Yochanan Sofer

Yochanan Sofer was born in the Hungarian town of Erlau, now Eger, and was a direct descendant of Rabbi Moses Sofer, the Hatam Sofer.[1] The family's rabbinical roots in Erlau included Sofer's grandfather, Simeon Sofer (1850–1944), who founded the Erlau yeshiva in 1881 and served as its rabbi and teacher until he was deported to Auschwitz, where he perished.[4]

In 1944, Yochanan Sofer was deported with most of his family to Auschwitz. Both his father and grandfather were killed there.[2] He survived and, after liberation, returned to Erlau, where he assumed leadership among the small number of Jews from the town who had escaped the Holocaust.[2]

Following the war, Sofer set about reconstructing the Sofer rabbinical tradition in Hungary. He gathered students around him and worked first in Budapest and later in Eger. Among the institutions he established during this period was a Budapest yeshiva named for his birthplace, Erlau.[1] These postwar efforts began his sustained work to preserve and transmit the Sofer legacy after the destruction of the Holocaust.

In 1950, approximately two years after the founding of the State of Israel, Sofer and a group of students immigrated to Jerusalem. Upon arrival, they initially joined other Sofer family descendants at the Pressburg Yeshiva. Three years later, in 1953, Sofer and his students purchased rooms in the former Syrian Consulate in Jerusalem's Katamon neighborhood and formally re-established the Erlau Yeshiva there.[3]

Sofer kept the center of his community in old Katamon, a non-Haredi neighborhood where his followers maintained good relations with religious and secular residents.[1] Ynet reported a community tradition that Sofer's teacher, former Belz leader Aharon Rokeach, advised him to remain in the mixed neighborhood and serve as "the mezuzah of Katamon." Sofer regarded the counsel as a lasting testament.[1]

Over time, the alumni of the Erlau Yeshiva coalesced into a Hasidic court, and Sofer became its rebbe.[1] Around the period of the yeshiva's re-establishment in Jerusalem, he adopted Hasidic customs: he reportedly went to the mikveh each morning before prayers, led his disciples in a Hasidic-style tish, and presided over a community whose male members wore shtreimels.[3] This marked a departure from earlier generations of Sofer rabbis, who had not been identified with the Hasidic movement.[3]

The Erlau community retained elements of its non-Hasidic Sofer heritage even as it embraced Hasidic practice. Its Jerusalem center used the Ashkenazi prayer rite rather than the kabbalistically influenced rite common in other Hasidic courts, although individuals added the Zohar passage "kegavna" on Friday nights. Erlau communities elsewhere adopted the Hasidic prayer rite in full.[3] The community also did not adopt the gartel. The Jerusalem Post article concluded that Erlau's Hasidic alignment was too recent for it to be accurately described as a full dynasty.[3]

By the time of Sofer's death, the Erlau community numbered approximately 600 families in Israel, concentrated mainly in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Beitar Illit, Elad, Ashdod, and Haifa, with additional communities abroad.[1] Sofer also played a role in helping establish the Haredi city of Beitar Illit.[1]

Sofer headed a printing press named after his great-great-grandfather, dedicated to publishing works by rabbis from successive Sofer generations that had previously existed only in manuscript.[5][3] Erlau primary schools, synagogues, and the yeshiva were named for predecessors in the Sofer family line.[3]

For decades, Sofer served on the Council of Torah Sages of Agudath Israel and became its longest-serving member.[1] Ynet characterized him as a right-wing figure within Agudath Israel and United Torah Judaism and reported that he supported the vision of a Greater Land of Israel while opposing the Oslo Accords and Israel's disengagement from Gaza.[1]

His stature on the Council of Torah Sages drew senior Israeli political leaders to his door. Prime ministers Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Olmert visited him during the two decades preceding his death.[1]

Approximately five years before his death, Sofer suffered a stroke while visiting followers in Switzerland. He recovered and resumed his customary routine, including receiving visitors for consultations and blessings.[1] He later developed severe pneumonia, was hospitalized at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem, and died there in 2016 from complications of pneumonia and a severe infection.[2][1] He left seven children and hundreds of grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren.[1]

The Erlau Yeshiva survives in Jerusalem's Greek Colony, and the Sofer family's presence in Israel includes educational institutions in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak.[5] Sofer's life — spanning Auschwitz survival, postwar reconstruction, and the transplanting of a centuries-old rabbinical tradition to the Land of Israel — embodied a broader story of Jewish continuity after catastrophe. President Reuven Rivlin's tribute reflected the breadth of Sofer's influence beyond strictly Hasidic circles.[2]