Akiva Eger

Who was Akiva Eger?

Rabbi Akiva Eger, or Akiva Güns, Yiddish: עקיבא אייגער, was an outstanding Talmudic scholar, influential halakhic decisor and foremost leader of European Jewry during the early 19th century. He was also a mohel.

Eger was born in Eisenstadt - the most important town of the Seven Jewish Communities of Burgenland, Hungary,. He was a child prodigy and was educated first at the Mattersdorf yeshiva and later by his uncle, Rabbi Wolf Eger, at the Breslau yeshiva, who later became rabbi of Tziltz and Leipnik. Out of respect for his uncle he changed his surname to Eger. He therefore shared the full name Akiva Eger with his maternal grandfather, the first Rabbi Akiva Eger, the author of Mishnas De'Rebbi Akiva who was rabbi of Zülz, Silesia from 1749 and Pressburg from 1756.

He was the rabbi of Märkisch Friedland, West Prussia, from 1791 until 1815; then for the last twenty two years of his life, he was the rabbi of the city of Posen. He was a rigorous casuist of the old school, and his chief works were legal notes and responsa on the Talmud and the Shulkhan Arukh. He believed that religious education was enough, and thus opposed the party which favored secular schools. He was a determined foe of the Reform movement, which began to make itself felt in his time.