AZR's personal archive is held at the Genazim Institute (of the Hebrew Writers Association), and has been digitized in partnership with the National Library of Israel, the Judaica Division of the Harvard Library, and the Ministry of Heritage. It includes a manuscripts section and a letters section. NLI ARCHIVE / Genazim
Ten letters in his own hand — seven postcards and more — to the scholar and writer Avraham Kahana (in Zhitomir and Kyiv), written in the window on either side of his aliyah: from Poltava and from Jaffa. They deal with literature, the sale and distribution of books, authors' fees, Bible commentary, and personal matters and the events of the time.
Of his plan to immigrate, AZR writes that he intends to go up to the Land "and to occupy myself there only with the work of literature." And in a postcard sent after the Zhitomir pogrom (in the wake of the 1905 revolution; see "Revolution and Pogroms"), a piercing line:
"I heard of the slaughter that took place where you dwell… Of your welfare I do not ask, for I know that there is no peace for us anywhere in this land steeped in blood." AZR to Avraham Kahana, ca. 1905, Kedem catalogue, Auction 80 (June 29, 2021), lot 217 (provenance: the Ben-Zion Kahana collection).
And in a long letter from late 1906, after his aliyah, a radiant personal testimony to the joy of immigration:
"I, my friend, am truly happy that I have merited to settle in the land of our fathers. Here I feel no moral servitude whatsoever. I am a Jew and I dwell among my people… My small children are being educated in a Hebrew environment, speaking Hebrew… Thank God, I and all my household are sated — and rich I was not in Russia either." Ibid.
And from here he calls on Kahana to immigrate as well, with a distinctly practical-Zionist argument:
"And if you are a wise man who heeds counsel, come here too. For a wise man like you it is surely good to sit at the very navel of Jewry… The Land of Israel is in great need of wise men. 'Maskilim' we have more than enough, but wise specialists — 'Fachleute' — their number is very limited." Ibid. (Compare "The Halutz and Aliyah" and "Torah and Craft.")
A later letter, from 5678, addressed to Nahum Etrog, discussing authors' fees, with a blessing characteristic of AZR:
"Your letter… I received, and I bless him with all my heart that he may be able to devote his time only to Torah and labor, in tranquility and bodily health." AZR to Nahum Etrog, 5678/1918, signed "A. Z. Rabinovitz," Kedem catalogue, Auction 9 (March 17, 2010), lot 472.
The letters confirm, in his own handwriting, what AZR preached in print: the joy of aliyah ("I feel no moral servitude whatsoever"), Hebrew education for the children, contentment with little ("sated — and rich I was not"), and the urging of aliyah — above all the need for "wise specialists," not merely "maskilim." And his constant blessing: "Torah and labor."