Jacobi was born in Jacobshagen, Kingdom of Prussia (now Poland), the son of the merchant Mayer Jacobi and his wife Sara-Miriam (née Goldberg). His father died when he was ten years old, and his maternal grandfather Rabbi Jacob Moses Goldberg and uncle Rabbi Nachman Abraham Goldberg were his religious instructors.
He attended the Kölnische Gymnasium school in Berlin.
Jacobi married Hulda Pander and had seven children. In 1867 he became Chief Rabbi of Zagreb, Croatia. He was also active in social welfare projects for the Jewish and General Population in Yugoslavia, for which he was highly respected by the general population and the leaders of other religious denominations.
In 1885 Jacobi delivered the first Synagogue-Sermon in the Croat language thus encouraging the integration of Jews into the general population, he also wrote the first ever Jewish-Studies text-books in Croatian.
Jacobi died in Zagreb and was buried at the Mirogoj Cemetery.
A member of the Modern Orthodox Jewish congregation in Berlin Jacobi was a student of Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer and Rabbi Elchanan Rosenstein who ordained him.
