Judah Alkalai

Born in Sarajevo, Judah ben Solomon (Yehuda ben Shelomoh) Alkalai was a proto-Zionist leader. Studying in Jerusalem, where he grew up, he became influenced by Kabbalah. In 1825, he became a rabbi and teacher in the Sephardic community of Semlin, today a part of Belgrade. The nationalist events occurring in that era in the Balkans stimulated him to develop his Zionist ideas; he is said to have influenced Theodore Herzl. He believed that the Jewish year 5600 (1840) would be the start of the Messianic redemption. The Damascus affair, a blood libel against the Jewish leaders of that city in 1840, spurred him to work more actively in political Zionism.