Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer

Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer was born in 1795 in Lissa (Leszno) in Posen, studied under Rabbi Akiva Eger and Rabbi Jacob of Lissa, and spent most of his life in Thorn (Toruń), where he served the community as rabbi for some forty years without taking a salary. A respected halachist, he wrote commentaries on the Shulchan Aruch, yet his lasting work is Derishat Zion (Seeking Zion), published in 1862. In it he taught that the redemption would begin naturally, through human effort: Jews should buy land in the Land of Israel, farm it, train farmers in an agricultural school and protect the settlements with their own guards. He also argued that the commandments tied to the land could be fulfilled again only by those who lived there.

Kalischer pressed Jewish leaders and the Alliance Israélite Universelle for years, and his campaign helped bring about the founding of the agricultural school Mikveh Israel in 1870. He died in Thorn in 1874. Moses Hess praised him in Rome and Jerusalem, and religious Zionism counts him among its founders.