Judah ben Solomon Hai Alkalai

Judah ben Solomon Hai Alkalai (born 1798, Sarajevo, Bosnia, Ottoman Empire [now Bosnia and Herzegovina]—died 1878, Jerusalem, Palestine) was a Sephardic rabbi and an early advocate of Jewish colonization of Palestine whose writings and efforts preceded the rise of Zionism. Alkalai was taken to Jerusalem at an early age, and there he was reared and educated for the rabbinate. At 25 he went to Semlin (Zemun, near Belgrade, Serbia), as a rabbi and found himself...