Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld

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Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld (1849 - 1932) was the Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazi Haredi Jewish community of Jerusalem during the years of the British Mandate of Palestine and co-founder of the Edah HaChareidis. He was originally given the name "Chaim", however, the name "Yosef" was added to him while he experienced an illness.

Rabbi Sonnenfeld was born in Vrbové, Slovakia. His father, Avraham Shlomo Sonnenfeld, died when he was four years old.

Rabbi Sonnenfeld was a student of Rabbi Samuel Benjamin Sofer, the Ksav Sofer (the son of the Chasam Sofer) in Pressburg, and also of Rabbi Avraham Schag in Kobersdorf (who was himself a disciple of the Chasam Sofer); Rabbi Sonnenfeld moved from the latter city to Jerusalem in 1873.

He became an important figure in Jerusalem's Old City, serving as the right-hand man of Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin and assisting the latter in communal activities, such as the founding of schools and the Diskin Orphanage, and the fight against secularism. He refused to meet with Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany who visited the Old City because he believed that the Emperor was a descendant of the nation of Amalek. It is related that when the Emperor tried to enter the city gates on his horse in full army uniform, he was too tall to enter and instead of removing his helmet, he ordered the city gate's to be heightened.

Rabbi Sonnenfeld was strongly non-Zionist and sent a delegate, a former Dutch diplomate and writer who had become a baal teshuva Dr. Jacob Israel de Haan, to Jordan with a peace proposal for King Abdullah.

Contrary to a number of distorted accounts, Rabbi Sonnenfeld had a warm relationship with and mutual respect for Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, although the two were vigorous opponents in many areas. Indeed, in 1913 the two travelled together to Northern Israel to try to return lapsed Jews to Torah Judaism.

[edit] Works

Rabbi Sonnenfeld wrote scholarly commentaries on the Torah, Talmud, and Shulchan Aruch. His responsa are collected in the work Salmas Chaim.

[edit] External links

• "Guardian of Jerusalem" (Excerpt from Artscroll biography of Rabbi Sonnenfeld)
• Jewish Virtual Library Biography of Rabbi Sonnenfeld
• Rav Avraham Shaag ZT"L - A Lion Roars (Mentor of Rabbi Sonnenfeld)

[edit] References

• Hillel Danziger and Shlomo Z. Sonnenfeld. Guardian of Jerusalem: Ha-Ish Al Ha-Homah : The Life and Times of Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld (Artscroll History Series). Mesorah Publications, 1986. ISBN 0-89906-458-2
• Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld on the Parashah, edited by Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Sonnenfeld. Mesorah Publications, 2002. ISBN 1-57819-723-6