Samuel Mohilever

Rabbi Samuel Mohilever (1824-1898), also called Shmuel Mohilever, was a pioneer of Religious Zionism and one of the founders of the Hovevei Zion movement.

Mohilever was born in Vilna (now Vilnius) and studied in the Volozhin yeshiva.

After the pogroms following the May Laws, he helped found the Hovevei Zion in Warsaw, and convinced Baron Edmond James de Rothschild to financially support a settlement called Ekron (now Qiryat Ekron).

Mohilever was made the rabbi of Białystok in 1883 and worked to promote Zionism by convincing Białystok's Jews to move to Petah Tikva, then a struggling settlement.

In 1884, Mohilever was elected to the presidency of the Hovevei Zion conference, with Leon Pinsker serving as chairman. Mohilever served as chairman in the 1887 and 1889 conferences. Many of his contributions were of a religious nature - Mohilever insured that Jewish farming in Palestine complied with Jewish laws and tradition by setting up a rabbinical committee to oversee it.

The kibbutz Gan Shmuel was named after Mohilever.

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