RABBI AMIEL

 Rabbi Moshe (Moses) Avigdor Amiel, one of the outstanding rabbis of our times, was born in 1883 in White Russia. At the age of 18 he was ordained as a rabbi by the leading Jewish sages, and at 22 was appointed rabbi of a community in Lithuania. In the year 1913 he moved to Grajewo, in Poland and in 1920, was appointed Rabbi of Antwerp, Belgium. In 1936 he was invited to take up the post of chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, which position he held up to his death in 1945.

Wherever he went, he labored to improve the religious and social position of the members of his community. He founded educational institutions and yeshivot (talmudic academies), of which the most famous is Yeshivat ha-Yishuv he-Hadash in Tel Aviv which is known today as the "Rabbi Amiel Yeshivah," after its distinguished founder.

Rabbi Amiel was a renowned philosopher and wrote many books including "The Ways of Moses," "Social Justice," and "Sermons for my People." His best-known work was "Understanding Jewish Law." There is scarcely a single aspect of Jewish Law upon which he did not touch in the course of his research.

Rabbi Amiel's Zionist activities go back almost to the very beginnings of the movement. He was one of the first rabbis to expound the ideals of the Mizrachi (the religious Zionist movement) and in the course of a membership drive in which he covered most of Poland, he made many converts to Zionism. He was a delegate to Zionist Congresses and became one of the pillars of religious Zionism. Rabbi Amiel laid stress on the fact that in addition to the special relationship "between Man and his Maker" and "between Man and his neighbor" there is "a special relationship between Israel and its people - between the individual Jew and his people." In his numerous newspaper articles he supported the idea of the commandments affecting the settlers of Eretz Israel which he considered as being of equal value to the biblical commandments. He put forward the view that in our time, Zionism is the only escape - a "cure for all ills" - and that "the Law of Israel is for the people of Israel in the Land of Israel".

Rabbi Amiel, chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, passed away in 1945 in the Jewish city of Tel Aviv where he was laid to rest.

The illustration on the First Day Cover shows a drawing of the Tel Aviv Great Synagogue as it looked when the late Rabbi Amiel was chief rabbi.

The special cancellation depicts the synagogue as it stands today.