Creator Bio
Akiva Eger
1761–1837
Born in Eisenstadt (in Burgenland) and educated in Mattersdorf and Breslau, Akiva Eger was a prominent rabbinic and halakhic leader. After living in Lissa, Prussia, he served as rabbi in Märkisch Friedland (1791–1815) and Posen (1815–1837). While a bitter opponent of Reform Judaism, Eger was more accommodating to modernity than was Moses Sofer, his son-in-law. He wrote numerous works on the Talmud and Shulḥan ‘arukh that have become mainstays of rabbinical literature.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
Primary Source
Statement of Mourning
Do you deem me to be hard and evil-hearted in that I should hasten to do a match during my period of mourning? Am I to forget the love of the wife of my youth, my pure dove, whom God graciously gave…
Primary Source
Letter of Rabbinic Appointment to the City of Posen
When the leaders of the people were assembled, all the tribes of Israel together, on the evening of the twenty-first day of Adar 5572, to oversee the affairs of the general community and the needs of…
Related Guide
Life Writing: Biography, Autobiography, and Ego Documents, 1750–1880
The famous and the obscure, women and men, in epitaphs and private letters, ethical wills, cookbooks, and religious reflections, all reflect aspects of Jewish life in a period of great transition.