Akiba Israel Wertheimer (1778–1835) was the first Chief Rabbi of Altona and Schleswig-Holstein.

He moved with his parents to Altona, now a suburb of Hamburg but then an independent city ruled by Denmark, where in 1805 he was a melamed (teacher in a Jewish elementary school).

Due to the expulsion of the Jews in Lübeck and poverty in the Moisling Jewish community, in 1816 he moved to Altona where he remained until his death.

In 1819 he opposed the Hamburg-based reformers of Judaism and banned the use of the Jewish prayer book in the German language.

[3] He died in Altona in 1835, and was succeeded as Chief Rabbi by Jacob Ettlinger.