Shem ha-gedolim ha-shalem (Names of the Great Ones, Complete)

Simon (Shimon) Sofer was the second son of Moses Sofer and an illustrious rabbi and scholar in his own right. Sofer was born in Pressburg (present-day Bratislava), where, from an early age, he was regarded as an expert on rabbinic works and in Jewish poetry. At age twenty, he wrote a biography of his father. Simon, along with his brother Abraham Samuel Benjamin Sofer, also edited their father’s responsa. In the mid-1840s, Simon served as rabbi in Mattersdorf. In 1861, he became the chief rabbi of Kraków, where he helped found Maḥzikey ha-das in an effort to combat the Haskalah then taking root among Galician Jewry; he also ruled on such issues as the suitable placement of the bimah in synagogues. He became a member of the Austro-Hungarian parliament in 1879.