Samuel Mohilever

Who was Samuel Mohilever?

Samuel Mohilever, also Shmuel Mohilever, was a rabbi, pioneer of Religious Zionism and one of the founders of the Hovevei Zion movement.

Mohilever was born in Głębokie 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.

Mohilever was made the Rabbi of Białystok in 1883. He dedicated himself 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.

In 1893 there were a series of differences between Rabbi Mohilever and the main offices of Chovevei L'Tzion in Odessa, which was largely secularist and directed by Leo Pinsker.