Eger, Akiva ben Simḥah Bunim
EGER, AKIVA BEN SIMḤAH BUNIM
EGER, AKIVA BEN SIMḤAH BUNIM (c. 1720–1758), rabbi and author, known as R. Akiva Eger the Elder. A native of Halberstadt, he was a pupil of Ẓevi Hirsch *Bialeh (Ḥarif) of Halberstadt and Jacob ha-Kohen Poppers of Frankfurt. Around 1747, he served as rabbi of Zuelz (Upper Silesia). He conducted a yeshivah in Halberstadt even during the lifetime of his teacher Bialeh, and in 1756, became head of the yeshivah of Pressburg. Eger, who was among the foremost talmudic scholars of his generation, carried on halakhic correspondence with Jonathan *Eybeschuetz, Meir *Eisenstadt, and other prominent rabbis. His novellae on the Talmud, Mishnah de-Rabbi Akiva, to which are appended a number of his responsa, were published posthumously (Fuerth, 1781). Eger had two sons, Judah Loeb, who served as rabbi in Halberstadt, and Wolf, rabbi of Leipnick.
bibliography:
B.H. Auerbach, Geschichte der israelitischen Gemeinde Halberstadt (1866), 33, 71; I. Weiss, Avnei Beit ha-Yoẓer (1900), pt. 2, 35b–37b; L. Wreschner, in: JJLG, 2 (1904), 32f.; P. Frankl, in: Nachlat Z'wi, 7 (1937), 320; S. Weingarten, in: Arim ve-Immahot be-Yisrael, 7 (1960), 38.
[Jacob Haberman]