over the years.

Over two decades, Glazer received some 60 letters from the Rebbe Rayatz and the Rebbe. Many are currently on auction at the Kestenbaum & Company auction house in Manhattan, New York.

First meeting the Rebbe Rayatz during the 1929-1930 visit to the United States, the extent of Glazer’s relationship with the Rebbe is relatively unknown, with this new collection shedding light on the history of Chabad in the United States in the 1940’s.

“In your writing, my dear friend,” the Rebbe Rayatz writes him, “I feel your great spiritual pleasure and your strong will to help me in my soul-mission work. This give me the greatest pleasure and makes it easier for me to continue my difficult burden…”

Donating over the years to many Chabad Torah volumes, Glazer crossed the path of the Rebbe, then the Ramash, who headed the Kehot Publications Society.

Glazer also had a budding relationship with Rabbi Shmaryahu Gurary, known as the Rashag, who headed the network of the United Lubavitcher Yeshivas.

A year after the passing of the Rebbe Rayatz in 1950, the Rebbe finally did accept the leadership of the Chabad movement in 1951 and Glazer was there to congratulate the Rebbe.

“It was a great deal of joy that I received the official memorandum,” he wrote to the Rebbe, “of your elevation succeeding your beloved father-in-law, Rabbi Joseph I. Schneersohn, of saintly memory. I feel very inadequate in trying to put into words what is in my heart.

“However, having the privilege of knowing you for a number of years, I know that Jewry will be beneficiary of your great wisdom, piety, sincerity and deep compassion for all our fellow Jews.”

Despite these kind words, it seems like Glazer did not continue his financial support to Chabad institutions under the leadership of the Rebbe. The Rebbe did send Glazer blessings for holidays and other occasions, yet no request for support was known to be made.

However, when it came to assisting another Jew with their livelihood, the Rebbe saw it as his obligation and sent a request to Glazer on behalf of Mr. J. Gross, “a cartoonist and has some patent to his credit.”

As the president of an advertising agency, the Rebbe wrote, “I would appreciate it if you would be good enough to invite Mr. Gross to see you at your convenience with a view to helping him obtain suitable employment.”

The opening bid on the correspondence, being sold by the family, will be 25,000. The auction will take place on Thursday, March 16th. For more info, visit kestenbaum.net.