Zvi Hirsch Kalischer: Biography
Born: 1795, Lissa;
Died: 1874, Thorn
Zvi Hirsch Kalischer was a Jewish Rabbi and Proto-Zionist. He was born in 1795 in the town of Lissa. He received a traditional Jewish education based on the Talmud, but he also encountered modern enlightenment ideas that impacted him throughout his life.
Kalischer was a Proto-Zionist. Jews across many centuries prayed to return to Zion through the Jewish Moshiach (Messiah) who would gather all the Jews from around the world to live in the Land of Israel. Kalisher was unique in that he advocated “resettlement of the Holy Land on a national basis and the first to succeed in creating a movement inspired by that ideal.”1 He first referenced resettlement in a letter to Baron Rothschild, pleading with him to buy Palestine from Mohammed Ali of Egypt who successfully wrestled control of Palestine from the Ottoman Empire. In this letter he wrote “do not imagine that the Almighty will suddenly descend from the heavens and summon His people to go forth. Or that He will suddenly dispatch His Messiah from the heavens to blow the great trumpet for the dispersed of Israel, and raise up for them a wall of fire round about… The Redemption will begin in a natural manner, set in motion by a human agency and prompted by the willingness of governments to resettle a small proportion of Israel’s dispersed in the Holy Land.”2 Baron Rothschild left Kalischer without a reply.
His views towards Jews returning to the Land of Israel were shown in his Torah commentary. In his discussion of Exodus 14:12 which says “Didn’t we say to you [Moses] in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”3 Of this verse Zvi Hirsch Kalischer writes that “What the children of Israel were saying to Moses (on the eve of the deliverance at the Red Sea) was that, at that stage, it would be far better for them to be free men, in Egypt. What did they need another country for? Today, too, when Jews obtain equal rights in the Exile they no longer contemplate going to Eretz Israel [Land of Israel]. On the contrary, there is a stigma attached to such ideas. They say ‘Here is Eretz Israel.’ They do not perceive the works of the Lord and the power of His holiness which will be made manifest in the Holy Land.”4
Zvi Hirsch Kalischer advocated for the resumption of sacrifices once Jews gain control of the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif). He was an advocate for children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers. Jewish descent is passed matrilineally, but Rabbi Kalischer advocated for them to be circumcised and brought into the fold of Judaism even if their mother was not Jewish, a progressive stance. In 1860, he held a “Zionist” conference, composed of mostly Rabbis that Kalischer wished to convince to do something active for Jewish immigration to Palestine. The year later, in 1861, the Jewish Colonization Society was founded. At this time Jews in Ottoman Palestine were mainly supported by charity to support their study. Rabbi Kalischer advocated that colonization would help renew Jewish life in the Holy Land. This taking place in a time of nationalist ferver, he wrote that “are we [Jews] any worse than the Italians, Hungarians, and Poles, all of whom are ready to lay down their lives for their country? How much more should we be ready to sacrifice our all for a country which is deemed holy by the whole world? Should we stand afar as if we lacked manhood and the elementary feeling of self respect?”5
Rabbi Kalischer listed steps to be taken to support the endeavor.
1) To raise funds for purchasing as many towns, fields, and vineyards in the Holy Land as possible, to be rented out to prospective colonists, and to reclaim the deserts and restore the fertility of the country.
2) To settle in Palestine Jews from all parts of the world. The inexperienced should be trained in farming skills by instructors furnished by the Society. Those who were farmers were to be given land rent-free and provided where necessary with loans to tide them over until they could stand on their own feet.
3) To create a militia to protect the colonies from the depredations of the Bedouins; and
4) To establish a religious agricultural school for the purpose of training a new generation of farmers steeped in Judaism. Kalischer never envisaged the emergence of a Jewish community in the Holy Land divorced from Judaism.”6
Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer died in 1874 in Thorn.
- Newman, Aryeh. “ZVI HIRSCH KALISCHER — FATHER OF THE THIRD RETURN TO ZION.” Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought 5, no. 1 (1962): 76–89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23255471.
↩︎ - Ibid. ↩︎
- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2014%3A12-14&version=NIV
↩︎ - Newman, Aryeh. “ZVI HIRSCH KALISCHER — FATHER OF THE THIRD RETURN TO ZION.” Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought 5, no. 1 (1962): 76–89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23255471. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
