Telegram - an encrypted telegram sent from Mizrahi on the name of ORGANIZACION SIONISTA ARGENTINA to Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevich in Shanghai, January 15, 1943.
The telegram, which is all written in hints of words, deals with the health of 'SImiri Trialof' and the Kletzky family to whom 'blessings' were transferred 'just as Yitzhak asked Yaakov', it says that we must stop answering about everyone's health, and that everyone will receive the same thing from 'Epstein'.
In the winter of 1941, the yeshivot refugees and their rabbis from Lithuania arrived to Shanghai, which was then under Japanese control. The emissaries of the "Rescue Committee", headed by Rabbi Eliezer Silver and Rabbi Avraham Kalmanovich, were in contact with the exile Yeshiva and regularly provided economic assistance, and necessary information to Japan. But with the United States joining the war, in Kislev 1942, the ties between the United States and Japan were completely cut off, and apparently the Rescue Committee had no way of continuing to assist the remaining refugees. Their situation worsened and they reached the brink of starvation, when on both sides of the barricade - - Rabbi Shmuelevich, who took on the great responsibility and concern for the disciples, and the great rabbis of United States - trying to find a solution to the impossible situation. In those days, the heads of the "Rescue Committee" and Rabbi Shmuelevich (who was in Japan) took the risk and transferred all the money and information through Uruguay, which was still a neutral country, and then through Argentina. This dangerous mission was supervised by Rabbi Aharon Milevsky (Rabbi Aharon Milevsky, a disciple of the "grandfather" from Salvodka, emigrated to Uruguay before the war by order of the Kovna Rabbi, in order to serve as rabbi of the Jewish community in Montevideo).
All the documents and telegrams sent to Rabbi Milevsky - from Shanghai and the United States - were written in code, so as not to arouse the suspicion of the American censor. Rabbi Milevsky served as an emissary and decoder of the ciphers, and followed the instructions of Gdoley Yisrael in the encrypted telegrams that reached him. Some of the telegrams sent were signed by 'Shmuelevich' [Maran Hagara"ch Shmuelevich], and by 'Wolba' [The Gra"sh Wolba, who was in Sweden and Switzerland during the war] and more. In fact, the rabbis had no early way of explaining the ciphers and coordinating the 'codes' they used, and they had no choice but to rely on Rebbe Milevsky's wisdom and ability to decipher them.
The Rabbis used every encrypted form imaginable to convey the message: Talmudic concepts, Yiddish-English, English-language phrases, as well as word combinations, foreign letters, Lithuanian pronunciation, and the use of family names intended for people directed to actions. The telegrams began to pass very frequently between the address in Shanghai, Montevideo and New York, well encrypted, some looking innocent, and some seeming really strange, and in retrospect it turned out that these telegrams played a central part in rescuing the exiled yeshiva students.
[1] Leaf. Very good condition.
