Akiba Israel Wertheimer


Akiba Israel Wertheimer was the first Chief Rabbi of Altona and Schleswig-Holstein.

Life

Akiba Wertheimer was born in Wrocław, Prussia in about 1778. His father was Torah scholar Avigdor Wertheimer. Akiba went to the Talmudic academy of Akiba Eger in Mirosławiec, which was one of the most important in the region.
He came with his parents to Altona, now a suburb of Hamburg but which was then an independent city under the administration of the Danish monarchy, where in 1805 he was a Melamed. In 1806 he was appointed Rabbi in :de:Lübeck-Moisling|Moisling and Lübeck. Due to the expulsion of the Jews in Lübeck and poverty in the Moisling Jewish community, in 1816 he moved to Altona where he remained until his death.
In 1819 he opposed the Hamburg-based reformers of Judaism and banned the use of the Jewish prayer book in the German language.
In 1823 he was appointed the first Chief Rabbi of Altona and Schleswig-Holstein. For the Altona rabbinate, he was successor to Rabbi Mendel Hirsch Frankfurter, the grandfather of Samson Raphael Hirsch.
Akiba Wertheimer died in Altona in 1835, and was succeeded as Chief Rabbi by Jacob Ettlinger.

Family

Wertheimer had four daughters and four sons: