עקיבא יוסף שלזינגר

Rav Akiva Yosef Schlesinger (5 Kislev 5598/1837–1 Iyar 5682/1922), known as the author of the Lev HaIvri, was a Hungarian rav who was oleh to Yerushalayim and became one of the first to work in practical ways for the purchase of land and the growth of agriculture in Eretz Yisrael. He was born in Pressburg (today Bratislava) to Rav Yechiel Schlesinger, a rosh yeshiva among the talmidim of the Chatam Sofer who also worked farmland. At his brit came news of the petirah of Rabbi Akiva Eiger, and the Chatam Sofer, present, directed that the infant be named for him. He learned in the yeshiva of Pressburg under the Ktav Sofer, son of the Chatam Sofer, and at nineteen also under the Maharam Schick and Rav Chaim Sofer. He married Liba, daughter of Rav Hillel Lichtenstein of Kolomyia, at whose table he was supported for some ten years.

In 5623/1863 he published his best-known work, the Lev HaIvri — its title an acronym of his name, Akiva Yosef Ben Rabbi Yechiel — a commentary on the tzava’ah, the last will, of the Chatam Sofer, in which he called on Jews to hold fast to their Jewish names, their language, and their dress, as Bnei Yisrael kept them in Mitzrayim. He became convinced that the future of the Jewish people lay in Eretz Yisrael, and began urging aliyah.

In Av 5630/1870, with his father-in-law’s help, he reached Eretz Yisrael and settled in Beit HaMaaravim in Yerushalayim, facing the makom haMikdash. In his Brit Olam he urged the Jews of the golah to sell their property, move to Eretz Yisrael, and set aside a tenth of their income to build the land with houses, fields, vineyards, and workshops. He pressed for labor and agriculture in place of reliance on chalukah funds, and with his talmidim, among them Yoel Moshe Salomon, founded the Chevrat Machzirei Atarah LeYoshnah. With David Gutman and Yoel Moshe Salomon he took part in purchasing the lands of Petach Tikva, divided into a hundred plots for Jews who wished to farm; he worked his own holding, and once brought up twenty camel-loads of maasrot to Yerushalayim, giving maaser rishon to kohanim and leviim and maaser ani to the poor. He also sought to renew techeilet, the sounding of the shofar in Yerushalayim when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, and the korban Pesach. Some of his positions, among them a ruling in his Beit Yosef Chadash, aroused sharp opposition in Yerushalayim, and for a time his writings were placed under a ban; at his petirah, Rav Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld eulogized him.

In his last years he founded Agudat Ramataim Tzofim to purchase land north of Nevi Samuel. He was niftar in Yerushalayim on 1 Iyar 5682 and buried on Motzaei Shabbat in a large levayah. His grandson founded Machon Lev HaIvri, which prints his writings to this day, and the yishuv Bnei Ayish near Gedera carries the acronym of his name.