Born in Safed, 18 Shevet 1877. To his father, R. Chaim Shimshon Zeide (Secretary of the Vizhnitz Kollel) and to his mother, Sheindel, daughter of Palik Weisberg (Kubushna) of Chisinau.
He studied in rooms and yeshivas in Safed and married Hannah, daughter of Mordechai Ashkenazi from Tiberias.
Worked as a clerk at the local iron bank Barshad and after a while joined them as a partner and the bank was named after the three of them. When the AFK Bank branch opened in Safed and R. Yoel Bershad was invited to manage it and left the local bank, the bank remained in an iron partnership with Klinger , and after R. Zvi Barzel died and Klinger paid his share of his coveted partner to his heirs, the bank remained named Eliyahu Klinger.
He assisted with loans and money transfers for the benefit of private individuals and institutions of the old settlement in the city and also participated in financial and public actions for the development and construction of Safed and the surrounding area. As a district agent of Shel, he ran a fuel supply business with Jews and Arabs in the city and the surrounding area. He also helped the Arabs with loans, but this did not prevent them from burning down his house and the fuel depot during the riots of 1938 and murdering his son in the riots of 1918.
As head of the Haredi community of "Agudat Israel" (outside the "Knesset of Israel"), he collaborated with the heads of the Knesset congregation in Safed in all matters of the community and the holding of public and religious services and its external representation.
Descendants: Yehoshua, Miriam, wife of Avraham Frankenthal (Safed), Leah , wife of Elikum Simkowitz (Haifa), Mordechai (Safed), Yaakov (lawyer, killed in the riots of 1918).