(Dayan of Budapest, 1877-1958). Autograph Letter Signed, on letterhead, written in Hebrew to Rabbi Yitzchak Leib Schreiber-Sofer.

STEIF, YONASSON.

Tuesday of Parashat Vayishlach

Zurich

1945

Responsum on the status of a mikveh in Lugano.

Rabbi Yonathan Steif was perhaps the most renowned posek in Hungary on the eve of World War II. After being rescued, along with several family members, on the famed “Kastner Train” he resided in Zurich for several years before relocating to Brooklyn, where he headed Kahal Adas Yereim (Vien), Williamsburg. R. Yitzchak Leib Sofer-Schreiber was a son of R. Akiva Sofer, the last member of the renowned Sofer-Schreiber family to be the rabbi of Pressburg (Bratislava) and author of Da’ath Sofer. After marrying (like his brother, R. Simcha Bunim) a daughter of R. Leibish Rubinfeld, a distinguished member of the Lugano community, he relocated there and himself became a pillar of that community, though while avoiding rabbinical positions.