Rabbi Yosef David Sintzheim was born around 1745, in Trier according to most sources, the son of Rabbi Yitzchak Sintzheim, the town's rabbi and his first teacher; he also studied under Rabbi Shmuel Hilman of Metz. His family moved to Alsace in 1762. In 1765 he married Esther, sister of Cerf Berr of Medelsheim, the leader of Alsatian Jewry, and settled in Bischheim, devoting himself to learning. In 1786 his brother-in-law opened a yeshiva there and placed him at its head, until it closed during the Revolution.

During the Terror he had to flee Strasbourg and then wander for a long time without his books, which he had hidden to save them from burning. He vowed to publish them if he regained peace. Back in Alsace, he became rabbi of the new community of Strasbourg, a city closed to Jews since the late fourteenth century, and there published his Talmud commentary, Yad David, which gave him his byname.

In 1806-1807 he presided over the Grand Sanhedrin convened by Napoleon to answer the emperor's questions on the compatibility of Jewish law with French citizenship. A man of broad learning but deeply conservative, he fought reform and managed to preserve the essence of tradition while meeting the demands of the state. He then became the first chief rabbi of the Central Consistory of France.

He passed away in Paris on 7 Kislev 5573 (1812).