Years: 1848–1932
Primary city: Jerusalem, Israel
A talmid of Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Binyamin Sofer (the Ksav Sofer) in Pressburg, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld immigrated to Yerushalayim in 1873, becoming a leader of the Old Yishuv. He was a figure in the opposition to the emerging secular Zionist movement and resisted the formation of the British Mandate-sponsored Chief Rabbinate. This culminated in his co-founding of the Edah HaChareidis in 1919, an independent ultra-Orthodox communal body which he led as its first Av Beis Din. His halachic rulings are documented in the responsa work Salmas Chaim.