Background
Judah Alkalai was born in Sarajevo in 1798.
Judah Alkalai was born in Sarajevo in 1798.
Alkalai studied in a Sephardic yeshiva (Talmudic college), where he imbibed his deep love for the land of Israel.
After continuing his studies in Jerusalem, he was called, at the age of twenty-seven, to serve as chief Sephardic rabbi in Zemun (then capital of Serbia) and was soon the driving spiritual force in the community.
Not long before, the Greeks had won their independence, and nationalism was beginning to stir among other Balkan peoples; Alkalai applied the concept to the national freedom of his own people.
In 1871 he went to Jerusalem and founded a society for the settlement of the land, with the support of the Sephardic community. He was called back to Europe as the position of Serbian Jewry had deteriorated and he beseeched the Turkish authorities to permit their emigration to the Land of Israel, but was refused. While in Europe he learned that the opposition of Jerusalem zealots had led to the failure of the society that he had established there.
In 1874 he left Europe for Jerusalem for the last time and continued to try to influence the Jews in Jerusalem. Alkalai predicted that the resettlement of Eretz Israel would strike a chord of unity in the hearts and minds of world Jewry and from this would emerge a world organization which would secure the support of European governments to help transfer large numbers of Jews to Israel, where land would be bought for the purpose. He advocated the creation of a national fund for the purchase of land and the floating of a national loan.
The grandfather of Theodor Herzl lived in Zemun and was well acquainted with Alkalai and his ideas. It is thought likely that he spoke of them to his grandson and perhaps in this way Alkalai influenced the father of the modern Zionist movement.
In 1834 he published a book maintaining that the establishment of Jewish settlements in the Land of Israel was an essential prelude to the redemption of the Jewish people. He urged all Jews to dedicate one-tenth of their income to the support of those living in Jerusalem.
Profoundly influenced by the Damascus anti-Jewish blood libel of 1840, he became convinced that the Jews had to settle in the Holy Land for their own security and safety. Although these ideas were usually greeted with scorn and derision, he traveled widely to propagate them. He journeyed to Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and London, founding societies wherever possible, to further his goals. He believed that it would be possible to purchase the Land of Israel from its Ottoman rulers just as in biblical times Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite. Everywhere he taught that political Zionism was an integral part of the Jewish faith. He raised money to have his writings published; when this ran out, his wife sold her jewels to finance his books so that his ideas could reach the widest possible public.