Menachem Mendel Monsohn

Monsohn’s intellectual prowess became apparent at an early age: at 16 he received rabbinical ordination (semikhah) from Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Ashkenazic chief rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine;[9] diverging from his usual practice, Rabbi Kook gave Monsohn an approbation to be published in his Mi-Peninei Ha-Rambam.[10] To earn a living, for a while Monsohn worked at the lithographic press established in Jerusalem by his father and uncle. But he objected to the press's printing of a calendar for one of the Jerusalem churches and he quit the press.[11] After establishing himself as a rabbi in Brooklyn, New York, Monsohn brought his wife, Zipporah Yehudit (Chipe, née Silberman, a descendant of Yitschak Shatz/Schwartz and Baruch-Mordechai Schwartz,[12] who immigrated to Jerusalem from Nesvizh in the early 19th century)[13] and their Jerusalem-born children, Eshke (Esther Schwartz, wife of Max Schwartz), Shmuel (Samuel Stanford Manson), Shimon (Simon Manson), and Chaya Masha Gitl (Marsha Bunis, wife of Jacob Bunis) to Brooklyn; their daughter Raytse (Rose Aronson, wife of Matthew Aronson) was born there. In Brooklyn, Monsohn eked out a living, devoting most of his time to work on his Mi-Penine Ha-Rambam, which he printed himself, using the skills acquired at his father’s press. In all editions of his book Monsohn noted that he was born in Jerusalem.[14]