Avraham Wolfensohn

Avraham Wolfensohn (; 1783–1855) was a Jewish rabbi, Talmudic judge and leader of the Ashkenazi community in Safed, Ottoman Galilee in the mid-19th century.

Biography Avraham Wolfensohn was born in Shklov, about 300 kilometers southeast of Vilnius in Lithuania, where he became a disciple of the Vilna Gaon Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman. The Vilna Gaon's followers were called Perushim and came from the Lithuanian Mitnagdim community opposed to the Hasidic movement.

The Vilna Gaon believed that the return of Jews from the Diaspora to the Land of Israel would bring about the Messianic era. Influenced by the Vilna Gaon's vision, Avraham Wolfensohn founded an organization called Chazon Tzion ("Prophecy/Vision [of] Zion"), whose main principles included the ingathering of the Jewish exile.

In 1809, Avraham Wolfensohn traveled to and settled in the Holy Land as a member of the first of three groups of the Vilna Gaon's disciples. These migrations are considered to be the beginning of the modern return of Jews to their ancient homeland. Included in the groups were members of the Wolfensohn, Ze'ev, Rivlin, Zeitlin and Bassan families— many of the descendants of these disciples became leading figures in modern Israeli society. Their arrival encouraged an Ashkenazi revival in the land which until this time was mostly Sephardi.

Facing an Ottoman ban on Ashkenazi Jews settling in Jerusalem, most of the Perushim, including the Wolfensohn family, settled in Safed, forming the basis of the Ashkenazi community there. Rabbi Avraham Wolfensohn became the first judge of the Perushim in Safed Pioneering the printing industry in Palestine—including the production of the first Bible printed entirely by Jews in Palestine. Establishing the first institution for blind education in Palestine. Involvement in Civic Leadership (Mordechai "Max" Woolfson, 1900–1978—Town Clerk, Petah Tikva).

Most of Avraham Wolfensohn's writings were on religious subjects and were destroyed in the earthquake in 1837. Only one of his manuscripts was saved, and was published after his death. Written mainly in Aramaic, the book contains a short description of Avraham Wolfensohn's life. There are few copies in existence, but one is known to be in the Sde Boker library of David Ben-Gurion, the late prime minister of Israel.

Avraham Wolfensohn died in 1855 and is buried in the old cemetery in the Kidron Valley near Yad Avshalom.