יוסף דוד זינצהיים

Rav Yosef David Sinzheim (5505/1745 – 7 Kislev 5573/1812) was chief rabbi of Strasbourg and the first chief rabbi of France under the Consistory, a Talmudist known as the Yad David after his sefer on the Talmud Bavli. He was born in Trier to Rav Yitzchak Sinzheim, from whom he received his Torah, and learned also under Rav Shmuel Hillman of Metz. He married into the family of the wealthy communal leader Cerf Beer of Alsace, and when Cerf Beer opened a yeshiva he set Rav Yosef David at its head, until it closed in the days of the French Revolution.

Through the Reign of Terror he fled Strasbourg and wandered, hiding his sefarim from the authorities and vowing to print them should he return to quieter days; in the end he came back to become rav of the new kehillah of Strasbourg, aided by his nephew and son-in-law Rav Avraham Auerbach.

He was the most learned member of the Assembly of Notables that Napoleon convened in 1806, and the task of answering the twelve questions put before it fell to him; he completed the work in a few days, steering carefully between the government’s pressure and the demands of halachah. When the Grand Sanhedrin was gathered in Paris in 5567/1807 he was named its nasi, and with the founding of the Central Consistory in 5568/1808 he was chosen its chairman — all while guarding against the reforms pressed by the liberal circles of the day.

His Yad David, first printed in Offenbach on Berachot and Seder Moed and later on the whole Shas, is counted among the commentaries on the Talmud; he wrote also Minchat Oni, Shlal David on the Torah, and Da’at David on Yoreh De’ah. He was niftar in Paris at 7 Kislev and buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery; thirty days later the Chasam Sofer eulogized him in Pressburg.