Career
He was a world-renowned posek and halachic authority. He served as senior dayan together with Rabbi Israel Welcz. The Rosh Beth Din was Rabbi Efraim Fishel Zussman Sofer.
While Rabbi Steif may have assumed the role of rosh beth din as the year 1944 approached, he was not such for most of his tenure.
Rabbi Steif was rescued from death in the Holocaust in 1944 as a result of a deal between Rudolph Kastner, and a deputy of Adolf Eichmann. He journeyed on a special train bound for neutral Switzerland along with other prominent Jews including the Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum.
The Debreciner Rov, Rabbi Moshe Stern. And Adolph Deutsch, head of the Budapest branch of Agudath Israel.
A third son was born to them in 1950.
He resettled and was appointed as rabbi of Kehal Adas Yereim in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, which had been founded by Orthodox Jews who came from Vienna living in New York, and he was known as the Wiener Rov (rabbi of Vienna). He died in 1958. He was a major posek, he wrote halachic responsa, works on the Talmud and two works setting forth the obligations of gentiles, one called Sefer Mitsvos Ha-Shem, "The Book of God"s Commandments".