R. Joseph Chaim b. Abraham Solomon Sonnefeld (1849–1932), first rabbi of the separatist Orthodox community in Jerusalem. Born in Verb\ (Slovakia), R. Sonnenfeld was orphaned at the age of four. As a child he studied both in a talmud torah and in a general school, but in his youth he decided to devote himself entirely to rabbinic study. After pursuing his studies in the yeshivah of his native town, in 1865 he went to Pressburg, where he lived in great poverty while studying in the yeshivah of R. Abraham Samuel Benjamin Sofer. In 1870 he received the title of honor Morenu from his teacher in a letter full of laudatory references to his great learning. The same year he went to Kobersdorf (Burgenland), where he became a pupil of A. Shag, who thought highly of him. In 1873 R. Sonnenfeld accompanied his teacher to Erez Israel and settled in the Old City of Jerusalem, and until the end of his life meticulously refrained from remaining outside the walls of the Old City for more than 30 days. He formed a close association with R. M. J. L. Diskin and was his right hand in his communal activities, such as the founding of the large orphanage and schools and the struggle against the secular schools. R. Sonnenfeld was one of the most active and influential personalities in the community centered in the Old City. He headed the Hungarian kolel Shomerei ha-Homot ("the guardians of the walls"), founded the Battei Ungarn quarter, and helped in the establishment of other quarters in Jerusalem.

R. Sonnenfeld stood for complete separation between the Orthodox and the non-Orthodox; he strongly opposed the bringing of the institutions of the old yishuv under the control of the Zionist bodies and the participation of the Orthodox in the official community, Keneset Yisrael, and fought for the statutory right of every individual to opt out of it. When the Jewish Battalions were founded in World War I he opposed enlistment of Orthodox Jews in the battalions. He was one of the founders of the Va'ad ha-Ir le-Kehillat ha-Ashkenazim ("City Council for the Ashkenazi Community"), as well as of its bet din, in opposition to the official Jerusalem rabbinate. He was also a founder of Agudat Israel in Erez Israel.

As a result of his adherence to the doctrine of separation, R. Sonnenfeld was one of the chief opponents of R. A. I. Kook, and led the opposition to his appointment as rabbi of Jerusalem, and later as chief rabbi of Erez Israel, even though on the personal level their relationship was one of friendship and esteem. In 1920 R. Sonnenfeld was elected rabbi of a separate Orthodox community. In his struggle for the emergence of the separatist community he was especially aided by the Dutch publicist Jacob Israel de Haan, who took care that eminent non-Jewish visitors would meet R. Sonnenfeld, and they were duly impressed by his personality. He was a member of the separatist Orthodox delegation that appeared, on de Haan's initiative, before Hussein, king of the Hedjaz, when the latter visited Transjordan. He appeared before the U.S. King-Crane Commission; he also instructed his followers to meet Lord Northcliffe on his visit to Erez Israel. On all these occasions R. Sonnenfeld expressed a positive attitude to the Jewish resettlement of Erez Israel and the return to Zion, and in the census declared Hebrew as his language. He generally preached loyalty toward the government. He also inclined to moderation toward the Arabs of Erez Israel and strove to establish peace between them and the Jewish population. His published works include glosses to the Aguddah on Bava Kamma (Jerusalem, 1874) and on all of Nezikin (1899), a pamphlet, Seder ha-Purim ha-Meshullash (1898); Salmat Hayyim, responsa to Shulhan Arukh Orah Hayyim and Yoreh De'ah (1938-42).

R. Zevi Pesah Frank (1873–1960), chief rabbi of Jerusalem and halakhic authority, was born in Kovno, Lithuania. His father, R. Judah Leib, was one of the leaders of the "Haderah" society in Kovno which founded the village of Haderah in Erez Israel. He studied under R. Eliezer Gordon at Telz and under R. Isaac Rabinowitz at Slobodka. He attended the musar discourses of R. Israel Lipkin of Salant. In 1893 he proceeded to Jerusalem where he continued his studies at the yeshivot of Ez Hayyim and Torat Hayyim. He acquired an outstanding reputation, combining a profound knowledge of the Talmud with sound common sense. Despite his youth, he was encouraged by R. Samuel Salant, the rabbi of Jerusalem, who consulted with him in his halakhic decisions. In 1895 he married Gitah-Malkah, granddaughter of R. Hayyim Jacob Spira, head of the Jerusalem bet din. Subsequently he taught at a number of Jerusalem yeshivot. In 1902 he moved to Jaffa in order to be able to devote himself entirely to study. R. A. I. Kook had already taken up his appointment there, and later he and R. Frank associated in the efforts to establish the rabbinate of Israel.

In 1907 R. Frank was appointed by R. Salant and the scholars of Jerusalem as a member of the Bet Din Gadol in the Hurvah synagogue. Although he was its youngest member, the burden of the bet din, and the religious affairs of the city fell mainly upon his shoulders. He conducted single-handedly the spiritual administration of the city in the difficult days of World War I. The Turks tried to send him into exile in Egypt, but he hid in an attic from where he directed the rabbinical affairs of the city until the entry of the British (December 1917). The rabbinate was in a perilous state and Frank made strenuous efforts to raise its status, both materially and spiritually. He understood the importance of founding a central rabbinical organization, and immediately after the British occupation, took steps to found "The Council of Rabbis of Jerusalem." This organization, however, was short lived. Later, however, he established the "Rabbinate Office," which became the nucleus of the chief rabbinate of Israel, and on his suggestion R. A. I. Kook was invited to become chief rabbi of Palestine in 1921. In the violent controversy which resulted, fomented by the extreme religious section which saw no halakhic precedent for such an appointment, R. Frank brought proof to bear. In 1936 he was elected chief rabbi of Jerusalem. In consequence of his preeminence as a halakhist, the appointment was accepted by all parties, including those who opposed him on political grounds.

R. Joseph Gershon Hurwitz member of the Jerusalem Bet Din.

R. Elijah b. Solomon Rom (1872-1959), member of the Jerusalem Bet Din.