Akiva Sofer

Akiva Sofer was born in 1878

Akiva Sofer was born in 1878 to Rabbi Simcha Bunim Sofer, the rabbi of Pressburg and author of Shevet Sofer. He was the great-grandson of the Chatam Sofer. He married his relative Hinda Sprintza, daughter of Rabbi Yitzchak Leib Sofer.

In 1907 he succeeded his father as chief rabbi of Pressburg, then in the Kingdom of Hungary, and also headed the Pressburg Yeshiva. He was elected president of the council of Orthodox rabbis in Hungary, and after World War I he led the council of Haredi rabbis in Czechoslovakia. He also served as president of Kollel Shomrei HaChomos and Batei Ungarin in Jerusalem.

In 1939, after the First Slovak Republic was established, the yeshiva was forced to operate partly underground. Sofer fled to Switzerland and from there immigrated to the Land of Israel. His son Avraham Shmuel Binyamin Sofer took his place in Bratislava.

After the Holocaust he rebuilt the Pressburg Yeshiva in Jerusalem, teaching local students and Holocaust survivors in a small room in Mea Shearim. As a member of the Council of Torah Sages he stayed active in public matters. He died in Jerusalem on December 3, 1959, and was buried on Har HaMenuchot.