דוד אופנהיים

Rabbi David Oppenheim (5424/1664, Wormaisa – 7 Tishrei 5497/1736, Prague) was a posek and mara d’atra of the communities of Nikolsburg and Prague. He was born in Wormaisa to Rabbi Avraham Oppenheim and learned under Rabbi Gershon Ashkenazi in Metz and under Rabbi Yitzchak Binyamin Wolf of Landsberg, and afterwards under Rabbi Yaakov Zak Ashkenazi, father of Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Ashkenazi, and under Rabbi Binyamin Wolf Epstein in Friedberg. In his youth he formed a friendship with Rabbi Yair Chaim Bacharach and corresponded with him.

At about twenty he received semichah to rule, and at twenty-five he was appointed rav of Nikolsburg. After twenty years there he became rav of Prague. He married Genendel, daughter of the court Jew Lipman Katz of Hanover. His well-known son-in-law was Rabbi Chaim Yonah Teomim, author of the Kuntres Rabbi Chaim Yonah. His standing was unusual among the rabbanim of his day because of his connections with the rulers of the empire, and he was wealthy, having inherited from his uncle Rabbi Shmuel Oppenheimer.

He was known above all as a lover of sefarim. After the great Turkish war the head of the Austrian war council, Prince Eugene of Savoy, brought his uncle a quantity of Hebrew manuscripts from Turkey, and Rabbi David would travel far to acquire a sefer or a manuscript. His library became famous, holding thousands of printed sefarim and hundreds of manuscripts, and after various turns it passed to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Many of the printed items in it that are the only surviving copies of their kind are thought to have survived because he would supply the great printing houses of Europe with finer paper than was then usual, so that they would print special copies for him.

He wrote close to twenty works in halachah and aggadah, of which he printed in his lifetime the teshuvot Nish’al David; the rest remained in manuscript and some have been published only recently, among them Moed David and Sukkat David. He supported talmidei chachamim from his wealth and kept them in his house, among them the mekubal Rabbi Moshe of Prague, author of Vayakhel Moshe. His only son, Rabbi Yosef, av beit din of Hollesov, was the son-in-law of Rabbi Shimshon Wertheimer. He was buried in the old Jewish cemetery of Prague, and his grave was restored in 1978.